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Pop-ups for Mac Cleaner and Defender. (Mac running OSX 10.12.6)

  1. How do I get rid of these annoying pop-ups (am I naive or should I be concerned about them saying 'issues detected')
  2. Should I think about using some sort of anti-malware protection? Conventional wisdom is that these things do as much harm as good.


iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Apr 28, 2019 1:37 PM

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Posted on Apr 28, 2019 1:49 PM

Safari – Popup takes over


Safari – Popup takes over (2)


Popup remover – Scam Zapper


If the pop-up reloads, force quit Safari (command - option/alt - esc) and reopen with the shift key held down. If that doesn't work, disconnect from the Internet, go to Safari/History and delete the website. Quit and reopen with the shift key held down. Then reconnect to the Internet.


Safari -Tech support scam pop-ups


You may  have adware/malware installed. Try downloading this program which was written by Thomas R, a long time poster. The program will search for malware/adware The program will do the work for you which makes it easy. It may be necessary to run more than one scan. After running the scans, restart the computer.


Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac      10.10 and later


Malwarebytes uninstall

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 28, 2019 1:49 PM in response to robin from north yorks

Safari – Popup takes over


Safari – Popup takes over (2)


Popup remover – Scam Zapper


If the pop-up reloads, force quit Safari (command - option/alt - esc) and reopen with the shift key held down. If that doesn't work, disconnect from the Internet, go to Safari/History and delete the website. Quit and reopen with the shift key held down. Then reconnect to the Internet.


Safari -Tech support scam pop-ups


You may  have adware/malware installed. Try downloading this program which was written by Thomas R, a long time poster. The program will search for malware/adware The program will do the work for you which makes it easy. It may be necessary to run more than one scan. After running the scans, restart the computer.


Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac      10.10 and later


Malwarebytes uninstall

Apr 28, 2019 2:37 PM in response to robin from north yorks

They are SCAMs, trying to either separate you from your money, or scare you into installing software they point you at. They either get paid to market the software or the software will do something that makes them money.


You did the smart thing and asked in these forums.


If if they are coming from your web browser, then it is impossible for any webpage to look inside your computer. All web browsers are sandboxed. This just means the operating system isolates the app so it is limited in what it can look at, especially the stuff that would tell it you had a virus or other malware.


Then considering there is no self-propagating viruses for the Mac, and you know it is a SCAM.


There is adware that that you have to be tricked into installing, but MalwareBytes is very good at removing that. And since you have to be tricked into doing the install, you only need to run MalwareBytes AFTER an install, not all the time.

Apr 28, 2019 7:12 PM in response to robin from north yorks

robin from north yorks wrote:

1. How do I get rid of these annoying pop-ups (am I naive or should I be concerned about them saying 'issues detected')
2. Should I think about using some sort of anti-malware protection? Conventional wisdom is that these things do as much harm as good.



The easiest is to use the https://www.malwarebytes.com/mac/

mentioned above.


Pop-ups for Mac Cleaner and Defender. (Mac running OSX 10.12.6)

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