macsweeper

Yes, I used it. Its cleaning tool for Mac, it cleans Universal Binaries, Language files, and some other trash. It also found some strange cookies. I saved more then 5Gb of disk space with it. They promised to release some "Most Wanted" features soon, i hope they will be useful 🙂

the same thing has been happening to me. i don't know where it came from either but it started today, not too long ago. what happens to me is while i'm browsing whatever webpage i'm on gets automatically directed to this one:

http://scanner.macsweeper.com/scan.php?landid=2&os=macos&depid=maxc%5Fclr07&cid= 2271&parid=mc%5F346586211

it "scans" my machine and says its found bad cookies, that my privacy is at stake and what not. then a window pops up and asks me if i want to clear them. if i click on anything it'll try downloading the software.

how do i get rid of this? it's really annoying. i don't want it and i'd wish it would leave me alone.

Check what is your home page, strange reaction, this cannot be happening on MacOS. Check your history, perhaps you'll find something interesting there? I downloaded mine by searching some cleaning tool in Google.

i didn't find anything in my history. my home page is google but i doubt that has anything to do with anything. i've discovered that these page redirections only occur when i visit a website i frequent. its a message board so i'm constantly clicking to read different threads. it hasn't happened in any other website i've visited. for now, i'm going to assume it's just that website.

What site was that?

Apple Angel wrote:
Check what is your home page, strange reaction, this cannot be happening on MacOS. Check your history, perhaps you'll find something interesting there? I downloaded mine by searching some cleaning tool in Google.

Yes it can, this is a web page redirect. It has nothing to do with the OS. This is common among the software companies like macsweeper that want you to think you have to have their software to protect you. Usually the software is more obtrusive and meaningless than the redirects.

It's an advertisement ... the web page is loading a JavaScript which is telling the browser to go to the advertising page. You can turn off JavaScript, but that will cause a lot of other web sites not to work. Or you can stop browsing to the web page with the malicious advertising code on it. (Friendster is one that's serving these up this week, but they're coming through some ad network.)

To turn off JavaScript, go to Safari preferences, click on the Advanced tab, and turn it off. (You'll want to turn it back on eventually.)

Message was edited by: Anton Rang

Would you say then that this is a good utility? The same thing happened to me as to "ec84" (and I don't even remember what site). I went ahead and downloaded the DMG, but I wanted to check around before I installed it.

Jetreader



"Yes, I used it. Its cleaning tool for Mac, it cleans Universal Binaries, Language files, and some other trash. It also found some strange cookies. I saved more then 5Gb of disk space with it. They promised to release some "Most Wanted" features soon, i hope they will be useful 🙂"

Quite frankly, I would NEVER use a utility from a company that uses these tactics. Anyone that goes to the site linked will get the same results. It's basically just playing a video... it's not an actual scan (a thorough scan would take much more than a few seconds). If you feel you need an antivirus program (most of us using Macs are comfortable without one), you should make sure it is from a reputable vendor. About the only way to get a virus or malware on your Mac is to install an application from a source you're not familiar with. I am not familiar with this product... but the simple fact that they try to trick people into thinking they have a problem is enough for me to have concern and to stay far away from it.

According to the latest news on this, you want to avoid this "software" like the plague. It appears that this may be a malicious app that is being unleashed using scare tactics. The scans are a joke as are the results as it is flagging language files as being suspect of privacy concerns!?!?

This sounds like a Mac version of the infamous MalwareAlarm rogue software which uses clever web pages to trick you into downloading it. Though the rogue software is real, the online scan is not.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6212617

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=406930

The MalwareAlarm scam works by browser redirection, starting with a legitimate site that has been hacked - as happened to 123greetings.com over Christmas and New Year. In that instance the web page runs a flash animation that only looks like a virus scan in operation - and claims to find malicious .exe files and Windows Trojans. If you don't run Windows XP you are unlikely to be fooled for long, though the browser alert that demands a response from the user is a bit alarming.

http://forums.macrumors.com//showthread.php?p=4714181#post4714181 (scroll down for picture)

Reports that even Windows users see the MacSweeper scan finding Mac files on their system pretty much confirm that this web page only appears to be running a scan. Personally, I don't believe the reports of drive-by downloads with no user intervention. The main thing is to click CANCEL when the alert window pops up and not hit RETURN which actually OKs the download.

However, even when you click CANCEL, the *fake scanner webpage* may run an animation that looks like it is scanning you or downloading software or something. Don't be fooled by this - just close the page or quit your browser and make a cup of tea.

Chances are, this is merely a combination of website hacking and social engineering. Once again: though the rogue software may be real, the online scan is not. If you never downloaded the software but keep getting redirected to the scanner page when visiting certain web page it almost certainly means those pages have been compromised, *not your Mac*...

This is no biggie for alert Mac users; just pay attention to what you are doing online and warn webmasters when their page has been hacked to redirect you to the fake scanner page.

Unless some dunderhead OK's the download I would say Mac users still have very little to worry about - Chillax!

Message was edited by: gaberdine mac

You're pretty much right, but it DOES force the download, as there's no "cancel" button on the JavaScript alert (just an OK button).

So the DMG file does download regardless, though Safari does give the "this download is an application, are you sure" warning/confirmation dialogue when it's downloaded.

It still requires user interaction to install, and there is a warning about doing so, but it is still a worrying development that this sort of thing is now being seen targetting Macs.

I'm a new-ish Mac user and was a long time Windows user. Based on that experience, I want to add something to this thread.

Do not click on anything on that page except the red "close window" buttons.

Clicking on anything else will cause a forced download (that's how the page author has programmed the clickable buttons within the page).

Thankfully and due to the Mac OS X platform, the download shouldn't be able to install without the user initiating it. As an extra precaution, may want to turn off the Safari option to open downloaded files. Executable programs should fall outside the scope of the default setting (automatically open safe files) but it sure wouldn't hurt to change that setting.

MacSweeper Developers response:

A Letter to Mac Community

We’d like to address the community of Mac users on behalf of the creators of MacSweeper. Our product has been slandered a lot recently. It has been accused of being a “rogue” application and imputed false functionality to. We’d like to dispel this misguided opinion and show you that MacSweeper is a really useful application and the best of its kind.
1) What is MacSweeper and why would you need it?
MacOS is considered one of the most secure operating systems in the world. Nevertheless security in general depends not only on the OS but on the user and programs running under it. That’s why for user’s data protection MacSweeper was developed.
- Removing Cookies belonging to sites in the blacklist
Different companies use Cookies for tracing user activity, some of them have dubious reputation since malicious software has been transmitted through their networks or from their domains. Such domains are put down to the blacklist. MacSweeper prevents user’s data from being spread by removing those cookies while keeping user’s personal cookies safe.
- Cleaning user’s and system cash
Our security experts have found that a lot of private information is stored in application cash and can be accessible for malicious software somehow launched on your mac. Moreover, by cleaning application cash you can free lots of space on your hard drive.
- Cleaning application and system log files
Log files mostly contain information that an average user will never need which can be deleted trouble-free making additional free space available.
- Universal Binaries & Languages
Mac applications are commonly assembled for different architectures and with multi language support. Users never use architectures other than their native and seldom use different languages. So it is possible to compress all these applications according to the needs of a specific user.
Therefore MacSweeper is not an antivirus, antispyware or antimalware application. Also MacSweeper has nothing to do with “rogue software” though many influential companies have labeled it this way and try to convince all users of it. But if you just read the definition for “rogue software” here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_software and then launch and activate our product to study its functions you’ll realize MacSweeper is NOT a “rogue software” and we don’t use anything mentioned in the definition.
«Rogue security software is software that uses malware (malicious software) or malicious tools to advertise or install itself or to force computer users to pay for removal of nonexistent spyware.»
2) Our advertisement pages
Many authoritative companies don’t like our ads pages saying they display lies. Here let us draw an analogy to creating and selling toothpaste as a simple commonplace example. So imagine yourself you are sitting back on your couch and you see this toothpaste advertisement which says using this toothpaste once will keep your breath fresh 24 hours. But when you buy it and clean your teeth in 100% cases your breath won’t stay fresh that long. Nevertheless you’re not going to run out in the street shouting that a certain company produces “rogue toothpaste”. Our advertisement pages are just the same - nothing more than a usual ad, simple animated pictures.
3) Other false opinions
- Some users who had installed our product later wrote on forums that MacSweeper finds a number of objects on an absolutely clean machine. Our answer is – of course it does and before making statements as the one above you need to understand what the program finds. Every clean system, even a brand new Mac, has lots of trash files, universal binaries & languages and that’s why MacSweeper wil find a lot of objects there.
4) Analyzing our product by authoritative companies
We were amused by the fact that a certain authoritative security software development company with a big name and experience wrote a review on our product based on its design and used pictures. However as we could see from a review, the company employees hadn’t even activated the product, they just decided to earn some points for themselves and promote our product in the press saying they were the first to find it. But they didn’t even understand what they found, and they couldn’t, because they hadn’t activated the product. It’s like talking about the quality of the toothpaste without even opening the tube. And after that they accuse us of telling lies.

In conclusion we’d like to thank Dan Kaplan of SC Magazine for being the only person of mass media to ask for our opinion after publishing a state on our product unlike other people from mass media and security software development companies.
We’d also like to thank all Mac community for such a reaction on the information about “first scareware“ application which MacSweeper isn’t. To prove this will give away 1000 free licenses on our site http://macsweeper.com.
Use the full version of the product, share your experiences and leave your opinions on different sites and be sure they’re based on real facts and not popular reviews. We intentionally haven’t changed a single line of code in the application since the latest events, the code is exactly the way it was.

Thank you for your attention!