How to Remove Search Baron from Mac

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Search Baron

Search Baron is a fake search engine that hijacks the browsers of Mac computers. Search Baron seeks to generate fake visits to its partnering sites by quickly redirecting you through them when you use it to perform an online search.

If the default search engine or the homepage of any of your browsers has recently been changed to searchbaron.com, then you most definitely have this hijacker inside that browser. It could have gotten there in a number of ways – you may have mistakenly clicked Allow on a misleading online pop-up, you may have agreed to install a fake update, you may have installed a rogue extension in the browser, or you may have downloaded some low-quality app that has delivered the hijacker into your browser(s). We will address all of those possibilities in the removal guide at the bottom of the page and show you how to remove anything that may be related to Search Baron from your Mac.

What is Search Baron on Mac?

Search Baron on Mac is a browser-hijacking search engine aimed at aggressively promoting different sites and products on your screen. Once Search Baron takes over the browser, it replaces its homepage address with searchbaron.com and begins causing automatic page-redirects when you perform online searches.

It is important to restore the affected browser to its normal state because the presence of Search Baron in it could make the entire system unsafe. The goal of Search Baron isn’t to harm you, but it could end up during exactly that if allowed to remain the default search engine/homepage of the browser.

The way this hijacker works is this: once it gets integrated with the browser and becomes the default search engine, the browser would automatically use this search engine to conduct your online searches. When you search for something through Search Baron, the browser would first get redirected through a series of questionable and potentially hazardous websites before it eventually lands on a Bing (or Yahoo in some cases) search results page for the search you performed. 

The main problem here is those intermediate websites that the browser gets redirected to before it lands on the Bing page. Usually, the browser will visit those sites for a fraction of the second so many users may not even notice the rapidly changing addresses in the URL bar. However, even a split-second visit still counts as a visit and thus increases the overall number of visits that the rogue sites that Search Baron is trying to promote. What’s problematic about those sites is that they may often contain malware or be used to collect user data and later use that data for targeting you with misleading ads. Some sites that are often associated with Search Baron and that may be promoted by it are:

• Searchmarquis.com
• Hut.brdtxhea.xyz
• Mybrowser-search.com
• Searchitnow.info
• Searchsnow.com

The Search Baron Virus

The Search Baron virus is any malicious program that could be delivered to your computer as a result of the browser’s infection with this hijacker. The Search Baron Virus is usually a Trojan Horse that gains Admin privileges in the system and steals user data.

Search Baron itself is not a virus threat. Although it may seem like one, this hijacker is not capable of performing any of the actions that more dangerous threats like Trojans, Spyware, or Ransomware are known for. Still, as we explained, if Search Baron is allowed to stay in nay of your browsers and perform your online searches, the chances of encountering a more serious piece of malware become higher. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you do everything within your power to disable and eliminate Search Baron. The guide we’ve posted right below will aid you with this task by showing you what needs to be done and how you can do it.

SUMMARY:

How to Remove Search Baron from Mac

To remove Search Baron from Mac, you have to stop its processes, uninstall any unwanted apps, and delete any login items and rogue profiles related to it.

1. Go to the Activity Monitor utility, search through the list of processes for rogue ones and quit anything unwanted you may find.
2. Open the Applications folder of your Mac, look for undesirable apps in it, and if you find any, uninstall them.
3. To remove Search Baron from your Mac, you should also go to System Preferences > Users and Groups > Login Items and delete from there anything that may be connected to the hijacker.
4. The last thing that needs to be done is to check the user profiles on your Mac and delete anything that you don’t recognize.

Those short steps provide a quick summary of the removal process that you’d need to complete in order to get rid of the unpleasant hijacker. If you think you may need more guidance and additional details for each step, refer to the paragraphs below where we will provide you with a more in-depth explanation about each of the shown steps.

*Source of claim SH can remove it.

Detailed how-to remove Search Baron from Mac Instructions

1. From the menu bar at the top of your screen, click the Finder button and then, from the left, select Applications.
2. Next, go to the folder labelled Utilities and from it start the Activity monitor utility.
3. If you see a process named Search Baron or anything close to that, click it, select the X from the top-left, and click on Quit from the dialogue box that shows up.
   
4. If there wasn’t a process with that name or a name close to it, then focus your attention on the processes that consume the most resources (CPU, RAM, battery life) and see if any of them seem to have unusual, suspicious, or unfamiliar names.
5. Go to the browser and look up the names of any suspicious processes you may have noticed in the Activity Monitor.
6. If reports from reliable online sources come up during your search that suggest the suspected process may be unwanted, go ahead and quit that process.
7. If you are still not sure the suspected process (or processes) is unwanted, click on it, select the “i” icon from the top, go to Sample, click Save, and save the sample file on your Desktop.
8. Next, drag the sample file to the scanner below to test it for malware.
   
   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.

   Full ScanUpload New File

   

   Drag and Drop File Here To Scan

   Upload File

   

   Analyzing 0 s

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

   This scanner is based on VirusTotal's API. By submitting data to it, you agree to their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and to the sharing of your sample submission with the security community. Please do not submit files with personal information if you do not want them to be shared.
9. If our scanner finds malware in the file, delete that file and quit the process that it comes from.
10. The next thing to do is open Finder > Applications again and pay attention to what apps are available in that folder. If there are apps that you don’t normally use, that you don’t recognize, or that seem questionable and unwanted, drag them to the Trash to uninstall them.
11. Right-click the Trash icon, and select the Secure Empty Trash option.
12. Click the Apple Logo menu from the top-left, go to System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items.
13. Look what login items are shown in the list and if any of them are unfamiliar to you or seem related to Search Baron, click them and then select the minus icon to remove them from the list.
    
14. Lastly, go back to System Preferences and this time select the Profiles section. There, look for user accounts that you do not recognize and that haven’t been added by you or by anyone else who normally uses the computer and delete those profiles. Note that it is possible that some of the profiles there may seem to have legitimate names such as “Chrome Settings” or “Firefox Settings” – even in those cases, if you don’t recognize the profiles, you should still delete them.

How to Get Rid of Search Baron

To get rid of Search Baron, one other thing you could try is to go to several folders where there may be hijacker files and delete those files.

1. Open the Go to Folder utility on your Mac.
2. Use it to go to the following four folders: Library/LaunchAgents, ~/Library/LaunchAgents, /Library/LaunchDaemons, and ~/Library/Application Support.
3. Scan the most recent files in those folders with our online scanner that we showed you above.
4. Delete the ones that contain malware code by dragging them to the Trash and emptying the Trash.

If you need a more detailed explanation of those steps, you can find it down below.

*Source of claim SH can remove it.

Detailed how-to get rid of Search Baron Instructions

When deleting suspicious files from the folders that you are about to visit, make sure that you only delete the files that you are certain shouldn’t be there. If you are not sure whether a certain file is linked to the hijacker and don’t know whether you should delete it, we suggest writing us a comment in which you ask us about that file – we will reply to your comment and tell you what you need to do.

1. The first thing you need to do is press the Command, Shift, and G keys from the keyboard – this will evoke the Go to Folder search bar which you must use to go to the next four folders.
2. Paste each of the following folder locations (one by one) in the search bar and click the GO button after each to open the respective older:
   • Library/LaunchAgents
   • ~/Library/LaunchAgents
   • /Library/LaunchDaemons
   • ~/Library/Application Support
3. When you reach each of those folders, use the scanner we’ve shown below to scan all files in them that have been created after the hijacker got in your system:
   
   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.

   Full ScanUpload New File

   

   Drag and Drop File Here To Scan

   Upload File

   

   Analyzing 0 s

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

   This scanner is based on VirusTotal's API. By submitting data to it, you agree to their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, and to the sharing of your sample submission with the security community. Please do not submit files with personal information if you do not want them to be shared.
4. All files flagged as malicious by our scanner must be deleted.
5. If you see any of the following files in the respective folder, delete those files without scanning them because they are certainly from the hijacker:
   • For the /Library/LaunchAgents and the ~/Library/LaunchAgents folders:
     • com.msp.agent.plist
     • com.updater.mcy.plist
     • com.pcv.hlpramc.plist
     • com.avickUpd.plist.
   • For the /Library/LaunchDaemons folder:
     • pplauncher.plist
     • com.startup.plist
     • com.ExpertModuleSearchDaemon.plist.
6. When you get to the final folder (~/Library/Application Support), you must look in it for other folders (and not single files) that may be linked to the hijacker. You can still use the scanner to test the files located in the subfolders to see if any of them contain malware. If you find malware files in any of the subfolders, delete those folders.
7. If you see any of the next sub-folders in the ~/Library/Application Support folder, delete them without need to scan the files stored in them:
   • ValidGeneration
   • BoostCoordinator
   • OperativeState
   • InitialWindow
   • AdjustableProduct
8. When you are done with everything, remember to Secure Empty the Trash.

How to Remove Search Baron from Safari

To remove Search Baron from Safari, clean the browser from any rogue extensions, delete the temporary browsing data, and clear the browsing history.

1. Go to the extensions page of Safari, find in any potentially unwanted extensions, and delete them.
2. Open Safari Preferences, go to General, and restore your default homepage.
3. Go to Privacy and use the Remove All Website Data option to delete temporary browsing data.
4. Clear the browsing history from the History menu of Safari.

Detailed how-to remove Search Baron from Safari instructions

1. Start by opening the browser, selecting the Safari button from the top, and clicking the Preferences option.
2. Go to the Extensions section and check it for any entries that you are unfamiliar with and that seem undesirable and out of place.
3. If any of the extensions that you find in Safari seem like they shouldn’t be in the browser, go ahead and delete them.
4. Next, select the tab labelled General (from Preferences) and take a look at the address for your homepage – if that address isn’t the same as before the hijacker got in your system, then bring back your old homepage address or replace the current one with another address from a trusted website.
   
5. Open the Privacy tab next, click Remove All Website Data/Manage Website Data, and then click on Remove Now to initiate the data deletion and wait for the completion of the process.
6. Finally, click the History menu, click Clear History, opt for the All History setting, and launch the deletion. Wait for it to be over and restart Safari to see if everything is back to normal.

How to Remove Search Baron from Chrome

To remove Search Baron from Chrome, you need to delete any unwanted add-ons and restore any other modified Chrome settings.

1. Start Chrome, type ://settings in the URL bar, and press Enter.
2. Go to Extensions and uninstal whatever undesirable items you may find there.
3. Open the search engine settings, click the Manage Search Engines option, and block any unfamiliar search engines listed there.
4. Go to Privacy and Security and clean the browsing data from there.

Detailed How to Remove Search Baron from Chrome Instructions

1. Start the browser, click the menu icon from the top-right (the three dots just below the X button), and go to More Tools > Extensions.
2. Carefully look for any unfamiliar, suspicious, or undesirable add-ons on that page and if you find any, click the Disable button (the toggle button below the browser), and then select Remove to uninstall the add-on.
   
3. Once the unwanted extensions are gone, go into Settings from the browser’s menu and then click Search Engine from the left.
4. Find and select the Manage Search Engines option and see what search engines are listed on that page.
5. If you are not familiar with any of the search engines listed there, click their three-dot icons and select the Remove from the list option to block them. Do this with each unfamiliar search engine.
   
6. Lastly, go to Privacy and Security from the left panel and find and click on the Clear browsing data button.
7. Put checkmarks in all boxes except the one that is for your passwords and then click on Clear now to launch the action. Wait for the deletion to complete without quitting the browser before it is over.

Final Notes

If you are still struggling with Search Baron and the hijacker is still in the system despite you completing all the steps from this guide, it may be time to try using a professional removal tool to take care of the issue. One important thing to consider here is that, if the hijacker is still on your Mac, it is possible that another, more hazardous piece of software may be hiding in the system and helping the hijacker stay active. An example of such software could be a Trojan Horse infection. For that reason, using a specialized removal tool, such as the one linked on this page, is something that we recommend if you haven’t been able to get rid of Search Baron thus far. Another thing we want to remind you is that you can, at any time, use the free online scanner that we offer on our site to test any remaining suspicious files for traces of malware so that you would know to delete them if they are found to be potentially harmful.