MarketService
MarketService is a Potentially Unwanted Program (PUP) leveraged at Mac users. Despite its appearance, the application is designed to act as an adware and run an intrusive advertising campaign on the Mac computers it manages to sneak on. At the same time, however, MarketService possesses the capabilities of a browser hijacker and it will use them to establish control over the user's browser in order to promote fake search engines.
Apps are generally classified as PUPs due to their reliance on deceptive distribution techniques. MarketService is no different as few users would be willing to download and install the app intentionally. Instead, it hides its installation inside the installation process of another more popular freeware product or masks itself as a fake software installer/updater.
No matter how MarketService managed to infiltrate your Mac device, the PUP would proceed to generate various unwanted advertisements. The ads could take different forms - pop-ups, banners, surveys, etc., and would severely diminish the user experience on the device. Far more important, however, is the fact that they could initiate forced redirects that might take the user to unsafe third-party websites running fake giveaways, phishing schemes, or tech support scams. Users could also land on domains promoting other PUPs.
Meanwhile, the browser hijacker part of MarketService will take over the homepage, new page tab, and the default search engine. The specific fake engine that will be promoted in this manner depends on the user's browser. MarketService will promote 6v5f3l.com on Safari browsers and search.locatorunit.com on Chrome. Fake search engines are incapable of producing any search results on their own. Instead, they will take any search queries entered into the URL tab of the affected browser and redirect them to a legitimate search engine such as Yahoo, Bing, or Google.
While PUPs are generally considered to be more annoying than dangerous, users should still keep in mind that their browsing activities might be tracked and then uploaded to a remote server. PUPs are known for accessing the browsing history, search history, clicked URLs, and even some device details such as the IP address, geolocation, and ISP (Internet Service Provider). The PUPs operators could then attempt to sell the gathered information to third parties.
