What is Genieo and why did it appeared misteriosouly on my MacBook Pro?

+10000 for lindsayfromleander to wrote:

Any program that attempts to install itself on my computer through deception deserves the terms "malware" and "hijack".

Thomas A Reed wrote:

Most people don't understand the basic concept of malware properly to begin with. You shouldn't care what someone with no particular expertise is saying about it on Wikipedia.

"basic concept of malware" ? lol

in fact Thomas, i think that for years now, virus and malware specialists have re-defined (their own ?) concept of malware, and i believe that every specialyst may have his own definition of malware ; BUT if you stay to the basics terms, malware is "malicious software", so every soft that acts "malicioucly" is malware, and that's it ! and no matter what kind of technology / or concept they have (or if, effectivly {i agree with you} if it's very easy to uninstall it )

and IMHO installing a software in the name of updating another one IS a malicious behavior, no need to be a wonderfull specialist to say that 😉

Well even considering how little I know about Genieo, and about the basic concept of malware, and about all the other posts in this thread, I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, or a ten foot lithuanian, either 😉

So I'm not in a position to say from direct experience how easy it is to uninstall, nor will I ever be.

Hi All,

We apologize for the misleading behavior of our partner.

We have talked with them and the fake flash pop up does not install Genieo anymore.

Feel free to test it.

And if you find this behavoir or similar again, PLEASE send us an email to support@genieo.com so that we can adress it on the spot.

We talked with Wiki.org and Genieo value was edited and fixed today.

http://botcrawl.com/how-to-remove-the-genieo-virus/ is not a reliyable or a trusted site.

Hi you, Mr. Genieo support ...

i can read on Genieo's home page :

Let all the information you personally care about - come to you.

the first post of this topic is about 6 month older than today ...

6 month for the information* about YOU to come to YOU ...

what about a big LOL for that ? 😝

so ... let's say that nobody in your company uses your product ^^

* assuming, "of course and without any kind of doubt", that you really personally care about this information ....................

Dear Mr. Genieo support,

It appears from a fairly cursory amount of online research (all I have time for considering that your product is one I don't want) that you have a serious branding and reputation issue, over and above the issue of the fake Adobe installer. It is said that a man is known by the company ("partners") he keeps. If you're serious about cleaning up your act and providing a quality, responsible product, perhaps you might want to call it something else going forward, as far removed from the label "Genieo" as you can get. If you feel that the bad rep your product has gotten is just the result of bad, ignorant people or competitors who hate you trying to bring you down, then I guess there's no help for it. Perhaps it's time, as the saying goes, to put on your big-girl panties and deal with it.

As naja_trance pointed out, you've had plenty of time to address this issue much more aggressively and have apparently failed to do so previously, which in itself isn't very reassuring.

Lindsay, seeing as you can barely define malware, I don't think it's your place to be giving software business advice. You need to remove the chip from your shoulder and think about if from thier side. If you had paid for your software to be marketed and the marketing people used deception to do so then it's going to hurt your reputation even if it isnt your fault. I am somewhat sympathetic to the company involved, regardelss of the product.

Right now you sound suspiciously like a competitor trying to destroy someones name, and there is a uncalled for venom in your town. Relax, the situation is sorted. The internet is a big place, I can fully expect something Genieo to not find these popups were distributing thier product for six months, especially if the Genieo people are intelligent enough to avoid pop-ups. If it happens again, then there will be an issue.

Actually, gen_, I have no axe to grind here, other than a deeply ingraned dislike of shady business practices. I came on the fake Adobe install in the course of my own browsing and did about 20 minutes of online research on "genieo" and ended up here. In this, my perspective has the distinct value of being totally fresh and impartial at the outset and my admittedly minimal research came up with a lot of negative stuff about Genieo - far more, compared to positive comments, than one might expect from an effective, popular product (such as Microsoft Windows) which might generate a full spectrum of negative and positive opinions. I feel the same way about The Domain Registry of America and all its aliases, which is totally legal.

I don't need to define "malware", gen_, to you or anyone else. As someone else said, any software which tries to install on my computer using deception is malware, and that's all the definition I need. There are also enough threads on other forums explaining how to uninstall Genieo indicating that this is, or at one time was, also an issue, and a common characteristic of "malware" by any definition.

I'm outa here. I primarily run Linux, and don't have a MacBook, so I don't even belong on this branch of the forum, which I joined because I have an iMac. My time is limited today and for the next week, so anyone who feels offended by my responses can relax, since I won't be responding further.

I offer a sincere apology to anyone who was off-put by my comments. I think the debate here has been broad enough that the truth will out. Maybe the Genieo people have cleaned up their act, I don't know. What's obvious is that if this is the case, they have some work to do.

The problem is, by your very own definition, Geneio isn't malware.
"I don't need to define "malware", gen_, to you or anyone else. As someone else said, any software which tries to install on my computer using deception is malware

Genieo doesn't try to install on your computer using deception. You downloaded it through deception, but you do not install it it unwillingly, as it is named 'InstallGeneio' so you know what you're getting and it is not using any 'malware-like -method' to install itself without your say so. The only way it can get on your computer is through your own lack of vigilance. The multitude of stupid people on the internet does nothing to change that. I am fine with helping people to remove an application they have downloaded by accident, but to suggest this is malware when it does not disrupt computer operation, attempt to gather data, gain priveledges or (afaik) slow down or inhibit your Mac in anyway other than delivering ads in your browser is akin to suggesting a firecracker is a weapon of mass destruction. No, it's an annoyance at best.

Worse than that, you are installing it. You know you are installing it. You have the uninstaller so you can remove it at a moments notice. To call it malware trivialises the real threats out there. It's a PUP, by strict anti-virus definition. 'A protentially-unwanted-program' and an extremely mild one at that. Keyloggers also come under PUPs and I know you would be a **** sight more concerned if you had installed that on your machine.

One more thing, that Adobe Flash advert could have had any file behind it. It still would have caused an uproar if auser doesnt know how to uninstall it. Be thankful it didnt contain a relabled MacKeeper or some such. Then you'd really know what Malware is.

I don't think anyone would disagree with a dislike of shady business practices. The question is, whose business practices are shady? It's still a bit unclear. In this case, it looks like one of Genieo's partners was misbehaving. Perhaps this was just a one-time thing with a dishonest partner. Perhaps there's a flaw in Genieo's partner program that encourages this sort of monkey business. Then again, perhaps Genieo itself is dishonest. After all, there are some other suspicious things, like a URL found in the executable file that appears to link to a codecm.dmg file. (Codec-M, aka FkCodec, is spyware. See OSX/FkCodec-A in action.)

Without more information, it's impossible to say which is the most likely case. For now, I choose to follow the creed of "innocent until proven guilty." However, at the same time, I would advise caution with any Genieo products. I probably would advise removing Genieo if you have it installed, mostly because what it does isn't really worth the risks.

If Genieo is truly honest and wants to build a reputable product, they will have to find a way to overcome this hurdle, or it will (unfortunately) trip them up and make them fall.

Thomas has been busy digging deeper into this today, so I thought I'd jump in with a couple of updates that seem to be feeding each other for anybody that's interested.

Intego, developer of VirusBarrier, jumped into this today in their Malware blog with Another Problematic Softonic Installer Brings Adware. The bottom line:

Intego VirusBarrier users with up-to-date virus definitions will detect the components of this threat as OSX/Genio.

So now we can officially refer to this as malware, even if they seem to have misspelled it.

And Thomas updated his blog with even More details on Genieo adware.

So, now that I have more time, I've got a hard question for the Genieo representative who is watching this topic. Why did I find code in the Genieo installer that looks like it downloads and installs the Codec-M (aka FkCodec) malware, on behalf of a partner with ID "webpic?"

I won't bring back blocked posts, but I will highlight something to end this thought process for naja.

As it stands, Adware is malware. Until the review in depth allowed us to know that this was Adware it was not malware. I still stand by my previous posts.

Earlier in this thread, Thomas made a very important statement.

"People certainly should make up their own minds, but they should do so with all the facts at hand."

I did. The fact was that until we found the proof in this program we could not say it was malware. At the current time, by your own definitions it was not malware.

that's the point where we do not agree at all :

gen_ wrote:

I did. The fact was that until we found the proof in this program we could not say it was malware. At the current time, by your own definitions it was not malware.

you are talking about the program (the code ...) and for you that is enough to put (or not) the software in the malware category ; but i really do think that definition of malicious behaviour includes both the program itself, but also the whole strategy of the company ...

for example, a program that does collect informations about users in a non-hidden process, and say that informations won't be used by the company for any other reasons than customers-relation is totally NOT defined as malware, and nobody (nobody aka malware specialists) cares about the real way of acting of the company, even if company does NOT respect privacy, and sells hundreds of "non-stolen" emails every month ...

you have here a perfect clean software acting in a malicious startegy !

i DO really think that "bad coding" is not the only possible way for a company for "acting bad", so i think, IMHO, that it is a nonsense if bad code/clean code is the only point to be studied to put (or not) a software in the malware category ...

before Thomas has founded the piece of code pointing to codec malware, and before Genieo was classed as malware by intego (the "current time" of the quotes), Genieo was already involved in a "malicious strategy" with this fake flash update, and IMHO again, i don't really care about if Genieo was really (or not) clean about this strategy : Genieo is taking partners, and delegates part of its strategy ? that's their choice, BUT then, they ARE (imho again lol) totally responsible of the ways of acting of these partners !

I agree that it is malware--it masqueraded as a necessary download ,to upgrade Adobe Flash Player. This discussion is all fine people, but let's get practical: how do I uninstall it? I've tried everything I can think of.

Dante X wrote:

how do I uninstall it? I've tried everything I can think of.

I thought that had already been covered, but since this has gotten rather large, it's not surprising that you cannot find it.

See How do I remove Genieo?