Igor_G5

Q: Beware of MacKeeper

When one installs MacKeeper, which claims to be software to "Clean and protect your Mac" it installs several items of adware and scareware that not only annoy you and urge you to buy stuff that you don't want or need but are possible phishing sites. I downloaded and installed it under the impression that it was free. The ad that caused me to download it said that it was free. I found out that it was free to download but cost money to use. I ran it and upon finding that it wouldn't do anything unless you paid I paid for a month of use ($19.95) and ran it. It claimed that it found and repair somewhere around 12,000 problems. Immediately I started getting webpages popping up trying to sell me Reimage software and foreclosed homes, etc. I ran MacKeeper again and it found and fixed a number of problems. I then decided to check it out and ran a battery of 10 times in succession and each time it found and repaired different number of issues. How can issues arise from one run to the next when I hadn't done anything else? I uninstalled MacKeeper and requested a refund. I immediately started getting webpages purporting to be from Apple and looking like official pages on Apple's site informing me that I had three viruses and that the only course of action was to download MacKeeper (I saved bookmarks to these sites just in case I could find some place to report them to and when I try to go there I get a warning that it's a suspected phishing site. This would happen several times an hour. In the meantime I would continue to get windows trying to get me to but Reimage, foreclosed homes, MacKeeper or what have you. Sometimes I would get a vertical ribbon about 2.5" wide ALLERT telling me don't do anything at all until I called Apple Support at the number they were giving me or urging me to chat online with Apple Support representatives. I finally used EtreCheck to find the malicious files on my system and went through the tedious task of finding them and deleting them. However EtreCheck provided me with the paths to them.

Posted on Aug 26, 2016 2:31 PM

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Q: Beware of MacKeeper

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  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Aug 26, 2016 6:19 PM in response to Igor_G5
    Level 8 (48,515 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 26, 2016 6:19 PM in response to Igor_G5

    All those "cleaning" apps are scams. There are even worse examples than "MacKeeper".

     

    Excerpted from Effective defenses against malware and other threats:

     

    • Never install any product that claims to "clean up", "speed up", "optimize", "boost" or "accelerate" your Mac; to "wash" it, "tune" it, or to make it "shiny". Those claims are absurd.
      • Such products are very aggressively marketed. They are all scams.
      • They generally operate on the flawed premise that a Mac accumulates "junk" that needs to be routinely "cleaned out" for optimum performance.
      • Trial versions of those programs are successful because they provide the instant gratification of greater free disk space.
      • That increased space is the result of irreversible destruction of files, programs, or operating system components normally protected from inadvertent alteration or deletion. The eventual result will be unreliable operation, poor performance and random crashes that may not become evident for months or even years after their use, when updates to programs or OS X are eventually released.
      • Memory "cleaners" that circumvent OS X's memory management algorithms work by purging inactive memory contents to mass storage, which can only result in degraded performance and accelerated hardware failure.
  • by danny ocean,

    danny ocean danny ocean Aug 30, 2016 2:44 AM in response to Igor_G5
    Level 1 (67 points)
    Aug 30, 2016 2:44 AM in response to Igor_G5

    Hello.


    I’ve heard that MacKeeper is a potentially unwanted software and users advise to get rid of it. By the way, I have come across similar threads recently which describe the same problem. You can have a look:

    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7628708?start=0&tstart=0

     

    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7627430?start=0&tstart=0

     

    https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7638574

     

    You can remove all MacKeeper leftovers manually or check the instructions with pics on a developer site:

     

    http://help.mackeeper.zeobit.com/Manual/GettingStarted/UninstallingMacKeeper.htm l

  • by Vamshi Krishna G,

    Vamshi Krishna G Vamshi Krishna G Aug 30, 2016 7:50 AM in response to Igor_G5
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Aug 30, 2016 7:50 AM in response to Igor_G5

    I have faced similar problem - unwanted popups, new tab pop up on clicking or right clicking on webpages, normal web turning into hyperlinks and redirecting to new pages, adware (advertisement software) and malware (malicious software) in my mac, Mackeeper ad pages popping up in Safari tabs, Safari consuming more battery power, etc. Beware of such apps and adware pages (like Mackeeper, spigot, pages in the name of apple--support, etc..)

     

    I installed Mackeeper by mistake, and regret it always. It installed a whole bunch of remote malware and adware without my notice, which created the above said problems thereafter. I uninstalled the Mackeeper app but the problem still persisted. I searched manually for those adware and malware files in my Mac and deleted few. Blocked popups, removed extensions, cleared website data in the browser and tried reinstalling the latest OS too, but of no help.

     

    Then I came across some trustworthy anti-malware apps, most notably the Malwarebytes. I installed it and immediately scanned my mac. To my surprise, I found quite a few adware and malware files still rooted somewhere in different directories. A couple of them were the same I had deleted manually in a different place. I deleted all of them listed by Malwarebytes, restarted the Mac and emptied Trash. And that's it! No more problems of that kind now. Browsing is normal as before. Got rid of that annoying problem!


    So, if you have similar issues, you can follow these steps:
    >Install Malwarebytes for free (https://www.malwarebytes.com/mac-download/) (or) similar top anti-malware/adware apps
    > Run the Scan
    > Delete the detected files
    > Restart your Mac
    > Empty Trash
    > Continue browsing like before (uninstall Malwarebytes if you don't want it later, optional).

     

    Hope this helps!

  • by Igor_G5,

    Igor_G5 Igor_G5 Sep 2, 2016 4:00 PM in response to Vamshi Krishna G
    Level 2 (318 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 2, 2016 4:00 PM in response to Vamshi Krishna G

    As I said in my original post I used EtreCheck ( EtreCheck.com ) to check

    out my computer and it found all the malware and told me where to find it.

    All I had to do was remove it. EtreCheck has the added advantage that it

    finds other issues that aren't malware. You choose from Computer is too

    slow, Beachballing, applications crashing, computer restarting,  other

    issues or just checking. You tell it run EtreCheck, it runs and gives you a

    complete report. All you have to do is remove the items highlighted in red

    and you're good to go.

     

    On Tue, Aug 30, 2016 at 9:50 AM, Apple Support Communities Updates <