Removing Taboola from Chrome

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From a predominantly Chrome (+ occasional Safari & Firefox) user, may I tap into the wealth of knowledge available within this thread (Mods plse move if necessary) to ask how one gets rid of 'invaders' (my terminology) in Chrome.

In particular, Taboola, which puts highly intrusive popunder ads beneath a video. It occurs only in LiveLeak LiveLeak.com - Redefining the Media which would indicate that's how it got into Chrome in the first place. AdBlock seems unable to deal with it.

I have searched Mac-Forums, and the general Web for instructions on how to remove Taboola, but all the information I've found relates to WinOS.
 

vansmith

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Note: Hugh, I moved your post to a new thread to ensure that the conversation stays on track. :)

I suppose an easy first step would be to check and see if extensions are present that might bring this about. Is there a Taboola extension?
 
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hughvane
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Thanks vansmith. No extension that I've been able to find. There's a wealth of reference to Taboola on the Web. It's a genuine 'burrower', that settles itself in the browser's engine. I've deleted a deal of browsing data, and will need to take time to see what effect might happen.
 
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Have you tried the free adware removal tool from MalwareBytes?
 
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I agree with Lifeisabeach, download and run Malwarebytes (formerly AdwareMedic).

Lisa
 
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Unfortunately, looks like AdwareMedic does not work with OS 10.6, but I shall kick it into the other OS on my Mini HD. In the meantime, Taboola *seems* to have taken leave of absence, so perhaps the cleaning of Chrome has worked. I'd still like to find its name and location within Chrome. Thanks to all contributors.
 

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From a predominantly Chrome (+ occasional Safari & Firefox) user, may I tap into the wealth of knowledge available within this thread (Mods plse move if necessary) to ask how one gets rid of 'invaders' (my terminology) in Chrome.

In particular, Taboola, which puts highly intrusive popunder ads beneath a video. It occurs only in LiveLeak LiveLeak.com - Redefining the Media which would indicate that's how it got into Chrome in the first place. AdBlock seems unable to deal with it.

I have searched Mac-Forums, and the general Web for instructions on how to remove Taboola, but all the information I've found relates to WinOS.

Hughvane this is how wikipedia describes Taboola;
Taboola is a content marketing platform that provides a web widget to content creators on their website to show "Content You May Like" that includes links to related articles, videos, and slideshows, ... Wikipedia
To get rid of it you need to use a Removal Tool, found here; Remove Taboola from your computer
Amusingly enough it appears as though this site is also a victim.
 
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hughvane
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Unfortunately MalwareBytes didn't remove the Taboola worm, and SpyHunter does not work with MacOS.

I cleared absolutely everything but Google's own content setting from Chrome, but the problem has persisted. I can use Safari to browse Liveleak, which I am doing with Yosemite (but not SnLpd - using my dual partition HD, see next), but that doesn't solve the Taboola issue.

To throw even more confusion into the works, Chrome with SnLpd on both this Mini and my Macbook no longer displays the Taboola ads in LiveLeak, so I must have done something useful there.

Any further thoughts on how to get rid of this invasive Taboola pest?
 
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You could try downloading Find Any File and use it to do some searches on anything containing 'Taboola' and it just may find the culprit you can then Delete:
Thomas Tempelmann - Find Any File
 
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Thank you pm-r, I think you may have provided the necessary means to removing taboola. I have a question however about the removal process. Researching info about Taboola, I learned that it sets cookies. Strange then that Finder couldn't locate them (perhaps it was case-sensitive).

Using Find Any File, I have located the taboola.com cookies, and displayed them in TextEdit. My question is "will deleting those cookie text threads from TextEdit negatively affect the operation of the (Chrome) browser?"
 

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It shouldn't. If you want to make sure though, simply post the location and contents and we can take a look.
 

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Is it not possible to simply empty the browser cache of all cookies? Text Edit is just a reader so deleting those entries shouldn't effect anything.
 
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Thank you pm-r, I think you may have provided the necessary means to removing taboola. I have a question however about the removal process. Researching info about Taboola, I learned that it sets cookies. Strange then that Finder couldn't locate them (perhaps it was case-sensitive).

Using Find Any File, I have located the taboola.com cookies, and displayed them in TextEdit. My question is "will deleting those cookie text threads from TextEdit negatively affect the operation of the (Chrome) browser?"

I take the attitude that if anything you can point to that was discovered to be the cause of the problem need to be Trashed.

That's why I like Find Any File so much, and especially it's option key + search to get root permissions and the resulting selections and Delete Immediately and poof, gone!!

Especially if such stuff came after, i.e.: it didn't even come with the browser you use, or even needed.
 
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Good question, but at a tangent. I switched into the Yosemite partition with the intention of locating taboola cookies using FAF. Cookie folders numerous, but nothing therein labelled taboola.com as in the SLpd partition.

What the search app did find on one of the backup drives however was a folder named 23MUWFZ7, and a file therein named #cdn.taboolasyndication.com. What is #cdn, and, relevantly, might removing it (from the external drive) affect the OS?
 
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Is it not possible to simply empty the browser cache of all cookies? Text Edit is just a reader so deleting those entries shouldn't effect anything.

I did that Rod, maybe four times, but the Taboola factor remained, and still does (Yosemite>Chrome).
 
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It shouldn't. If you want to make sure though, simply post the location and contents and we can take a look.


Thanks vansmith, my reply earlier (didn't click 'reply with quote' :Blushing:).
 
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Continuing this thread after a lengthy period, I have updated both hardware and OS versions, and am now operating Sierra. Unfortunately its installation did not remove the Taboola adware. Using Chrome, and showing the Source Code from a LiveLeak page, the name Taboola how up in a number of lines, but not to my untrained eye where the connection to the so-called Sponsored Links is coming from. Here is part of what appears in the Source Code
<center> <div id="taboola-bottommaincolumn"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
window._taboola = window._taboola || [];
window._taboola.push({mode: "autosized-generated-1r", container: "taboola-bottommaincolumn", placement: "Bottom Main Column"});

Using the latest Safari makes no difference except that I cannot view Source Code.

Reiterating, none of the adware, malware or file search functions recommended/suggested make any difference to the Taboola invasion, so am I at a dead end in respect of removing it? I'm almost sure someone expert in how these intrusion occur and can advise me (and others).
 

chscag

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Most of the links for removing Taboola have to do with it infecting PCs but I did find some instructions for removing from a Mac: Remove Taboola from Mac
 
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Continuing this thread after a lengthy period, I have updated both hardware and OS versions, and am now operating Sierra. Unfortunately its installation did not remove the Taboola adware.

Have you tried either of these???:

Remove Taboola ads virus from Safari, Chrome and Firefox on Mac
Posted 5/17/2016 at 11:35 am
To get Taboola ads out of the way during Internet browsing sessions on a Mac, it’s highly recommended to utilize an effective adware eradication technique.

A growing number of Mac users have been falling victim to a potentially unwanted program that serves superfluous ads labeled “by Taboola”, “Sponsored links by Taboola” or “Promoted content by Taboola”. As opposed to run-of-the-mill ads on the web, the entities in question appear on unrelated sites, which basically narrows security diagnostics down to the presence of an add-on, toolbar or browser plugin that resides on a particular box running Mac OS X. Typically referred to as adware, intrusive applets of this kind complement the original website layout with a virtual layer that spawns different types of sponsored content haphazardly or upon certain user action.
http://macsecurity.net/view/115/

or
Remove Taboola from Mac OS X system
http://www.2-spyware.com/remove-taboola-ads.html#h-mac-os-x


Actually I thought you had gotten rid of it previously from your post of using my suggestion of using Find Any File.app.






- Patrick
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