How to remove Prudensearch.com (Mac)

What is Prudensearch.com

Prundensearch.com promotes fake search engine and shows suspicious advertisements. These characteristics represent adware and browser hijacker’s capabilities. Initially, such apps are ostensibly focused on providing a better browsing experience. However, on the surface, it looks the opposite. Instead of showing smarter and unique results, Prudensearch.com simply redirects users to Bing.com or Webcrawler.com. It has also been spotted that Prudensearch redirects users through another shady engine – Trovi.com. Search engine settings are usually controlled by accompanying extension – PrudenSearch. As mentioned, Prudensearch.com also imposes intrusive banners that contain malicious links inside of them. By clicking on them, you compromise yourself to other infections. Therefore, to prevent yourself from such consequences, please, follow our guide and delete Prudensearch.com from your computer.

How Prudensearch.com infected your computer

Alike UtilityParse, this unwanted program gets infiltrated via websites that advertise fabricated Adobe Flash Player updaters. Extortionists tend to use famous company products to hide their activity behind the scenes. They create custom repacks named as legitimate updaters that are meant to improve your software. However, instead of this, they simply install unwanted applications and put user’s privacy at risk. Additionally, we ask you against clicking on dubious ads since they can be part of the distribution system as well. By running executable scripts, they can secretly infect your computer so that you could not avert the sequence.

Remove Prudensearch.com manually for free

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

Important update: Prudensearch.com hijacker installs a malicious Device Profile called AdminPrefs on MacOS, that won’t allow users to make changes to browser search engine and homepage settings. Follow instructions below to remove this profile.

Remove Prudensearch.com profile

1. Go to System Preferences and click on Profiles.
2. In the list of profiles on the left side, choose AdminPrefs and click on “-” button to remove it.
3. In your case it can be named differently, in this case remove all visible profiles. Check the picture below to see how it looks like.

Remove Prudensearch.com from Applications

Remove Prudensearch.com from Mac:

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

Cannot uninstall Prudensearch.com

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

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

Remove Prudensearch.com add-on from your browsers

Removing PrudenSearch 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 PrudenSearch 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 PrudenSearch 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 PrudenSearch 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 PrudenSearch extension.
4. Click Disable or Remove button.

Reset browser settings

To finish Prudensearch.com 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 Prudensearch.com


~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.PrudenSearch.plist
~/Library/Safari/Extensions/PrudenSearch.safariextz
~/Library/Application Support/PrudenSearch


How to protect Mac OSX from hijackers, like Prudensearch.com

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.