Remove athena search from Mac OS

Tips for athena search removal

athena search is described as suspicious domains that are mainly designed and developed by team of professional cyber criminals. It is quite malicious threat and may destruct several targeted system without permission. After getting dropped, it will hide deep itself and perform various harmful activities. This malicious app supposedly generates improved results and therefore enhances the browsing experience. At the first appearance, it looks like legit and useful website but in reality it’s all a big deception.

Whenever you visit such site, it misleads users to various domains in order to earn illegal web traffic for hackers. Moreover, athena search appears on all well known browsers like Google chrome, Firefox, Safari and violates your browsing. It is able to alter all crucial settings of your browser like homepage, search engine and new tab in order to promote search.athenasearch.net. Actually, it is a trick of hackers to increase network traffic of their fake sites by redirecting the users.

Further, it also has data tracking abilities which are used to gather users browsing habits/activity. The collected details are in form of IP addresses, web histories, viewed pages and other similar details. Later, all those data are shared with third parties who misused it in order to make illegal online profit as much as possible. Thus, presence of data tracking tool leads to serious privacy issues, financial losses or even identity theft. So, removal of athena search and all installed suspicious applications is mandatory.

Intrusion tactics of athena search:

Cyber criminals promote athena search virus through various intrusive methods. The most common method is software bundling. Bundling is described as an undercover installation of unwanted apps that are downloaded along with other free software. To be more precise, information about such apps is hidden behind custom or advance options of the installation processes by the developers and hopes that users will not change them. However, not all people check all those available settings and keep them remain unchanged and often allow unwanted programs to be get downloaded and installed. Such action exposes PC to risk of infections and compromises users’ privacy.

How to avoid intrusion of unwanted programs?

It is advised to always research about content before downloading and installing it. All programs and files should only be downloaded using official websites. Other unreliable tools like third party installer, free file hosting sites and other similar channels should not be used as it can offer bundled content. While installing, it is important to read terms and agreements carefully till the end. Further, it is not safe to click on intrusive ads especially if they are displayed on dubious pages as they redirect you to unreliable websites. In order to keep PC safe and secure you are advised to remove athena search as soon as possible from the infected Mac device.

Remove athena search

Manual malware removal threat might be hectic and complicated as it requires advanced computer skills to perform virus removal process. So, if you are novice users then we suggest you to use reliable anti-malware removal tool that has the ability to remove athena search and all rogue applications completely and safely from the Mac OS.

Quick Glance

Name: athena search

Type: Browser hijacker, unwanted new tab, toolbar, Redirect, Mac malware, Mac virus

Symptoms: Change your homepage and search engine, Your Mac become slower than normal, show lots deceptive ads, and redirect your searches on unreliable websites.

Distribution: spam emails, bundled freeware, malicious websites, porn or torrent sites, cracked software, file sharing network, torrent file downloads etc.

Damage: display unwanted ads, redirect to dubious websites, internet browser tracking (possibly privacy issues), loss of private information

Removal: To remove athena search, you can use some reliable process or go through given below removal instructions that are provided under this article.

Remove Files and Folders Related to athena search

Open the “Menu” bar and click the “Finder” icon. Select “Go” and click on “Go to Folder…”

Step 1: Search the suspicious and doubtful malware generated files in /Library/LaunchAgents folder

Type /Library/LaunchAgents in the “Go to Folder” option

In the “Launch Agent” folder, search for all the files that you have recently downloaded and move them to “Trash”. Few of the examples of files created by browser-hijacker or adware are as follow, “myppes.download.plist”, “mykotlerino.Itvbit.plist”, installmac.AppRemoval.plist”, and “kuklorest.update.plist” and so on.

Step 2: Detect and remove the files generated by the adware in “/Library/Application” Support folder

In the “Go to Folder..bar”, type “/Library/Application Support”

Search for any suspicious newly added folders in “Application Support” folder. If you detect any one of these like “NicePlayer” or “MPlayerX” then send them to “Trash” folder.

Step 3: Look for the files generated by malware in /Library/LaunchAgent Folder:

Go to Folder bar and type /Library/LaunchAgents

You are in the “LaunchAgents” folder. Here, you have to search for all the newly added files and move them to “Trash” if you find them suspicious. Some of the examples of suspicious files generated by malware are “myppes.download.plist”, “installmac.AppRemoved.plist”, “kuklorest.update.plist”, “mykotlerino.ltvbit.plist” and so on.

Step4: Go to /Library/LaunchDaemons Folder and search for the files created by malware

Type /Library/LaunchDaemons in the “Go To Folder” option

In the newly opened “LaunchDaemons” folder, search for any recently added suspicious files and move them to “Trash”. Examples of some of the suspicious files are “com.kuklorest.net-preferences.plist”, “com.avickUpd.plist”, “com.myppes.net-preference.plist”, “com.aoudad.net-preferences.plist” and so on.

Step 5: Use Combo Cleaner Anti-Malware and Scan your Mac PC

The malware infections could be removed from the Mac PC if you execute all the steps mentioned above in the correct way. However, it is always advised to be sure that your PC is not infected. It is suggested to scan the work-station with “Combo Cleaner Anti-virus”.

Once the file gets downloaded, double click on combocleaner.dmg installer in the newly opened window. Next is to open the “Launchpad” and press on “Combo Cleaner” icon. It is advised to wait until “Combo Cleaner” updates the latest definition for malware detection. Click on “Start Combo Scan” button.

A depth scan of your Mac PC will be executed in order to detect malware. If the Anti-virus scan report says “no threat found” then you can continue with guide further. On the other hand, it is recommended to delete the detected malware infection before continuing.

Now the files and folders created by the adware is removed, you have to remove the rogue extensions from the browsers.

Remove athena search from Internet Browsers

Delete Doubtful and Malicious Extension from Safari

Go to “Menu Bar” and open “Safari” browser. Select “Safari” and then “Preferences”

In the opened “preferences” window, select “Extensions” that you have recently installed. All such extensions should be detected and click the “Uninstall” button next to it. If you are doubtful then you can remove all the extensions from “Safari” browser as none of them are important for smooth functionality of the browser.

In case if you continue facing unwanted webpage redirections or aggressive advertisements bombarding, you can reset the “Safari” browser.

“Reset Safari”

Open the Safari menu and choose “preferences…” from the drop-down menu.

Go to the “Extension” tab and set the extension slider to “Off” position. This disables all the installed extensions in the Safari browser

Next step is to check the homepage. Go to “Preferences…” option and choose “General” tab. Change the homepage to your preferred URL.

Also check the default search-engine provider settings. Go to “Preferences…” window and select the “Search” tab and select the search-engine provider that you want such as “Google”.

Next is to clear the Safari browser Cache- Go to “Preferences…” window and select “Advanced” tab and click on “Show develop menu in the menu bar.“

Go to “Develop” menu and select “Empty Caches”.

Remove website data and browsing history. Go to “Safari” menu and select “Clear History and Website Data”. Choose “all history” and then click on “Clear History”.

Remove Unwanted and Malicious Plug-ins from Mozilla Firefox

Delete athena search add-ons from Mozilla Firefox

Open the Firefox Mozilla browser. Click on the “Open Menu” present in the top right corner of the screen. From the newly opened menu, choose “Add-ons”.

Go to “Extension” option and detect all the latest installed add-ons. Select each of the suspicious add-ons and click on “Remove” button next to them.

In case if you want to “reset” the Mozilla Firefox browser then follow the steps that has been mentioned below.

Reset Mozilla Firefox Settings

Open the Firefox Mozilla browser and click on “Firefox” button situated at the top left corner of the screen.

In the new menu, go to “Help” sub-menu and choose “Troubleshooting Information”

In the “Troubleshooting Information” page, click on “Reset Firefox” button.

Confirm that you want to reset the Mozilla Firefox settings to default by pressing on “Reset Firefox” option

The browser will get restarted and the settings changes to factory default

Delete Unwanted and Malicious Extensions from Google Chrome

Open the chrome browser and click on “Chrome menu”. From the drop down option, choose “More Tools” and then “Extensions”.

In the “Extensions” option, search for all the recently installed add-ons and extensions. Select them and choose “Trash” button. Any third-party extension is not important for the smooth functionality of the browser.

Reset Google Chrome Settings

Open the browser and click on three line bar at the top right side corner of the window.

Go to the bottom of the newly opened window and select “Show advanced settings”.

In the newly opened window, scroll down to the bottom and choose “Reset browser settings”

Click on the “Reset” button on the opened “Reset browser settings” window

Restart the browser and the changes you get will be applied

The above mentioned manual process should be executed as it is mentioned. It is a cumbersome process and requires a lot of technical expertise. And hence it is advised for technical experts only. To be sure that your PC is free from malware, it is better that you scan the work-station with a powerful anti-malware tool. The automatic malware removal application is preferred because it doesn’t requires any additional technical skills and expertise.

Download the application and execute it on the PC to begin the depth scanning. Once the scanning gets completed, it shows the list of all the files related to athena search. You can select such harmful files and folders and remove them immediately.