Why me Safari is being redirected to Bing.com? Is My Mac infected with virus? How to stop unwanted ads and redirection from safari and Chrome?
What is Bing.com
Bing.com is a popular and legitimate search engine powered by Microsoft. This search engine not does aims to distribute or support any kind of malware, adware or browser redirect activities. But still users complain about their homepage suddenly being redirected to multiple URLs and then the search results are displayed using the bing search service.

Bing.com Redirect From Mac OS X
What causes the browser to Redirect To Bing.com?
Well, in this case user may blame the bing search engine for annoying redirection. But this reason behind it is the potentially unwanted programs or browser hijackers that maliciously redirects users to bing.com to tend to appear legitimate. And finally make users believe on their search results and information.
Most often the potentially undesirable applications uses software bundling method to drop such harmful programs within the installers. Another incautious activity is not opting for custom/advanced installation option. As the Adware never seek for additional programs at the time of installation. Thus they can easily get installed on the system.
Some of the PUA are: Pasteboard app, searchbaron.com, searchmine.net and many such. Once installed, these kind of programs are designed to change the default settings of the web browser like Safari, Chrome, Mozilla or opera. Thus, the first thing you notice on your infected browser is strange homepage, new tab and search engine added as current one. While using these services, they send the search queries entered by the user to multiple sites to fetch paid ads and links. And finally they redirect to bing.com with their misleading search results.
This makes it appear like bing.com redirect virus.
There can various motives behind this approach:
- To display sponsored ads, links and contents.
- To generate traffic for sponsored sites and earn pay-per-click revenue;
- Encourage the download of third-party extensions, Adware and toolbars.
Not only that, these PUPs can read modify data on the visited sites. Records surfing habits of users to share the data with other advertisers and deliver a more user-specific ads.
Apart from all these bing.com redirect on Mac can pose high risk of the system to be infected with some highly destructive threats. Thus if your browser is getting redirected to bing.com without your permission, then you should quickly review the settings of the installed web browsers along with the removal of all Potentially harmful programs.
More information on Combo Cleaner, EULA,and Privacy Policy. Combo Cleaner scans the infected PC for free but you need to purchase its full version for complete removal.
Combo Cleaner is a complete security suite for Mac OS that is developed by “RCS LT” company. This program is featured with anti-virus scanner and system optimization tools like disk cleaner, duplicate files finder, application uninstaller, privacy scanner, and 24*7 customer support service.
Rather than being just a traditional anti-virus or a system optimizer, this single program takes a different approach that eases the user from using a different application to keep their MAC OS protected and optimized.
It is very important to have a reliable anti-virus solution for the computer system. Combo cleaner is one of the best options for MAC users as detects and eliminates all sorts of threats like adware, browser hijacker, Trojans, and other malware. It is a light-themed, easy-to-use interface and keeps updating its threat database hourly to instant detect and remove any sort of malware. Thus ensuring not any malicious stuff is behind within the system.
How to Install and Scan with Combo Cleaner
- Click the above button to Download the “Combo Cleaner”;
- Once the download completes, double-click on the downloaded file;
- After the window opens, drag the Combo Cleaner program icon and drop into your “Applications folder” icon.
Combo Cleaner Install Step 2
- Now, open your “Launchpad” and click on the “Combo Cleaner” icon.
Combo Cleaner Install Step 3
- This will start the combo cleaner installation and updates its latest virus definition. Once done, Combo cleaner will launch;
Combo Cleaner Dashboard
- Click on “Antivirus” tab and choose the scan options like Quick, Full, and custom. (Full is recommended for the first time)
Start Scan For Bing.com
- Let the scan be completed and it will list all the threat found. Now, click on “Remove All Threats”;
Scan Result Shows Program associated with Bing.com
- After removing the threats, click on the “uninstaller” to find and remove any unwanted programs. Select the program from the list and its related files and then click on “Remove Selected Items“

Remove Bing.com
If you still have the second thought about this anti-malware, then you may want to check out our review article about Combo Cleaner.
If you are going for the manual removal process, then we recommend you to print/download these instructions or open it from another uninfected computer or laptop and follow step-by-step manual removal instruction. Mac OS PDF Guide
Step 1. Ending Process Running Under The “Activity Monitor”
- Type “Activity Monitor” in the Launchpad to open it;
Launchpad-1.1.1
Activity Minor – 1.1.2
- Scroll through the list of running apps, look for the suspicious ones that appear unknown to you or taking huge CPU resources.
- Use the [x] button to quit the process.
Force Stop -1.2 and 1.3
Step 2. Remove Bing.com Malicious Apps From Mac OS
- Open “Finder” by clicking on the Finder application on your dock.
Finder – 2.1
- In the left pane of the Finder, click on “Applications“.
Applications – 2.2
- Next, you need to locate the Bing.com Adware/suspicious apps and remove them. The “Applications” window will display the list of all apps installed on your Mac OS.
Step – 2.3
- Now, you need to go through the list to find out the Bing.com and other suspicious/malicious or infectious app, select it then right click and then select “Move to Trash”. (Repeat this step until you remove all such apps).
Move to Trash – 2.4
- Now you need to empty the trash as sometimes program can restore themselves from the trash. On your dock, right-click on the trash icon and then select “Empty Trash”.
Step – 2.5.1
Step 2.5.2
NOTE: if something looks suspicious to you but you are not sure of that, search the web to find out more about that app.
Step 3. Remove Bing.com Apps From Auto-Startup
Generally, malicious programs, Adware and spyware add themselves to the boot process to launch automatically whenever the device boots. So, you need to find such apps and remove from the startups.
- Open Apple menu ? System Preferences
Step – 3.1
- Now, choose “Users & Groups” section
Step – 3.2
- Select your username from the left pane;
Step – 3.3
- A list will appear showing login items; check the list and use “—” sign to disable Bing.com or other suspicious/unwanted apps you see. Close the screen.
Step – 3.4
- Next step, from the top menu, choose Go ? Go to Folder, then type /Users/Shared/ within the search box. In the “Sharedfolder”, you need to delete the “Similar” files and folders.
Step – 3.5.1
Step – 3.5.2
Step – 3.5.3
- Now Restart your Mac to make the changes into effect.
Step – 3.6
Step 4. Remove Bing.com Daemons And Agents From Mac’s Startup
- From top menu ? Choose Go ? Go to Folder
Step – 4.1
- Type in “/Library/LaunchDaemons”, within this location you will see lots of files with .plist extension. Scroll through it and find the ones which appear to be suspicious and delete them.
Step – 4.2.1
Step – 4.2.2
- Do the same for other launching agents locations:
-
- /Library/LaunchAgents
- ~/Library/LaunchAgents
For example: an adware named Vsearch, you may get launching agent as :
/Library/LaunchAgents/com.vsearch.agent.plist
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.vsearch.agent.plist
Don’t forget to empty the trash and then restart the computer.Step – 4.3.1
Step – 4.3.2
-
- After restart, again repeat step 1-2 and type in: /System/Library/Frameworks/ (look for the malicious file with .framework extension like /System/Library/Frameworks/VSearch.framework)
Step 4.4.1
Step – 4.4.2
- Put the file to trash, if you find one with a malicious name.
- Similarly, do more searches within the location:
- /Library/Application Support/
- /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/
Step – 4.6.1
Step – 4.6.2
Step – 4.6.3
Step – 4.6.4
- Put them to trash and again empty the trash and restart the computer.
Step- 4.7.1
Step – 4.7.2
Step – 4.7.3
Step 5. Uninstall Bing.com Or Unwanted/Suspicious Extensions From Browsers
Follow the steps to remove unwanted and suspicious extensions from the Safari browser:
- On the Safari browser, click the “Safari” menu then select “Preferences”.
Reset Mac Safari Step-1
- On the General tab of the Safari preferences, check for any unknown URL added as the default homepage, Within the “Homepage” field enter your preferred URL as your default start-page of the browser instead of Bing Redirect or some other fed there.
Reset Mac Safari Step-2
- Next, you need to check for malicious extensions, click on the “Extensions” tab on the same window.
- “Extensions” screen will list all the extensions installed on your safari browser, you need to browse through the list and uninstall the ones which appear to be Adware. If you find a malicious extension select it and then click on “Uninstall”. Repeat the steps to remove all unwanted extensions.
Reset Mac Safari Step-3
- Close the Safari browser.
To check for unknown extensions installed:
- Click on Chrome Menu(three vertical dots at top-right corner) ? Select “Settings” ? Choose “Extensions”.
Remove Chrome Extensions 1
- Scroll through the list of extensions installed on the Chrome browser, if any one of them appears to malicious then click on the “trash” icon next to it. This will remove the extension.
Remove Chrome Extensions 2
- Repeat the step until you are sure of the ones you like to keep.
To Reset The Browser:
Next, you need to reset the default settings like search engines, startup, and new tabs. It is better to use the default reset feature of the Google Chrome which will reset all the unwanted modifications done by third-party programs. Don’t worry you will not lose your saved passwords and bookmarks. However, it will delete cookies, extensions, startups, URLs, homepage and new tabs preferences.
- Click on Chrome’s main menu then choose “Settings“.
Reset Browser Chrome 1
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on “Advanced”.
Reset Browser Chrome 2
- Under the Advanced page, go for “Reset and clean up” section, then click on “Reset settings to their original defaults”.
Reset Browser Chrome 3
- Next, click on “Reset”, you will be prompted for a confirmation This will reset your startup page, a new tab page, search engine, and pinned tabs. It will also disable all extensions and clear temporary data like cookies. Your bookmarks, history, and saved passwords will not be cleared”
- Click on the “Reset Settings” button to confirm the procedure.
Reset Browser Chrome 4
- After that, it may ask to restart your browser, click “Yes”.