Audio Ads Play With No Browser Open

Not sure what your question is asking 'TheInnerSun'. But after I completed the list of tasks in my last 2 replies - it was all resolved.

It does appear it is tied to Chrome.

The tools I used did find viruses and malware on my mac (even though others say you don't get them).

I did have to manually remove some of the malware as detected with ESET (it could not remove everything itself - it did tell me the exact files and locations - after I ran it several times and cam to undestood the results better).

Now it is job done.

I no longer have any extensions or addons in Chrome to be on the safeside. And some of the items I deleted on the mac were Rootkit items.

I am happy if not many people experience this problem. But when you do it is beyond irritating.

Hope the info so far has been of some use to others.

TheInnerSun: "Any further traction on this? I'm not experiencing it to."

I got rid of it. Unfortunately i changed too many things at one time to track it down to a specific cause. And i kind of forgot about the problem after i ridded it, so i cannot make a good list of what is the possible solution.

One specific thing i remember that was a good hypothesis is that i changed my primary default browser (in System Preferences) from Chrome to Safari. The feed definitly stopped everytime i quit Chrome, so i have little doubt that Chrome was an accessory to the crime, but clearing Chrome cookies, nor turning off all extensions did not help.

I did not take any of the measures that advaita-eka refers to, if i understand correctly. I did not try the wifi shut down, which is a good clue. But we may be talking about two different issues & different causations, because he states: "And yes the ads still play when all browsers are switched off." If i understand the sentence correctly, his experience was different than mine. The audio ad quit in the middle when i quit Chrome.

But i must add that when a poster mentions a Mac virus, i am less persuaded. This would be big news in the Mac community, and despite conspiracy theories, would make the coder detecting the virus famous. Malware is a general term tho, can be a more varied set of animals that include code not communicated like a virus.

I will switch my primary browser back to Chrome and see if the issue is resurrected, and report back to the list.

Very well put explanation TMCdanel.

I think I was more referring to malware than a virus - you make very valid points. Thanks for the feedback.

I have just used my macbook pro and had the problem arise again after a chrome plugin update request.

When I visited certain web pages a music (as though from a radio statrion started playing).

I closed Chrome and it stopped.

I reviewed the update I made which was an update to DivX 10.

I went to Chrome extensions and disabled:

DivX Plus Web Player HTML5 <video>2.1.2.182

The music stopped playing. I re-enabled it and visited the same pages that triggered the radio style ads.

The music and ads were restarted.

I have now disabled DivX Plus and all is fine.

It appears in my case I am updating DivX when requested and getting more than I bargained for.

I hope this is useful.

This seems to me to be very strong evidence of being our common problem. I just checked Chrome, and i have the same extension, tho mine is currently disabled. And i said in a previous message the problem has not recurred resently for me. Turning off suspect extensions may have been one of several things i tried.

On the subject of DivX, i always debate update requests from it. I am not pretending to be an expert on the various video encoding formats but between Perian (Perian expressly has a DivX library and many other codecs) and using VLC (which seems to be able to play almost anything) as my main video player, i suspect i have never needed DivX, even as a browser add-on. Uninstalling it may solve more problems than it purports to solve.

Thanks for he post, advaita-eka. Your puzzle solving skills are pre-eminent.

FYI, DivX has an uninstaller in the Mac application folder in Maverick, which politely complied, but it did not uninstall the suspect Chrome extension. This was not polite because i am pretty sure the DivX installer put it there originally, not me.

To All,

My iMac has begun to display this annoying behavior, and yes, Chrome is my default browser. I have only one extension, Google Docs, which I just disabled. Does anyone have further insight into this problem?

Just started happening to me too.

Google Chrome is the browser.

Google Docs is the only extension.

Started when I did a dodgy download two days ago.

Ken

I noticed this problem too. Apparently is coming from Chrome. I will try to dig further to find a fix. It is quite possible to be from one of the adons installed under Chrome. If I will find something useful I will post it here. However, it is from some time already, perhaps in the last eight to ten months since I noticed Chrome went down the drain and most definitely the reason seems to be some... "dilettante" coders are taking care of business there.. who knows?

In the meantime, it really, really hurts my head to understand how many people are psychologically affected by the Bill Gates' creation, the infamous windows. Not everything is based on DOS and viruses and makes the virus part of your daily life. OS-X is not windows! How many viruses are in a database of so called antivirus app for mac that some of you seems that you have the urge to install it? I am not talking about malware or alike, but viruses?

Reading this entire thread, you will find really obsessed individuals, advising you to even erase and reinstall the OS-X. Simply unbelievable!

The problem may be here, in this forum that is under the umbrella of Apple, being officially supported or not, it is still under apple.com and most definitely people should have a place to find useful info. When a thread like this one present such info, it should be corrected and properly advised. Erase your mac??? LOL!

I'm getting phantom ads and jingles. I think you are right about Chrome. I am trying to track it down after loading scrobbling extensions and possibly a Shazam extension.

I have been having this same problem - Sometimes, a pop up does not appear before audio starts playing, sometimes a blank tab opens with the address "http://securepaths.com/pixel?s=1445109601417" and only a "-1" appears in the window. I close it, but then audio plays when I'm using safari. I checked out my dashboard and saw two widgets were open - they didn't look like any widgets I had. When I clicked on the info button, both had "only play audio" selected. I closed them and we'll see if that fixed it. I would have never thought of that.

Similar to previous posts I had problem with spontaneous audio only advertisements popping up during use of both Chrome and Safari browsers and even email. Everything I read related to Adware as being the culprit but a Malware Bytes scan was negative. There was also mention of Chrome extensions being a possible cause so I disabled all my Chrome extension. I also deleted all cookies for both Safari and Chrome (about 300 or so). None of this help. I contacted Apple Care (thank God for Apple Care - worth every penny) who felt it was an installed plugin from some website. We disabled the Adobe Flash Player plugin for Safari & Chrome but he didn't think that would be the problem. The suspicious plug in for Chrome was called Widevine Content Decryption Module for playback of HTML audio/video content. That was disabled as well. After disabling the plugins and using the computer for 2 days the problem has disappeared. Screenshot of Chrome Plugins info for this computer on file. Hope this may be of help to some.

Hi Everyone,

I too am experiencing these annoying ads that sound like radio commercials.

However once they start, they don't stop, they keep repeating themselves.

I turn off browsers and everything else to no avail, I have to turn off computer.

I do NOT have Chrome, have never installed it, I use Firefox, so this is NOT a problem relating to Chrome but to all browsers, at least to Firefox as well.

It is extremely annoying!

I would love to know how to get this **** thing off my computer.

All the best to all.

You no doubt read my post explaining the fix for Chrome by disabling a plug-in. I am wondering if it could be something similar with Firefox - I would try that if you haven't already. The Applecare tech also said using Malware Bytes antimalware program sometimes will cure these types of problems, although it didn't in my case. Good luck, I know how frustrating it is.

What version of OSX are you running?

Hi there,

I am on latest version, 10.11.2 El Capitan.

It bizarrely only happens late at night......

Definitely very weird but a bit disturbing too to suddenly hear voices!