The changes to the pages are characteristic of a bad add-on, although external software may be responsible for injecting it into Firefox. Let's begin the investigation there.

Open Firefox's Add-ons page using either:

• Command+Shift+a
• "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Add-ons

In the left column, click Plugins. Set nonessential and unrecognized plugins to "Never Activate".

In the left column, click Extensions. Then, if in doubt, disable (or Remove, if possible) unrecognized and unwanted extensions. Bear in mind that all extensions are optional, none come with Firefox.

Often a link will appear above at least one disabled extension to restart Firefox. You can complete your work on the tab and click one of the links as the last step.

Any improvement?

You might also check your connection setting to see whether it uses an unexpected proxy:

"3-bar" menu button (or Firefox menu) > Preferences > Advanced > Network mini-tab > "Settings" button

On Windows, that defaults to "Use system proxy setting" but I don't know about Mac. You might try "No proxy" to see whether that makes any difference.

After cleaning out bad add-ons, you may need to restore some preferred settings, such as home page, default search, and new tab page.

Home page

See either or both of these articles:

• Startup, home page, tabs, and download settings
• How to set the home page

Default search provider

See: Use the Search bar in Firefox and manage search engines

New Tab page

Here's how you can change your new tab page:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste newtab and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the browser.newtab.url preference and enter your preferred page:

• Page thumbnails (default) => about:newtab
• Blank tab => about:blank
• Built-in Firefox home page => about:home
• Any other page => full URL to the page

Press Command+t to open a new tab and verify that it worked. Fixed?

Also, some links to threads on Apple forums about this intruder:

• how do i remove http://websearch.searchitwell.i...
• http://websearch.searchitwell.info IS IN ...

Simple Instructions for the removal of browser hijacker: How to remove toolbars from Mozilla Firefox 1. Open Mozilla Firefox. 2. Open the menu bar and select Add-ons. 3. Browse or search the Extensions and Plugin lists for any unwanted toolbars. 4. Remove or disable any unwanted toolbars.

How to remove toolbars from Google Chrome 1. Open Chrome. 2. In Chrome you'll find what looks like a spanner or three horizontal bars in the top right-hand corner of your browser window. Click on this icon and select 'settings'. 3. Click on Extensions. 4. Disable or completely delete the unwanted toolbars.

How to remove toolbars from Opera 1. Open Opera. 2. Click the Opera in the top left-hand corner, then select Extensions. 3. Hit Manage Extensions. 4. Find and delete any toolbars you don't think should be there. Note: After you've completed the steps, restart your browser.

Simple Guides for the Uninstall of Unneeded Browser Toolbar:

• Instructions for Unwanted Browser Toolbar Uninstall
• Browser Toolbar Uninstall: Browser Toolbar Uninstall