How to uninstall OperationBeta app/extension from Mac (Virus removal guide)

What is OperationBeta

OperationBeta is an adware application that targets Mac computers. Adware is type of malware that may cause problems for your Apple. OperationBeta can generate numerous additional pop-up, banner, pop-under and in-text link advertisements flooding on your internet browser; gather your confidential data like login details, online searches, etc; run in the background and drag down your MAC running speed; give more chances for other adware software, potentially unwanted software even malicious software to get on your machine.

Does adware steal your confidential data? The OperationBeta adware can gather user information, including:

• IP addresses;
• URLs visited;
• search queries/terms;
• clicks on links and ads;
• web-browser version information.

To find out how to remove OperationBeta adware, we recommend to read the steps added to this blog post below. The tutorial was prepared by experienced security experts who discovered a solution to remove the annoying adware out of the machine.

How does OperationBeta get on your MAC system

Adware actively distributed with freeware, together with the setup file of these applications. Therefore, it’s very important, when installing an unknown app, read the Terms of use and the Software license, as well as to select the Manual, Advanced or Custom installation method. In this mode, you can disable the install of unneeded browser plugins and apps and protect your machine from adware.

Threat Summary

Name	OperationBeta
Type	adware, PUP (potentially unwanted program), Mac virus, Mac malware
Detection Names	Osx.Adware.Cimpli, ApplicUnwnt, Program:MacOS/Vigram.A, Adware/Adload!OSX, Adware.MAC.Generic, OSX.Trojan.Gen, Trojan-Downloader.OSX.Adload and MacOS.Agent-MT
Distribution	Freeware installers, dubious pop-up advertisements, torrent downloads and fake updaters
Symptoms	When you go to a web site, you are randomly redirected to another web-page that you do not intend to visit, pop-ups and newtab pages are loaded without your request, there is an unexpected application in the ‘Applications’ section of the Finder, unexpected internet browser extensions or toolbars keep coming back, your browser settings are being altered without your request, slow browsing Internet.
Removal	OperationBeta removal guide

How to remove OperationBeta adware

In the steps below, we’ll try to cover Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome and provide general help to remove OperationBeta adware. You may find some minor differences in your Mac install. No matter, you should be okay if you follow the steps outlined below: delete all suspicious and unknown programs, reset browsers settings, run free malware removal tools. Read it once, after doing so, please bookmark this page (or open it on your smartphone) as you may need to exit your web-browser or reboot your Apple Mac.

To remove OperationBeta, perform the following steps:

1. Remove profiles created by OperationBeta
2. Check the list of installed programs
3. Remove OperationBeta related files and folders
4. Scan your Mac with MalwareBytes
5. Remove OperationBeta from Safari, Chrome, Firefox
6. How to stay safe online

Remove profiles created by OperationBeta

OperationBeta can install a configuration profile on the Mac system to block changes made to the browser settings. Therefore, you need to open system preferences, find and delete the profile installed by the adware software.

Click Apple menu ( ) > System Preferences.

In System Preferences, select Profiles. if there is no Profiles in the list of preferences, that means there are no profiles installed on the Mac. If there is Profiles in the list, then click on it, then select a profile related to OperationBeta.

To delete a malicious profile, click on the minus button ( – ) located at the bottom-left of the Profiles screen.

Check the list of installed programs

In order to delete browser hijackers, adware and PUPs, open the Finder and click on “Applications”. Check the list of installed apps. For the ones you do not know, run an Internet search to see if they are PUPs, adware and browser hijackers. If yes, remove them off. Even if they are just a software that you do not use, then removing them off will increase your MAC start up time and speed dramatically.

Open Finder and click “Applications”.

Carefully browse through the list of installed apps and delete all suspicious and unknown applications.

Once you have found anything dubious that may be the OperationBeta adware or other PUP, then right click this program and choose “Move to Trash”. Once complete, Empty Trash.

Remove OperationBeta related files and folders

Now you need to try to find OperationBeta related files and folders, and then delete them manually. You need to look for these files in certain directories. To quickly open them, we recommend using the “Go to Folder…” command.

OperationBeta creates several files, these files must be found and removed. Below is a list of files associated with this unwanted program.

• /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.OperationBeta.system.plist
• ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.OperationBeta.service.plist
• /Library/Application Support/.(RANDOM)/System/com.OperationBeta.system
• ~/Library/Application Support/.(RANDOM)/Services/com.OperationBeta.service.app

Some files created by OperationBeta are hidden from the user. To find and delete them, you need to enable “show hidden files”. To do this, use the shortcut CMD + SHIFT + . Press once to show hidden files and again to hide them. There is another way. Click Finder -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal. In Terminal, paste the following text: defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

Press Enter. Hold the ‘Option/alt’ key, then right click on the Finder icon in the dock and click Relaunch.

Click on the Finder icon. From the menu bar, select Go and click “Go to Folder…”. As a result, a small window opens that allows you to quickly open a specific directory.

Check for OperationBeta generated files in the /Library/LaunchAgents folder

In the “Go to Folder…” window, type the following text and press Go:
/Library/LaunchAgents

This will open the contents of the “/Library/LaunchAgents” folder. Look carefully at it and pay special attention to recently created files, as well as files that have a suspicious name. Move all suspicious files to the Trash. A few examples of files: com.OperationBeta.service.plist, com.google.defaultsearch.plist, , com.machelper.plist, search.plist, com.net-preferences.plist, installapp.plist and macsearch.plist. Most often, browser hijackers, adware and PUPs create several files with similar names.

Check for OperationBeta generated files in the /Library/Application Support folder

In the “Go to Folder…” window, type the following text and press Go:
/Library/Application Support

This will open the contents of the “Application Support” folder. Look carefully at its contents, pay special attention to recently added/changed folders and files. Check the contents of suspicious folders, if there is a file with a name similar to com.OperationBeta.system, then this folder must be deleted. Move all suspicious folders and files to the Trash.

Check for OperationBeta generated files in the “~/Library/LaunchAgents” folder

In the “Go to Folder…” window, type the following text and press Go:
~/Library/LaunchAgents

Proceed in the same way as with the “/Library/LaunchAgents” and “/Library/Application Support” folders. Look for suspicious and recently added files. Move all suspicious files to the Trash.

Check for OperationBeta generated files in the /Library/LaunchDaemons folder

In the “Go to Folder…” window, type the following text and press Go:
/Library/LaunchDaemons

Carefully browse the entire list of files and pay special attention to recently created files, as well as files that have a suspicious name. Move all suspicious files to the Trash. A few examples of files to be deleted: com.installapp.system.plist, com.machelper.system.plist, com.search.system.plist, com.macsearch.system.plist and com.OperationBeta.system.plist. In most cases, adware, PUPs and browser hijackers create several files with similar names.

Scan your Mac with MalwareBytes

If you carefully followed the previous steps, then you should be able to get rid of OperationBeta. Of course, very often browser hijackers, adware software and PUPs hides on a Mac device, disguising itself as legitimate apps and files. Therefore, in some cases, it is difficult for an inexperienced user to decide whether a particular file is part of PUPs, adware and browser hijackers. Therefore, we advise you to run MalwareBytes Anti-Malware to scan the Mac computer.

Please go to the link below to download the latest version of MalwareBytes AntiMalware for Apple Mac.

After the downloading process is finished, close all windows on your MAC OS. Further, start the saved file. Follow the prompts.

The MalwareBytes Free will automatically start and you may see its main window as displayed on the image below.

Next, press the “Scan Now” button to perform a system scan for the OperationBeta adware. This process can take some time, so please be patient. During the scan MalwareBytes Anti-Malware will search for threats present on your MAC system.

Once MalwareBytes has finished scanning, the results are displayed in the scan report. Make sure to check mark the items that are unsafe and then click the “Quarantine” button.

The MalwareBytes AntiMalware will remove OperationBeta adware.

Remove OperationBeta from Safari, Chrome, Firefox

If you are still getting OperationBeta , then you can try to remove it by removing harmful extensions.

Google Chrome	Mozilla Firefox
Click on ‘three dots menu’ button at the top right corner of the Chrome window. In the menu go to ‘More tools’, then ‘Extensions’. Click ‘Remove’ to uninstall an extension. Click ‘Remove’ in the dialog box. You can also try to delete OperationBeta by reset Chrome settings.	Click on ‘menu’ button and select ‘Add-ons’. Go to ‘Extensions’ tab. To uninstall an add-on, click on ‘Remove’ button next to it. If you are still experiencing issues with OperationBeta adware software removal, you need to reset Firefox browser.
Safari
On the top menu select ‘Safari’, then ‘Preferences’. Select ‘Extensions’ tab. Select an extension you want to delete and click ‘Uninstall’ button next to it.

How to stay safe online

If you surf the Internet, you can’t avoid malicious advertising. But you can protect your browser against it. Download and run an ad-blocker program. AdGuard is an ad blocking which can filter out lots of of the malicious advertising, blocking dynamic scripts from loading harmful content.

1. Visit the page linked below to download the latest version of AdGuard for Apple Mac.
   
   

   AdGuard for Mac download
   3772 downloads
   Author: © Adguard
   Category: Security tools
   Update: January 17, 2018
   
2. Once the download is complete, run the downloaded file. You will see the “Setup Wizard” program window. Follow the prompts.
3. When the install is done, press “Skip” to close the installation application and use the default settings, or click “Get Started” to see an quick tutorial that will assist you get to know AdGuard better.
4. In most cases, the default settings are enough and you don’t need to change anything. Each time, when you start your MAC system, AdGuard will start automatically and stop unwanted ads, block harmful and misleading web pages.

Finish words

Once you’ve finished the steps above, Safari, Chrome and Mozilla Firefox will no longer display any OperationBeta ads when you browse the Web. Unfortunately, if the few simple steps does not help you, then you have caught a new adware, and then the best way – ask for help.

Please create a new question by using the “Ask Question” button in the Questions and Answers. Try to give us some details about your problems, so we can try to help you more accurately. Wait for one of our trained “Security Team” or Site Administrator to provide you with knowledgeable assistance tailored to your problem with the unwanted OperationBeta adware.