Remove Chill Tab Mac virus from Safari, Firefox, Chrome

Chill Tab virus removal from Mac is on numerous users’ to-do list because it changes browser settings without permission and harvests sensitive information.

There are several serious concerns about the behavioral quirks of the Chill Tab Mac app. Contrary to regular software in general and browser add-ons in particular, it ignores such a crucial thing as the user’s approval when making significant changes to the way the web surfing is done. It literally trespasses on a computer behind the victim’s back and then imposes its fishy search provider at tab.chill-tab.com or search.chill-tab.com by tampering with the browsing preferences. In addition to these unsanctioned modifications, Chill Tab engages in a sort of covert reconnaissance on the plagued Mac, collecting potentially fingerprintable information about the user and therefore poses a privacy risk. Another disconcerting fact is that although this app was first flagged malicious more than a year ago, the affiliated pseudo search provider continues to successfully escape blacklisting mechanisms in all popular browsers.

The landing pages that the infected Mac users are forced to visit iteratively look normal and even appear to be professionally tailored. However, both the tab.chill-tab.com and search.chill-tab.com websites are simply appealing wrappings with no real functionality behind them. Whatever you type in the search box, the results will be returned by the Yahoo! custom search engine rather than anything that sounds like Chill Tab. By the way, the linked-to pages are associated with another oldie on the arena of Mac PUAs (potentially unwanted apps) called Safe Finder. So, to recap on this particular subject, Chill Tab claims to enhance one’s online experience but turns out to be a dummy that causes inconveniences and a great deal of irritation to those infected. Obviously, that’s not the way legit software works.

The Chill Tab Mac virus drives traffic to its junk web service by changing the victim’s Internet defaults. It is a cross-browser entity, therefore it supports Safari, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox to an equal extent. The configuration-tweaking routine comes down to altering the homepage, preferred search engine, and new tab page in the targeted browser. The baddie replaces the original values with the fake provider being promoted. By the way, whereas search.chill-tab.com and tab.chill-tab.com are pretty replicas of each other functionally and only differ on the outside (design-wise), the latter has been prevalent during the final quarter of 2018. At the end of the day, the aftermath of this malware attack is that the victims can’t stop being redirected to either nag page when they open their browser of choice, try to do a web search, or trigger a new tab. To top it off, the infection may additionally display bogus browser update alerts in an attempt to trick the user into downloading malicious programs disguised as something benign.

It goes without saying that the app in question doesn’t belong on a Mac. Its authors have no respect for users’ decision-making prerogative and engage in a dirty traffic monetization stratagem. So, continue reading to get a complete Chill Tab virus removal walkthrough.

Remove Chill Tab virus from Mac manually

If you are okay with manual troubleshooting, use the following steps to uninstall the Chill Tab rogue app from your Mac. Be advised the persistence mechanisms employed by the infection may prevent this technique from being ultimately effective. One way or another, here’s the workflow:

• Open the Utilities directory

• When on the Utilities pane, select Activity Monitor (the Mac equivalent of Task Manager)

• Once the Activity Monitor screen appears, look for Chill Tab or Chill Tab on the list of running processes. Highlight that entry and click on the Quit Process option. The system will respond to this action with a confirmation dialog, where you should select Force Quit

• Now go back to your desktop, expand the Go menu and pick Applications in the drop-down

• Spot Chill Tab (or Chill Tab) under Applications, highlight it and select the Move to Trash option. Your Mac may request your administrator password at this point – enter it if that’s the case

• Next, go to Apple Menu and choose System Preferences in the drop-down as shown below

• Proceed to Accounts and select Login Items. Your Mac will display the list of apps that are executed automatically at boot time. Find Chill Tab on that list and click on the “-” (minus) button down at the bottom

• Move on to the Go drop-down menu in Apple Finder and click on the Go to Folder option

• When the folder search box appears, enter the following path in it: /Library/LaunchAgents

• Having accessed the LaunchAgents folder, look for the following items in it and, if found, send them all to the Trash:

• tab.chill-tab.com.update.plist
• tab.chill-tab.com.AppRemoval.plist
• tab.chill-tab.com.download.plist
• tab.chill-tab.com.ltvbit.plist
• com.Tab.chill-tab.com.agent.plist
• com.SoftwareUpdater.agent.plist

• Now, leverage the Go to Folder function to navigate to the ~/Library/LaunchAgents directory. Again, look for the objects listed above and delete all the matches you find.

• Follow the same logic to browse to a folder named ~Library/Application Support. Look for the following items in it and send them to the Trash once spotted:

• SoftwareUpdater
• tab.chill-tab.com

When done with the manual process of Chill Tab removal, take some time and check if the virus has vanished from your Mac. If it continues to cause browser redirects, move on to the following section of this tutorial.

Restore web browser settings to their original defaults

In the circumstances of a complex browser hijack like this, executing a reset makes the most sense despite a few obvious downsides. Customizations such as saved passwords, bookmarked pages etc. will be gone, but so will all the changes made by the potentially unwanted program. The instructions below address the workflow for the web browsers most targeted by the Chill Tab virus.

Reset Safari

• Go to the Safari menu and select Preferences

• When on the Preferences screen, select the Privacy tab and hit the Remove All Website Data button if you are up to erasing all website data stored on your Mac. Otherwise, you can use a site-specific removal option described below

• A dialog will appear, asking you to validate your choice. Click the Remove Now button if you are sure. Be advised this will log you out of online services and undo personalized web browser settings such as saved passwords, etc.

• Safari also allows deleting data for specific sites rather than all sites in general. To use this option, click the Details button under Privacy tab

• Select the websites for which you would like to erase data and click the Remove button

• Click the Done button to confirm and exit. You can also select the Remove All option to remove all data stored by the listed websites.

Reset Mozilla Firefox

• Open Firefox, type about:support in the URL area and press Enter. Alternatively, you can go to Help – Troubleshooting Information

• Click on the Refresh Firefox button as shown below

Remove Chill Tab virus from Mac using a security suite

The use of automatic security software to identify and delete Mac malware reduces human error and ensures that the stealthiest fragment of the culprit is spotted and terminated.

1. Download and install MacBooster. This tool combines antimalware and performance enhancement features for Mac. Launch the app and hit the Scan button on the System Status pane. The utility will scour your computer for memory issues and malware, including Chill Tab, and will shortly report all the detected issues. Once the scan results are ready, click Fix to eliminate the threats

Download Chill Tab virus remover

2. To go all the way in Chill Tab removal, additionally select the Uninstaller module. It reflects all applications running on your Mac in a single list and allows you to reset or get rid of the unnecessary ones in a few clicks. Simply locate Chill Tab if it’s still there, put a checkmark next to it and click Complete Remove at the top

You’re now done with Chill Tab removal from your Mac computer. Last but not least, be sure to exercise some extra caution with suspicious application installs further on.