A screenshot of https://www.weknow.ac (Mac)

What is Weknow.ac?

If the default search engine on your Chrome, Safari or Firefox browsers have been changed to https://www.weknow.ac without your participation, then you likely have a browser hijacker on your Mac. A browser hijacker is a piece of software that can change the default search engine, homepage, new tab page or start page of a browser. Also, hijackers usually stop users from altering these settings to something else. Weknow.ac browser hijacker adds Admin Preferences to your settings so that the default search engine becomes “enforced by your administrator” and impossible to edit. According to www.weknow.ac’s Privacy Policy, it can collect various data from you, including but not limited to, names of sites that you visit and your search queries, and use this data to display interest-based targeted ads to you or share it with affiliates. We recommend you remove Weknow.ac from your Mac immediately.

How Weknow.ac gets on your Mac?

Weknow.ac browser hijacker might get installed together with some free program: many freeware installers will try to install several PUPs (potentially unwanted programs), including a browser hijacker or two, in addition to the program they were supposed to install. In that case, users can usually decline the installation of extra programs if they are careful to read through everything on the installation screens and uncheck any checkboxes with captions like “I want to set This Search Engine as my default search engine”. Other times, users might install pirated software or fall for social engineering tricks and install a trojan (which is a malicious program disguised as something useful). That trojan usually installs a bunch of other malware or adware onto a computer, some of which may change browser settings like a default search engine. You may use our instructions to remove www.weknow.ac hijacker from your MacOS.

September 2018 Update

According to our users, Weknow.ac hijacker creates its own Device Profile called AdminPrefs on MacOS, which won’t allow users to make changes to browser search engine (wWebcrawler.com, Yahoo or Bing) and homepage. Please read our article below about how to remove Weknow.ac Device Profile.

How to get rid of Weknow.ac?

To uninstall Weknow.ac remove it from Applications, then delete all leftover files and folders.

In our view, only one product is capable to remove Weknow.ac. Please, use CleanMyMac to get rif of all files, folders and regkeys of Weknow.ac.

Recommended Solution:

CleanMyMac Antivirus for Mac – might be able to find Weknow.ac and clean up leftover items after removal.

 

Download CleanMyMac

Or uninstall Weknow.ac manually.

Handy Solution

For manually removing of Weknow.ac you should remove malicious profile(s) from System Preferences.

  • Run LaunchPad and choose System Preferences
  • Open System Preferences and find Profiles.
  • In the list of profiles on the left side choose AdminPrefs and press remove ‘-‘ button.
  • Malicious profile can be named slightly differently, so you can remove all existed profiles.

    • remove Weknow.ac profile

    Alternative solution. Step 1: Remove Weknow.ac from Mac

    Weknow.ac may not have the app associated with it in Applications. However, we recommend you to inspect the list of installed applications and remove unknown or suspicious ones. Look for Weknow.ac or Weknow.ac.app.

    Mac OSX:

    1. Open Finder
    2. In the Finder sidebar, click Applications
    3. If you see Uninstall Weknow.ac or Weknow.ac Uninstaller, double-click it and follow instructions
    4. Drag unwanted application Weknow.ac from the Applications folder to the Trash (located on the right side of the Dock)

    Learn more about uninstallation of programs in Mac OSX

    appcleanerTo remove leftover items of unwanted application on Mac we recommend you to use AppCleaner. Just drag application you want to remove to AppCleaner window and it will search for residual data on your hard drive. This will save space of your memory and will help to remove stubborn applications from Mac systems.

    Step 2: Get rid of Weknow.ac using Terminal (only for Google Chrome)

    1. Open Terminal
    2. Copy and paste the following entries one by one each time by pressing “ENTER”:
      defaults write com.google.Chrome HomepageIsNewTabPage -bool false
      defaults write com.google.Chrome NewTabPageLocation -string “https://www.google.com/”
      defaults write com.google.Chrome HomepageLocation -string “https://www.google.com/”
      defaults delete com.google.Chrome DefaultSearchProviderSearchURL
      defaults delete com.google.Chrome DefaultSearchProviderNewTabURL
      defaults delete com.google.Chrome DefaultSearchProviderName
    3. Relaunch Chrome

    After that remove Weknow.ac from your browser.

    Step 3: Remove Weknow.ac from browsers

    Safari:

    1. Open Safari
    2. Click Safari menu.
    3. Choose Extensions.
    4. Find Weknow or other suspicious extensions.
    5. Click Uninstall button to remove it.

    Learn more about removing extensions from Safari.

    Google Chrome:

    1. Open Google Chrome
    2. Push Alt + F.
    3. Click Tools.
    4. Choose Extensions.
    5. Find Weknow or other suspicious extensions.
    6. Click the trash can icon to remove it.

    Learn more about removing extensions from Chrome.

    Mozilla Firefox:

    1. Open Firefox.
    2. Push Shift + Ctrl + A.
    3. Choose Weknow or other suspicious extensions.
    4. Click Disable or Remove button.

    Learn more about removing extensions from Firefox.

    Step 4: Resetting your browser search and homepage settings

    Reset browser setting in Safari:

    1. Open Safari.
    2. Click on the Safari menu.
    3. Choose Reset Safari….
    4. Click Reset button.

    Learn more about resetting browser settings in Safari.

    Reset browser setting in Google Chrome:

    1. Click the Chrome menu (3 bar button) in the top right corner.
    2. Choose Settings.
    3. Click Show advanced settings.
    4. Go to Reset browser settings section.
    5. Click Reset browser settings.
    6. In the dialog that appears, click Reset.

    Learn more about resetting browser settings in Google Chrome.

    Reset browser setting in Mozilla Firefox:

    1. Open Mozilla Firefox.
    2. Go to Help.
    3. Go to Troubleshooting information.
    4. Click Reset Firefox… button.

    Learn more about resetting browser settings in Mozilla Firefox.

    Step 5: Remove following files and folders of Weknow.ac:

    Remove following registry entries:

    no information

    Remove following files:

    no information

    Remove following folders

    no information

    24 Comments

    1. Merci pour cet article.
      À préciser que ces deux logiciels sont cependant payants (1 mois d’essai gratuit pour Malwarebytes Antimalware).
      Dommage qu’une alternative gratuite ne soit pas proposée.

    5. Après avoir fait toutes ces opérations ci-dessous, Weknow revient tjrs los de l’ouverture de SAFARI. Auriez vous 1 autre idée ? Merci
      – Supprimer toutes les Apps douteuses
      – Supprimer ‘Profils’ dans préférence système
      – Supprimer ‘toutes extensions ‘ dans SAFARI/préférence/Extensions
      – Désactiver tous les websites dans SAFARI/préférence/Privacy
      – Pas d’app ‘Weknow.ac’ dans dossier Application
      – Vider les ‘caches’ dans SAFARI/MENU/DEVELOP
      – Reboot MAcBook

    7. Kudos to whomsoever for publishing these solutions. Not cool that WeKnow.ac don’t seem to accept any responsibility for seriously wasting an unfathomable amount of time across the many users hit by their malware, nor publishing the much needed apology and pledge to not release their automated maleficence in future.

      One complication for people synchronising their browser settings across Google accounts, etc, is that as soon as you’ve cleaned one device, it can get reinfected from your cloud hub archive. Eventually worked this out.

      IF YOU ARE SYNCHRONISING BROWSER SETTINGS, SWITCH OFF SYNCING FIRST, APPLY APPROPRIATE TREATMENT TO EACH DEVICE, TEST EACH DEVICE TO CONFIRM IT IS CLEAN OF WEHAVENTACLUE.AC AND THEN, AND ONLY THEN, SWITCH SYNCING BACK ON. (File international law suit, sue them for compensation, retire to private desert island).

    9. Io ho eseguito tutte le indicazioni, ma il browser non si è disinfettato e weknow.ac è sempre presente. Ho cisto che nelle FAQ del browser viene consigliato un sistema download per disinstallare weknow.ac: anche quello è dannoso? grazie

    14. I followed the instructions above. Worked just fine. It’s gone, after removing its admin permissions and checking my settings again, Google Chrome is once again my default browser. Safari is running sweetly. No sign of weknow.ac anymore.

    15. i have discovered if you are having troubles with uninstalling Weknow from your search engine you should follow these steps until the last one which is “Resetting your browser search and homepage settings” instead you should:
      1. go to setting
      2.Sync
      3. follow the rest of the steps
      this should only fix your search engine back to google but Weknow will still be present on your desktop

    16. Use the command line to delete / modify the affected policies. You do this by opening up “Terminal” and copy and paste each of the following entries below. I did each one at a time. I copy and pasted the first line and then hit enter and then went to the next until I had finished all 6 below:

      defaults write com.google.Chrome HomepageIsNewTabPage -bool false
      defaults write com.google.Chrome NewTabPageLocation -string “https://www.google.com/”
      defaults write com.google.Chrome HomepageLocation -string “https://www.google.com/”
      defaults delete com.google.Chrome DefaultSearchProviderSearchURL
      defaults delete com.google.Chrome DefaultSearchProviderNewTabURL
      defaults delete com.google.Chrome DefaultSearchProviderName

      Quit Chome and restart it and voila the virus will be gone.

      • OMG Ben, without being inappropriate, I LOVE YOU.

        I’ve had the stupid weknow stuck on my Chrome for the better part of 2 years. I’ve done all the steps and still it would show up. Your terminal codes fixed it! Praise!

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