

Ask HN: Does anybody know what 'searchbenny' is? - neilpeel

I installed Skype on a new mac and then bing hijacked my Chrome and Safari and now I can&#x27;t get rid of it...And also when I search for something it goes to search.searchbenny.com, is this a virus? Anyone know how to remove?
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abcdefghasdifka
Many thanks, this helped me too. I got it from downloading a supposedly safe
app from

[http://en.softonic.com/s/pdf-merge:mac](http://en.softonic.com/s/pdf-
merge:mac)

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scorpwarp23
Where did you download the Skype installer from?

It is malware quite likely and can be undone. If you could share the link of
where you downloaded the Skype dmg I can try and give you a fix.

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neilpeel
It appears I stupidly downloaded it from here:

[http://skype.download-for-mac.com/](http://skype.download-for-mac.com/)

I wasn't really paying attention at the time.

Would be great if you could help, thanks!

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wildthing84
So here goes:

1\. Open Finder.

2\. Go to Applications

3\. You'll see an app called "Reset Search" Alternatively there may be a
folder called "InstallMac". Drag it to Trash and empty Trash

4\. Open Chrome. Go to Settings

5\. Click the button called "manage search engines" and make Google the
default. Then click the cross to remove "search the web"

6\. In Chrome Settings under "Appearance" click "Change" and then set "Use the
new tab page." Also in the "On Startup" section ensure you delete the
searchbenny page. and then set to "open a new tab".

7\. In Safari open Preferences and head to "General Settings". Change your
default engine (IMHO bing is better than Google). In newer Safari versions you
can do this in the "Search" tab. Also remove all garbage from the "Manage
Websites" section.

8\. Set the homepage to
"[http://www.apple.com/startpage/"](http://www.apple.com/startpage/")
Alternatively open "Top Sites" in a new tab and use that by selecting "Use
Current page"

9\. Open "Activity Monitor" \- Quit the "InstallerT" process.

10\. You're set. Just some malware. No permanent damage. All it did was change
your search defaults.

Had to post using a different account cause HN says I was submitting too fast.

~~~
neilpeel
WOW! It worked, thank you so much, pleased it wasn't anything too harmful.
Thanks a lot for spending the time to help on this.

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Kadavu22
I have not been able to uninstall searchbenny. I have a mac and I'm using
foxfire. I deleted install mac, emptied trash and reset google chrome
settings. And restared computer. Search benny.com still comes up as search
engine. I'm very frustrated. Can anyone help.

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Kadavu22
I use fox fire and have not been able to get rid of searchbenny. I deleted
file called installmac and when I go to google chrome it looks like all
settings have been corrected I even restarted computer many time but search
benny keeps opening as my search engine.

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ihaveaquestair
I have also the same problem. If I search in Google, and click on a search
result. I don't go to the URL of the search result, but to Bing, in the URL it
says 'search.searchbenny.com' How do you remove this? I have a Mac and use
Safari

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applakias
I had the same problem and just fixed it.

it was an extension named "fast search" in the Safari > Preferences >
Extensions section. I unistalled it and the problem was solved!

Before that though i moved to trash all the suspicious files from the Finder >
Applications section as they were described from the wildthing84 below.

hope i helped

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Kadavu22
I solved my problem, searchbenny actually provides a link that tells you how
to uninstall in variety of situations - safari, foxfire etc

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fustify
Hello, I downloaded the same malware on accident when trying to download
utorrent. I have followed the steps below sucessfully, but I noticed that the
installerT process keeps coming back after I reboot my computer. Also advice
on how to remove it completely? Thanks, this thread has been extremely
helpful.

