Search Mine

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Updated

February 8 2021

Author

Violet George

Search Mine

The Search Mine malware is a browser hijacking app targeting Mac users. Search Mine will make unauthorized changes to your predefined search engine, homepage, and overall search results.

The search results and the sites filled with ads, banners, and pop-ups, to which you may get page-redirected if you have a Browser Hijacker such as Search Mine in your browser, as well as the homepage and search engine changes that such an app may have made to your Firefox, Chrome, Safari or any other browser in your machine may be very annoying.

The Goodcaster

This is because this software may constantly try to spam your screen with various pay-per-click ads, pop-ups, banners, and similar commercial messages, which try to promote different services, products, and their related websites. Many users who have a close encounter with those pieces of software may even call them a redirect virus and even mistake them for some form of malware similar to Ransomware or Trojans.

This, however, is not the case with applications like Search Mine Malware, because these programs are not interested in harming your computer or doing something bad with/to your data. Their purpose is only one – to advertise and to make you visit certain sponsored web pages, which generate pay-per-click income for the developers of the hijacker. Yet, in their attempts to promote well, most Browser Hijackers tend to mess with the settings of popular browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari by installing some third-party search engines or toolbars and buttons that automatically redirect to specific ads and links.

What is Search Mine?

Search Mine is a potentially unwanted Mac program that pretends to improve your web surfing experience by displaying relevant offers and search results. Instead, Search Mine operates as a browser hijacker and redirects you to questionable sites and sketchy ads.

A typical example of a potentially unwanted program is the Segurazo Antivirus.

This activity, though not illegal, maybe very annoying and maybe a good reason for some people to want to remove the changes and uninstall the Browser Hijacker. If you are one of them, on this page, you will find a detailed guide that explains to you how exactly to detect and remove Search Mine Malware and how to safely uninstall all the changes that it might have placed inside your main browser. In the text below, we will also explain to you how to avoid such programs in the future and how to restore the original configuration of your browsing app.

Browser hijacking is an activity, which is caused by a specific type of ad-generating and page-redirecting programs, such as Search Mine, which have the ability to modify the web browser’s settings without your knowledge. These programs may often be called a “redirect virus” because they constantly redirect the users’ searches to different third-party sites. Yet, the Browser Hijackers have little in common with real computer viruses and are more or less harmless compared to malicious threats like Trojans or Ransomware, for example. The main objective of applications like Search Mine is to generate income through the users’ clicks on sponsored ads in the sites that they promote.

This activity of theirs, however, may often be related to user irritation, browsing disturbance, frequent ad interruptions and potentially unwanted redirects to different sites, which, in turn, can give a good reason for some people to uninstall those programs and to permanently remove their sponsored ads. Besides, the web locations to which the browser hijackers link may not be very reliable, as some of them may contain misleading offers, questionable products or even compromised content. To make sure that doesn’t happen to you, we suggest you finish reading our Search Mine “Malware” removal guide so you will avoid potential future browser hijacking activity on your computer.

Search Mine is a nuisance so you should seriously consider how to get rid of it.

For these reasons, it is a good idea to eliminate programs like Search Mine, Bing Redirect or Safe Finder from the system, especially if they don’t contribute to your better browsing experience and only spam you with their advertisements. The fastest way you could do that is by using a professional removal tool, such as the one on this page, or by manually uninstalling the potentially unwanted application by following the manual steps from the guide that you will find on this page.

Summary

Name	Search Mine
Type	Trojan
Detection Tool

How To Remove Search Mine?

Search Mine is often mistaken for a virus because it gets installed on Mac devices without the users’ concent. Besides, Search Mine is quite difficult to uninstall as it typically affects Safari, Chrome, Firefox and other browsers in the system. That’s why, in the guide below, we have published a set of instructions that may help you remove the annoying program manually. If they don’t help, there is also a professional removal tool on this page that can do the job in a matter of seconds.

A Quick Method: Remove the Extenstions

Before you dig deep into the detailed instructions in the removal guide below, we suggest you try to remove Search Mine from your Mac browser with the help of these quick steps:

Open the affected Mac browser and, from its main menu, select Preferences.
Next, find the Extensions sub-menu and tap on it.You will see a list of extensions that have been installed inside your browser.
In the list, seek unfamiliar extensions, including Search Mine, or ones that you can’t remember installing yourself.
Remove Search Mine, once you detect it, and do the same for any other entries that you don’t want to keep on your browser and your Mac computer by clicking on the recycle bin icon.

If these steps aren’t helpful and Search Mine is still in your Mac causing you trouble, then please proceed with the detailed instructions below:

Step 1. Quit The Hijacked Browser Application

If you are using Safari and Search Mine is causing you trouble with it, Quit the browser. In case that something is preventing it from quitting the normal way, then use the Force Quit option ( Apple menu>>Force Quit or press ⌘+Option+Escape>>>Force Quit Applicaitons>>>Safari>>>Force Quit) to get Safari closed.

Next, in Finder go to the following directory to open the Activity Monitor:

Activity Monitor gives you a good insight on what is your Mac doing at the moment, including all the active processes and tasks that are running on it.

Head to the processes tab and seek processes that could be related to Search Mine or look suspicious to you. Once you find such a process, select it and then click on the “i” button that is found at the top. A box looking like this should open:

Generate a sample of the process by clicking on the Sample button at the bottom of the box:

chromesample

Generate a sample for every processes you thing could be dangerous, save the sample file and run it in our online virus scanner to check if it really is malicious. Delete everything that is flagged as a threat:

Each file will be scanned with up to 64 antivirus programs to ensure maximum accuracy

This scanner is free and will always remain free for our website’s users.

This file is not matched with any known malware in the database. You can either do a full real-time scan of the file or skip it to upload a new file. Doing a full scan with 64 antivirus programs can take up to 3-4 minutes per file.

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Step 2. Launch The Browser Safely

After you are done with checking the processes, launch Safari by holding the Shift key to prevent the browser from opening previously loaded pages. Once Safari is opened up, release the Shift key.

If the browser still opens some unwanted pages, Force Quit it and switch off your WI-Fi connection from the Mac’s Menu or unplug your internet cable. Then, press the Shift key and launch Safari again.

Step 3. IP and DNS Settings

Once Safari is re-launched safely, go to the main Safari Menu and click on Preferences.

Preferences in Safari

After that find the Extensions tab and select it:

extensions in safari

Step 4. Uninstall The Unfamiliar Extensions and Apps

Click the Uninstall option for any extensions that you haven’t installed yourself or thing might be related to Search Mine. Don’t worry if you unisntall all of the extensions in the Extensions list, none of them is essential for the normal operation of your system.

Attention! The instructions that follow should be applied to all browsing apps that you are using in your Mac:

Open the Safari Menu, select Preferences and then tap on the Privacy tab,
Privacy in Safari

Seek the Remove All Website Data option and select it. Confirm the action by taping on Remove Now.

Attention! This action will remove all stored website data including your saved logins and passwords for all websites that require authentication.

Next, again in the Preferences menu, select the General tab this time:

General Tab in Safari

Go to where it says Homepage and check if the field there contains the link of your desired homepage. If there is some other link, change it to your preferences.
Default Home Page

After that, go to the History menu and click on Clear History to delte all the links leading to problematic pages.

Remove Search Mine from FireFox

Open the Mozilla Firefox browser and select the icon of the main menu (it can befound at the top right corner of the window). Then, go to Add-ons and head to the Extensions tab from the left menu.

Similarly to what you did in Safari, seek extensions that are unfamiliar to you and remove them. After that, don’t forget to Refresh Your Firefox Settings.

Remove Search Mine from Chrome

In Google Chrome, find the main menu icon and tap on it. Then, select More Tools and navigate to the Extensions tab. Again, take a careful look of all the extensions and select for every item that seems unfamiliar or unwanted.

After you are done with that, click again the main menu button , select Settings and then the Search tab. Once in the Search tab choose Manage Search Engines in order to set your search engine preferences. If you detect any other search engiens that you don’t use, delete them and Reset Your Chrome Settings.

If after you complete the instructions Search Mine is still bothering you, then use the anti-virus program listed on this page or try our free online virus scanner. In case any questions arise, don’t hesitate to leave us a comment.

how to remove, mac, malware, pop up, removal, remove, safari, Search Mine

Violet George

Violet is an active writer with a passion for all things cyber security. She enjoys helping victims of computer virus infections remove them and successfully deal with the aftermath of the attacks. But most importantly, Violet makes it her priority to spend time educating people on privacy issues and maintaining the safety of their computers. It is her firm belief that by spreading this information, she can empower web users to effectively protect their personal data and their devices from hackers and cybercriminals.

3 responses to “Search Mine”

Antonio
Apr 16, 2020
Hi,
Thanks for the post. I have one extension called StudyGeneral 1.0 which I think it´s linked to SearchInfo. When I click on Uninstall button, it asks me to show the app in the finder and it doesn´t get uninstalled.

Thanks,
Reply
1. George Slaine
  Apr 16, 2020
  Hi Antonio,
  thank you for your cooperation. Did you try the guide provided here?
  Reply
Emily P Cox
May 7, 2020
Thanks for this information. I have Searchmine in a Chrome policy. Do you have any idea how to get it out? I’ve tried everything I’ve seen online and so far nothing has worked. It is all gone from the settings on Chrome (in the default browser, search engine, etc. in Settings, and I checked for extensions as well), but when I look up Chrome policy it is in there. On another website it gives a bunch of things to type into Terminal, which I read helped a lot of people. I have tried it, restarted chrome, and restarted my Mac and it did not work. Any advice?
Reply

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