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I have use OS X 10.6.8 for years and just recently did a fresh installation of Mavericks. One of the nicest aspects of OS X was the fact that after three years of use and installing tons of application, none of them, ever added any toolbar or extension to my firefox. As appose to windows that after couple of weeks, the browser looks like a circus.

Today during installing uTorrent on Mavericks, I noticed that my firefox was reset and upon opening my home page changed to yahoo as well as my default search engine. Later I noticed that it has also added an extension to my browser.

Is this a flaw in the Apple new OS? Was it always there and I was just lucky in three years of using Snow Leopard? Is there some kind of security mechanism that I have to enable?

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  • One Firefox torrent plugin has nothing to do with Mavericks. μTorrent added that behavior at any point between the times you installed the plugin.
    – dwightk
    Apr 4, 2014 at 13:20
  • @Rob, The picture was just there for the humor. I will remove it if it is distracting. The point is, in snow leopard there was no way that installer could do such a thing.
    – Pouya
    Apr 4, 2014 at 13:27
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    Installing browser plugins during SW installation was also possible with OS X versions before Mavericks. In fact this has nothing to do with the OS at all but solely with the applications you are installing.
    – nohillside ♦
    Apr 4, 2014 at 13:30

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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During installation many installers, not just uTorrent. (Also Daemon Tools for example on Windows) try to install a lot of stuff on your computer.

If you accept one of the offers (which looks like an agreement), you end up with stupid plugins in your browser and other default search tools - this is exactly what you're facing right now.

I would strongly recommend you to open the installer again and notice the 3rd party installers which are hidden inside the uTorrent installation program so you can spot them in future installations.

For now, to fix this problem:
Remove the toolbars / plugins manually and set back Google (or whatever your default search provider was) as default search engine.

To make this answer complete, the same could happen to you on Snow Leopard. This is just the way the installer (ab)uses the way you grant access in installing an application as Administrator.

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  • You know, it didn't ask for admin password.
    – Pouya
    Apr 4, 2014 at 13:33
  • Many users click these warnings away without even reading them. Do you have a password set?
    – Rob
    Apr 4, 2014 at 13:35
  • I do have password set. I admit that I was fooled! There was written an offer and I automatically considered it as an agreement.
    – Pouya
    Apr 4, 2014 at 13:36
  • That's their power they take advantage from, as I tried to explain in the answer.
    – Rob
    Apr 4, 2014 at 13:37
  • Before I accept, I have few of questions if you kindly help me with. First, why firefox didn't prompt me? Why I wasn't asked for my password by mavericks. Finally, I trashed the app but I'm afraid some processes or services or some sneakiness have remained. How can I be sure of that?
    – Pouya
    Apr 4, 2014 at 13:41

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