Assessment Branded Mac

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Assessment Branded

Assessment Branded is a browser-redirecting malware app that is designed to change the settings of your browser and inject ads inside the search engine results. Assessment Branded can also force the browser to page-redirect you to random sites, some of which may be unsafe.

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Assessment Branded is a software application that is programmed to operate as a browser attachment to promote different web content for Pay-Per-Click revenue. On the outside, this app doesn’t seem to differ much from any other add-on for some of the most popular browsing programs out there – Safari, Chrome, Firefox and so on. Once installed in the computer and once it automatically adds itself to the browser, however, Assessment Branded is likely to start initiating activities that most users on the Internet would find annoying and unpleasant.

Assessment Branded for Mac

Assessment Branded for Mac is a small piece of software intended to insert ads inside your browser’s search results and to cause sudden redirects to promoted sites. Assessment Branded for Mac may also change the address of your homepage or the default search engine of the browser without asking for your permission.

 The main problem that people have with this app is the fact that Assessment Branded tries to show an overwhelming number of obstructive advertisements, pop-ups, banners and box-messages inside the browsers that it has gotten attached to. It could also trigger page-redirect activities which is bound to further obstruct the everyday browsing of any user. If you have it in your system, you have probably noticed that each time you attempt to start a new browsing session, your computer screen starts to get covered with invasive advertising messages including different clickbait offers, “You have won a prize” messages, screen-wide banners, intrusive new tabs and many more.

What is Assessment Branded?

Assessment Branded is a browser-attacking malware app capable of taking over any Mac browser and transforming it into a site-promoting platform. Assessment Branded will redirect your searches, show you obstructive pop-ups, and generate clickbait ads during every browsing session.

Oftentimes, even if a given ad message has an X button on it, clicking on that button would actually register as a click on the advert and would still open the site that the ad has been linked with. Therefore, we advise you not to try to close the ads in this way, especially considering the fact that not all of them may be safe and opening them (albeit unintentionally) may result in exposure to various online hazards and malicious software like viruses, Trojans and Ransomware. The best way to end the advertising invasion is, of course, to uninstall the application responsible for it. To help you with the removal of Assessment Branded, we have prepared some instructions that you are supposed to follow in order to eliminate the unwanted app.

The AssessmentBranded app

The AssessmentBranded app is an unwanted add-on for Mac browsers that will look through your browsing history without your permission. Afterwards, the AssessmentBranded app will use the information it has collected to put obstructive targeted ads on your screen.

It is understandable if you are not sure about how the Assessment Branded managed to get installed on your computer. Such apps, like this and Skilled Marketing, have all kinds of intricate and elaborate ways of entering users’ computers without getting noticed. One common example that is what likely got you the adware is the so-called file bundling technique. Instead of travelling alone, many adware apps are added to the installation package for another program. Usually, their presence in the package is on an opt-out basis. What this means is you need to manually opt out of the adware in order to leave it out and then only install the main program – the one that the users normally want. Of course, many users forget to do that and that is what makes adware apps so widespread. Tough this type of software is not all that problematic, it’s still important to keep it away from your computer in the future as this will help you protect your machine against the real threats of the Internet – the Trojan Horses, the Ransomware viruses and other similar highly dangerous forms of malware.

 SUMMARY:

NameAssessment Branded
TypeBrowser Hijacker
Detection Tool

anti-malware offerOFFER *Free Remover allows you, subject to a 48-hour waiting period, one remediation and removal for results found. SpyHunter's EULA, Privacy Policy, and more details about Free Remover.

Remove Assessment Branded from Mac

Uninstall Assessment Branded from Safari

To uninstall Assessment Branded from Safari, you should first try to remove any unwanted extensions installed in the browser by the hijacker without your permission.

  1. To delete unwanted Safari extensions, start the browser, go to the Safari menu, and select Extensions.
  2. On the Extensions page, see if there are any items that might be linked to Assessment Branded as well as ones that have been installed there without your approval.
  3. Delete anything that seems out of place and that may be lined to the hijacker to uninstall Assessment Branded from Safari.
  4. Restart your Mac, go to Safari and check the browser’s behavior to see if things are back to normal.
    extensions in safari

If you have been lucky, completing those four simply steps should clean your Mac and browser from the presence of the unwanted hijacker. Unfortunately, this may not always be the case and so if you still notice the unpleasant effects of Assessment Branded in the browser, you should also complete the more advanced removal steps that you can find below. On the other hand, if things seem normal now and the hijacker is no longer bothering you, there’s probably no need to complete the whole guide.

Step 1: Quit the Assessment Branded process

Your first task is to find the process or processes launched by Assessment Branded and quit them. To do this, you must go to the Activity Monitor so open Finder, select the Applications icon from the left, open Utilities and there you will see the Activity Monitor app, which you must open.

In the Activity Monitor, you will see what processes are active on the computer and among them should be the Assessment Branded process. It, however, will likely not have the same name, so you should use your own discretion to determine which process is the one that should be stopped. Some red flags to be on the lookout for are high CPU and RAM consumption and an unusual name that doesn’t seem familiar or related to any programs that you have on the computer.

When you think you’ve found the process you need to quit, it could help if you Google its name to find some information about it – it should usually come up in the results if the process is associated with Assessment Branded or other unwanted software, in which case you should go ahead and quit it. On the other hand, if the results show that the process in question is from a regular program or from macOS, then you shouldn’t touch/quit that process.

One additional way to potentially learn more about the process is to select it, click on the Information icon in the top-left and go to Sample.

chromeinfo

In the Sample window, select Save and save the file on your Desktop.

chromesample

Then drag that file to the free malware scanner below and see what results come up.

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    If the results from the scan tell you there’s malicious code detected in the sample file, you should most definitely quit the suspected process. To quit the process, click on it in the Activity Monitor and then select the X (Quit) button in the top-left. After that, do not forget to delete the sample file.

    Keep in mind that the suspected process may still be linked to Assessment Branded even if the sample file doesn’t get flagged as malware. Therefore, if the online research you conducted revealed that the process is probably related to the hijacker, you should still quit that process even if no malware code gets detected in the sample.

    Step 2: Remove the Hijacker app

    WARNING! READ CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING!

    The most common way Mac systems get unwanted and/or harmful malware installed in them is after their users download free apps that contain the malware/unwanted software components in them. It is a rarity to find such apps in the official Apple App Store due to the high levels of security the latter has. On the other hand, some less reliable third-party download platforms often get sketchy applications uploaded, many of which contain questionable software components. Therefore, if you have recently downloaded apps from outside the official Store, you should examine said apps and maybe conduct an online research on them and delete them if it turns out that they may be responsible for getting Assessment Branded into your Mac.

    To do this, open the Finder app again, go to Applications, and explore the items there. Anything that’s been recently installed and that looks suspicious should be deleted, especially if it isn’t from the official App Store for Mac. Even if it turns out that the apps you delete are not dangerous, this is fine as you could easily bring them back later, once the hijacker problem has been solved.

    In order to delete a given app, all you’d have to do is select it and drag it to the Trash icon on your Desktop. After that, empty the Trash to finalize the deletion.

    Step 3: Safe Launch the browser

    Now you should clean your Safari browser from anything that may be left in it from the hijacker, but you must first perform a safe-launch of the browser. If Safari is currently open, close it and then hold down Shift from the keyboard and start the browser again. The goal is to start Safari anew, without pages that were opened during your previous browsing session loading again. If any such pages do load, close the browser, disconnect from the Internet, and try to do the safe-launch again.

    • If your Mac is connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi, select the Wi-Fi menu from the top and select the Wi-Fi Turn Off option from to stop the Internet. On the other hand, if you are using an Ethernet cable, you can simply unplug said cable to stop the Internet connection.

    Step 4: Delete hijacker and settings from Safari

    Once Safari starts with no previous sites/pages loaded, go back to Extensions and if any of the items that you removed at the start of this guide are back, delete them once more and then select the General section from Preferences.

    There, check the homepage URL of the browser – if it is one that has been enforced by Assessment Branded, change it to a trusted and reliable site that you want to be the browser’s default homepage.

    General Tab in Safari
    Default Home Page

    From Preferences, you must also visit Privacy, select Remove All Website Data, and confirm the command to delete browser cached files and site cookies that may hold data related to the hijacker.

    Privacy in Safari

    The last thing you must do in Safari is delete the browsing history so go to the History menu, select the Clear History option, and set it to delete All History. Then confirm the action and wait for the process to complete (might take a minute or two in some cases).

    Step 5: Check your other browsers

    It is also important to not forget about any other browsers that you may have in the system. Even if you don’t use them and/or if they don’t seem to be affected by Assessment Branded,y ou should still check them for hijacker components and settings.

    Removing ads from Firefox for Mac:

    If you have Firefox in addition to Safari, open it, go to its menu (the three horizontal lines icon in the top-right), and select Extensions. Do the same you did with Safari, deleting the potentially unwanted and/or unneeded extensions as well as any extensions that you don’t recognize.

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    Once you’ve ensured there are no unwanted extensions in the browser, visit this page and complete the Firefox steps shown there to refresh the settings of the browser and make sure that nothing from Assessment Branded is left in it.

    Removing ads from Chrome for Mac:

    In Google Chrome, select the icon with three dots in the upper-right corner of the screen, go to More Tools, and then click on Extensions. Once again, make sure that all unnecessary, unfamiliar, and suspicious extensions are removed from the browser. If a given extension won’t go away when you try to delete it, try to disable it first by toggling off the toggle button below it and then quickly select the Remove button (some unwanted extensions first need to be disabled before they could be uninstalled).

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    After the undesirable extensions have been taken care of, open the Chrome menu once more and go to Settings. Then select Search Engine from the left and click on the Manage Search Engine option in the central Panel. This will show you what search engines the browser uses and if you see any unfamiliar and sketchy one listed on that page, click on the three-dot icon next to them and select the Block option. This will prevent the browser from ever using those search engines. It’s best if you only allow trusted search engines like Google or Bing to be used by the browser.

    To finally complete this step, go to this page and follow the instructions posted on it to reset the settings of the Chrome browser, thus ensuring there’s nothing left from Assessment Branded in it.

    Final Notes

    It should be relatively easy to rid your Mac of Assessment Branded so long as you correctly follow the steps listed on this page. However, if the hijacker turns out to be more persistent than expected and if it doesn’t go away after you finish the guide, it would be best if you try using a professional removal tool to delete the unwanted software. One such powerful tool can be found linked on this page – we recommend it for removing unwanted hijackers like Assessment Branded as well as more hazardous forms of software and malware, including Trojans and Spyware.

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    About the author

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    Brandon Skies

    Brandon is a researcher and content creator in the fields of cyber-security and virtual privacy. Years of experience enable him to provide readers with important information and adequate solutions for the latest software and malware problems.

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