Safari homepage hijacked and I can't change back

imac 2011 10.10.5

Safari had homepage hijacked and I can't change it back to google.com. When I go to Safari preferences and try and change, it just immediately goes to www.rack-search.com/....

I tried deleting all the com.apple.safari.plists in library.

Can you help?


Solution 1:

This answer is not for a malware hijack situation, but rather a bug in Safari 11.0 that does not allow you to change the homepage. If you try to change the homepage, as soon as you defocus from that field, it reverts back to the original.

The workaround is:

  • Enter the new homepage. Do not press tab/enter or leave the field.
  • Click on another tab in Preferences, such as the Advanced tab.

Now it should ask you to confirm to change your homepage.

Solution 2:

Seems you appear to have adware. There's a free program the Apple Store and Apple Phone support even recommends called MalwareBytes. The website is adwaremedic.com. Once you run it, you'll probably need to reboot and again reset your browser home page.

Solution 3:

Here is how I manually fix Safari

Remove Safari’s configuration folder:

Open the Go menu in the OS X Finder Hold the Option key and choose the Library option that appears Move the “Safari” folder in here to your desktop

Remove Safari’s window state:

Open the Library > Saved Application State folder Locate the “com.apple.Safari.savedState” folder Move this folder to the trash

Remove Safari’s application caches:

Open the Library > Caches folder Locate all folders that begin with “com.apple.Safari” Move these folders to the trash.

Remove Safari Cookies configurations:

Open the Library > Cookies folder Remove the file called “com.apple.Safari.SafeBrowsing.binarycookies”

Remove Safari’s preferences:

Open the Library > Preferences folder Remove any file that begins with “com.apple.Safari”

Remove user plug-ins:

Go to the Library > Internet Plug-Ins folder Move all items from this folder to your Desktop (or elsewhere)

Remove global plug-ins:

Go to the Macintosh HD > Library > Internet plug-ins folder Move all items out of this folder except the following plug-ins:

Default Browser.plugin

iPhotoPhotocast.plugin

Quartz Composer.webplugin

QuickTime Plugin.plugin

Hope this helps