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adware extensions erode trust in Apple, Google app stores
Browser extensions are a staple of almost every user’s set up. Even in managed environments, users are often able to install extensions or ‘Add Ons’ without authorisation when these are sourced from trusted sources like Apple’s Safari Extensions Gallery and Google’s Chrome store. Of course, there’s nothing new about attackers exploiting the browser extension as a means to gaining a foothold in a target environment. The problem has been around for years: what is surprising is just how difficult it is to contain the problem. In this post, I take a look at the risks involved with what appears to be a harmless extension available for both Safari and Chrome. As we’ll find out, not everything appears as it seems.
how to recover Safari from a browser hijack
The quickest way to get out of a persistent popup that won’t go away (unless you do what it demands!) is to quit or force quit* the browser then restart Safari holding down the ‘Shift’ key.
Holding down Shift allows Safari (or any other app) to restart without resuming its last state.
While this is a great, fast way to solve the problem, it can be annoying if you had other tabs open, and you don’t want to loose those too (or any unsaved data they may contain).
Here’s how you get rid of these kinds of Javascript hijacks without losing your other tabs.
1. Go to Terminal and paste this command (it’s all one line):
defaults write com.apple.safari "com.apple.Safari.ContentPageGroupIdentifier.WebKit2JavaScriptEnabled" 0; killall Safari
This turns off Javascript and quits Safari.
2. Reopen Safari
You’ll get all your tabs back including the hijacked tab, but the pop up won’t appear, and you can now close the hijacked tab.
3. Go to Safari Preferences and reenable JavaScript in the Security prefs
(alternatively you can do that in Terminal).
Don’t forget this step, or you’ll think the web is broken!
More sophisticated or persistent adware and malware attacks can be mitigated by using apps like my free App Fixer or DetectX.
*You can force quit an app by pressing the following keys in combination on your keyboard <command><option><esc> then choosing the app you want to quit.
run Terminal commands from any app
In this post I’m going to show you how you can select a piece of text in any app and have it run in Terminal simply by hitting a hotkey. The trick is especially useful for running commands you find on websites (like this one!) in a browser like Safari or Firefox.
This 20-second clip demonstrates running a command from a Firefox browser and another one from TextEdit, but you can also do it from an AppleScript editor window (and indeed any app that has selectable text), which can be useful for testing the formatting of your ‘do shell script’ commands and the like:
The first thing you’re going to need is to create an Automator workflow, add an AppleScript action and insert some code. Really? Nah, just kidding. I did it for you. 🙂 Just download, unzip and double-click the .workflow file to install the completed Service:
Download Run in Terminal.workflow.zip
Click through the various dialog boxes and choose ‘Install’ on the last one* (note for Snow Leopard users: the service will open directly in Automator; just do ‘command-shift-S’ to name it and save it).
All you need to do now is set the hotkey. Open > System Preferences.. > Keyboard | Shortcuts and click ‘Services’ in the sidebar. Scroll down the window till you see the ‘Run in Terminal’ command. Click on the far right to add a shortcut of your choice. The one I used in the video is ‘command-option-control-T’ (‘T’ for ‘Terminal’ helps me remember the shortcut).
To use the Service, just highlight any Terminal command by triple clicking it and pressing your hotkey. Try this one,
cd ~/Desktop; ls -alF
which lists all the visible and invisible files on your Desktop, as a test.
You can also get to the Service from both the contextual menu (right-click > Services) and the application menu bar at the top (e.g., Safari > Services).
As a bonus, try out your new Service on the Terminal command in this post, and now you’ll be able to run Terminal commands even from Quick Look previews in Finder!
Enjoy! 🙂
block MacKeeper and other browser ads
Generally, I like to keep browser extensions down to a minimum, but here’s an essential one if you are tired of all those ‘Clean your mac’ / ‘Speed up your mac’ ads on every website you visit. Download and install the Safari adblock extension from here:
What I like about this particular adblocker is that, if you go with the default filters, not only does it load your pages faster but it also reformats the page as if the ads were never even there, rather than leaving unsightly, blank placeholders in the page as some other ad filtering services do.
The extension is free, though you’re encouraged to donate if you appreciate the work done by the developer.
🙂
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