How to remove FocusGuide (Mac)

What is FocusGuide

FocusGuide is classified as an adware app with hijacker traits. Developers behind this software mainly draw their focus towards macOS users. Its main purpose lies in displaying content from suspicious advertising networks to generate as much profit as possible before users find and delete the unwanted program. Besides receiving a lot of ads, banners, pop-ups, and notifications, FocusGuide may change search and homepage settings to cause redirects adjusted for the needs of cyber criminals. In the majority of cases, browser hijackers use fake along with legitimate engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others as well. Just like with ads, this is meant to generate fraudulent traffic of visits. It is likely you have some unwanted extension running as well. Desktop programs install them as a follow-up measure to aid in applying all of the necessary changes. Should people allow such apps to work in their system, they may become victims of data surveillance and other security issues as well. Be sure they have access to everything you do around the web, so information like passwords or IP addresses will be easily collected. For this and many other reasons, it is urgent to delete FocusGuide from your system. Our guide below will help you do this in a couple of steps.

How FocusGuide infected your computer

The best and most effective way of distributing unwanted software is via “bundled installers”. In other words, these are the set-ups meant to install some free, pirated, or cracked software. Most of them contain additional offers along with the main program. Such offers are usually marked as something “useful” or even “legitimate”, but yet should never be trusted. Unfortunately, most of the additional offers end up installed against users’ consent. This happens because many skip over “Advanced” or “Custom” sections containing such offers, which are already selected for installation. There is also a chance some users got penetrated after interacting with compromised web content. Cybercriminals may promote malicious websites via various ads that execute special scripts to infiltrate systems. This is why it is important to protect yourself and become more careful when running online activities. To learn more about preventative measures against such software in the future, follow our guide below.

1. Download FocusGuide Removal Tool
2. Remove FocusGuide from Login Items
3. Remove/Uninstall FocusGuide from Applications
4. Remove FocusGuide from browsers
5. Reset browser settings
6. Remove FocusGuide files and folders
7. Block FocusGuide ads and pop-ups
8. How to protect from threats, like FocusGuide

Remove FocusGuide manually for free

Note: FocusGuide sets up to start on Mac OS startup. Therefore, before starting the removal, perform these steps:

1. Open System Preferences, choose Users & Groups.
2. Choose your account (set up as Current User).
3. Click Login Items tab.
4. Find “FocusGuide” entry. Select it, and click the “-“ (minus) button to remove it.

Note 2: FocusGuide won’t quit just by closing it, therefor use Force Quit to end the process.

1. Press 3 buttons at the same time: Option, Command, and Esc (Escape). This is similar to Control-Alt-Delete on a Windows PC.
2. Choose FocusGuide in the list.
3. Click Force Quit button.

Here is a manual step-by-step tutorial for full FocusGuide removal from your computer. This works 99% and was checked with the latest versions of FocusGuide installer on operating systems with the latest updates and browser versions.

Remove FocusGuide from Applications

Remove FocusGuide from Mac:

1. In the Finder sidebar, click Applications.
2. FocusGuide might have an Uninstaller. If you see Uninstall FocusGuide or FocusGuide Uninstaller, double-click it and follow the onscreen instructions.
3. Otherwise, drag FocusGuide from the Applications folder to the Trash (located at the end of the Dock).
4. Then choose Finder > Empty Trash.

Cannot uninstall FocusGuide

If you can’t uninstall FocusGuide using instructions above, or it keeps coming back, you can use free AppCleaner for Mac to remove all residual data and libraries of FocusGuide. Follow instructions below:

1. Download free AppCleaner.
2. Drag FocusGuide from Applications folder to AppCleaner window.
3. Choose files and folders you want to remove along with FocusGuide.
4. Click Delete button.

Remove FocusGuide add-on from your browsers

Removing FocusGuide from Applications often does not bring the desired effect. It is a browser extension and it may still be active in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Here are instructions on how to remove the FocusGuide extension from your browsers manually.

Safari:

1. Start Safari on your Mac, click Safari to open drop-down menu and choose Preferences
2. Click Extensions tab.
3. Find FocusGuide extension.
4. Click Uninstall button to remove it.

Google Chrome:

1. Start Google Chrome browser
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) chrome://extensions.
3. Find FocusGuide extension.
4. Click the trash can icon to remove it.

Mozilla Firefox:

1. Start Mozilla Firefox browser.
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) about:addons.
3. Choose FocusGuide extension.
4. Click Disable or Remove button.

Reset browser settings

To finish FocusGuide removal reset your browser settings to make sure, there are no leftover items in browser folders.

Reset Safari:

1. Start Safari on your Mac, click Safari to open drop-down menu and choose Preferences
2. Go to the Privacy section of Safari’s preferences.
3. Click Remove All Website Data button.
4. In opened window click Remove Now button to remove data stored by websites in Safari.
5. Go to the Advanced section of Safari’s preferences.
6. Click the Show Develop menu in menu bar option.
7. In the menu click Develop and select Empty Caches from this menu.
8. Again, go to Safari menu and choose Clear History….
9. Choose to clear all history and click Clear History button.

Reset Google Chrome:

1. Start Google Chrome browser
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) chrome://settings.
3. Scroll down and find Show advanced settings link.
4. Click on it and scroll down to the bottom again.
5. Click Reset settings button and click Reset to confirm.

Reset Mozilla Firefox:

1. Start Mozilla Firefox browser.
2. In address box type (or copy-paste) about:support.
3. Click Refresh Firefox… button.
4. Click Refresh Firefox to confirm.

Remove following files and folders of FocusGuide


~/Library/Application Support/.[random_string]/Services/com.FocusGuide.service.app
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.FocusGuide.service.plist
/Library/Application Support/.[random_string]/System/com.FocusGuide.system
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.FocusGuide.system.plist


Download AdGuard for Mac to block malicious pop-ups, that promote FocusGuide

AdGuard is the best ad-blocker, internet filtering, and internet security application for macOS. It can cut out unwanted banners from site pages, block pop-ups, stop redirects, and prevent users from visiting potentially dangerous resources. Use it to stop ads promoting FocusGuide in browsers.

How to protect Mac OSX from adware, like FocusGuide

Mac OSX is known to be one of the safest operating systems, and for a long time, there was no need for antivirus products for Mac. But with the growing popularity of Mac computers and notebooks and evolving technology, viruses, trojans, adware, toolbars, hijackers, and other malware paved the way for Mac users. We recommend you to use one of the best anti-malware for Mac available – Malwarebytes for Mac.