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How to Remove Search Marquis from Mac?

Updated on Tuesday, August 27, 2024

iBoysoft author Anna Yuan

Written by

Anna Yuan
Professional tech editor

Approved by

Jessica Shee

English

Summary: This post tells what Search Marquis on Mac is and how to remove Search Marquis from Mac automatically and manually. It also tells how to remove Search Marquis from Mac Chrome, Safari, Firefox.

how to remove Search Marquis from Mac

Search Marquis, a browser hijacker, always causes unwanted browser changes and endless redirects. Having the Search Marquis virus on your Mac is unsafe. Although it won't ruin your operating system, it may steal your personal data and open the door to more hazardous cyber threats.

If you are looking for ways to get rid of Search Marquis on Mac, then you've come to the right place. Though cleaning the malicious code on Mac computers might be a great challenge. Here we'll show you how to remove Search Marquis from Mac in detail and protect it from future attacks.

What is Search Marquis on Mac

What is Search Marquis? Search Marquis is a potentially unwanted application or PUP (potentially unwanted program) that usually looks like a useful add-on or extension for popular browsers like Safari, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox. This browser hijacker claims to optimize your search and browsing experience.

But instead of helping you to improve your browsing experience, the app sneaks into your Mac and turns your Internet browsing into a nightmare. When Search Marquis gets installed in your Safari browser or other browsers, it modifies browser settings/browser preferences without your permission.

It changes the homepage, search engine, and new tab page to its website. As a result, you visit it repeatedly. Worst of all, you can't undo the changes. It also starts displaying frustrating ads on the whole screen in the form of pop-up ads, banners, boxes, and some other promotional materials that stick on a screen.

what is Search Marquis on Mac

Additionally, Search Marquis utilizes the Bing search engine to look more legitimate. But before redirecting to Bing, it leads you through a bunch of questionable sites. Most of them are advertising networks, which would pay Search Marquis for such hits.

So when you see your browser redirecting to the Search Marquis website, you should realize that your Mac has been infected by the Search Marquis redirect virus. Maybe you unknowingly installed Search Maquis browser extensions or downloaded other software that had Search Marquis attached to it.

In the future, try to only download software from well-recognized stores and official sites Today, you should take a look at the below solutions on how to get Search Marquis removal from Mac and bring back your Mac computer a healthy browsing experience.

How to Remove Search Marquis from Mac

Now that you know how Search Marquis works, there are a few ways to get the Search Marquis removal from your Mac device. You can use an automatic Mac malware detector or you can try to delete all instances of Search Maquis from your Mac manually. Here's what to do:

Fix 1: Destroy Search Marquis with antivirus software

It is recommended to use antimalware or antivirus software to deal with the Search Marquis Bing redirect virus. There are plenty of programs to destroy Mac malware or virus, including viruses from Browser hijackers. Here we prefer to use CleanMyMac X.

CleanMyMac X is the most comprehensive Mac optimization software. It not only scans your Mac for speed improvements but also helps you get rid of old files and folders, delete useless logs and settings, uninstall apps completely, reindex search, free up RAM, and much more.

CleanMyMac X always ensures your Mac is working up to its maximum capacity without being overloaded with junk files. Besides, its malware scanner detects and remove any virus, adware, trojans, and more in just a few clicks, keep reading to know how its Malware Removal works:

  1. Download and launch CleanMyMac X.
  2. Navigate to the Malware tab and click Scan.
  3. When the app detects the Search Marquis virus, click Remove.
    use CleanMyMac X to remove Search Marquis from Mac

 

Fix 2: Get rid of Search Marquis in 4 steps

In addition to getting Search Marquis removal automatically, you can also do this removal work manually in 4 steps. Please be sure to follow these steps one by one in case any wrong deletion or mistake occurs.

Step 1: Trash malicious applications

  1. Open Finder from your Mac dock, click Go to show its drop-down menu, and choose Utilities. Alternatively, you can hold down the Shift + Command + U keyboard shortcut to open the Utilities window.
    open Utility window from Mac Finder
  2. Double-click on Activity Monitor. Take a look at the running processes and try to identify the malicious app. Its name isn't likely to have anything in common with the Search Marquis virus, therefore you should focus on those unfamiliar processes.
  3. Once you spot the suspicious one, select it and click the X button in the upper left of the Activity Monitor screen. Follow on-screen prompts to force quit the unwanted item.
    force quit in Activity Monitor
  4. Then reopen the Go menu from Finder, choose Applications this time, or use Shift + Command + A key combinations.
  5. In the Application folder window, identify any recent apps you don't remember installing and drag them to the Mac Trash.

Step 2: Remove suspicious login items

Some malicious processes load together with your other legit login items on Mac. Thus, you don't remember to have opened any suspicious apps after Mac boots up but the malicious code still running in the background. The good news is you can easily kick out any login items you don't like:

  1. Go to the Apple menu > System Preferences, When System Preferences appears, choose Users & Groups.
  2. Switch to the Login Items tab. Click the padlock icon at the bottom left to enable changes -this will require your admin password.
  3. If you notice anything that should not be there, check the box next to it and click the minus icon to delete it from the login items.
    remove login items from macOS

Step 3: Get rid of malware-related leftovers

With Applications, Utilities, and Login Items clean, you might think you got rid of Search Marquis forever, but it's not that simple. A large part of Search Marquis removal is scanning your Mac for any leftovers:

  1. Open Finder, select the Go to Folder option from the Go menu or use the Shift + Command + G key combo to open up the Go to Folder window.
  2. Copy each of the following folder names and paste them into the search box. Click Go after each one.
    ~/Library/LaunchAgents
    ~/Library/LaunchDaemons
    ~/Library/Application Support
    go to Library LaunchAgents folder
  3. Examine each folder for items with the word "Search Marquis" in the title.
  4. If you find any, delete them. Be extra cautious, as removing system-forming files by accident may result in a system crash.

Step 4. Restore hijacked browsers

Most of the time, Search Marquis hijacking works as an actual extension on your browsers. So the final step to get rid of the virus is to remove any browser extensions that look out of place. Below is the guide on how to get the extension removal from Mac Safari browser, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox.

Safari

  1. Launch the Safari browser. Go to the Safari menu > Preferences.
  2. In the Preferences window, choose the Extensions tab. Look for any extensions that resemble Search Marquis, select it and press Uninstall.
    remove Safari extensions
  3. Return to the General tab. Type the preferred website in the Homepage field.
  4. Next, go to the Search tab and pick a legitimate search engine from the drop-down list.
    set a legitimate search engine in Safari

Chrome

  1. Open Google Chrome, then select Preferences from the menu bar.
  2. Select the Extensions panel in the sidebar from the Preferences window.
    Google Chrome settings
  3. Scan the list of extensions and click Remove on the ones you don't need.
    remove Google Chrome extensions
  4. Go back to the Preferences page, choose On start-up in the sidebar. Then define your homepage.
  5. After that, go to the Search engine option and pick the one you want to use from the drop-down list.

Mozilla Firefox

  1. Open Mozilla Firefox and select the Preferences option from the menu bar.
  2. At the Preferences page, choose the Extensions tab.
  3. Select the extension you don't need and switch the ellipses button into grey to remove the unwanted browser extension.
    remove Firefox extensions
  4. Go back to the Search panel, choose the search engine you wish to use by default from the drop-down list under Default Search Engine.
    Firefox Search panel

It seems you have a lot of work to do to completely remove the Search Marquis virus from your Mac device manually. You may wonder if there are other convenient ways to get rid of Search Marquis. Fortunately, since the Search Marquis virus always sticks with the browsers, resetting the browsers to the default shall remove Search Marquis for good.

How to delete the Search Marquis Mac virus from browsers

Before proceeding to get your browser back to its default setting, you should realize doing this will reset most of the customizations and personalization you have on it. The history of your surfing activities, cookies, as well as temporary data stored by websites will vanish too.

But it is worth doing because the malicious code will be destroyed completely. So, if you are ready for all of these, follow the steps below to delete Search Marquis Virus from Safari browser, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox.

Reset Safari browser settings to remove Search Marquis

  1. Launch the Safari browser and then go to the Safari menu.
  2. Select Preferences from the drop-down list.
  3. When the Preferences screen pops up, click on the Advanced tab and check the box beside the Show Develop option in the menu bar.
    Safari Advanced tab
  4. Now click the Develop panel from the Safari menu and click on Empty Caches from the drop-down list.
    empty caches from the Safari Develop tab
  5. Click the History tab from the Safari menu and select the Clear History option.
  6. Choose all history, click on the Clear History button to confirm.
    clear Safari history
  7. Once again, go to the Safari Preferences and select the Privacy tab. Click on Manage Website Data.
    Safari Privacy tab
  8. A follow-up screen will pop up, listing all the websites that have stored data about your activities on the Internet. Then click on Remove All.
  9. After that, restart Safari.

Reset Google browser settings to remove Search Marquis

  1. Open Google Chrome, click the Customize and control Google Chrome symbol in the upper right, and choose Settings.
    Customize and control the Google Chrome button
  2. Select the Advanced panel from the sidebar.
  3. Then, navigate to the Reset settings tab.
  4. Click on Reset settings and a message will pop up. Then, hit the Reset settings button.
    reset Google Chrome
  5. Once it is done, restart the app and the Search Marquis might have been solved.

Reset Firefox browser settings to remove Search Marquis

  1. Launch the Firefox app and click the three parallel dashes at the top right corner of the window. Click the Help option and select Troubleshooting Information.
  2. On the Troubleshooting Information screen, hit the Refresh Firefox button.
    reset Firefox
  3. Confirm the changes you want to make and restart Firefox. As soon as the app restarts, all those annoying Bing redirect viruses caused by Search Marquis should have vanished for good.