Q: Safari ads and pop ups

Linc Davis:

This worked for me.

My popup windows in some secure sites just were not working at all in Safari 7 using Mavericks.

I found one folder, VSearch, and deleted it. Found several files as listed in your long report, and deleted them. After a restart, I emptied the trash using the Option key to remove even locked files. Then I disabled (not uninstalled) half a dozen Safari Extensions.

When I opened Safari both my back account popup window for bill paying and the NFL's Game Rewind windows popped up as normal.

Now I'll test each extension separately, and re-enable those that work.

The problem, I see now, was in those vSearch files.

****. Now I'll have to get some virus-blocking software, I guess. I was hoping to avoid the expense.

macguru30 wrote:

 

****. Now I'll have to get some virus-blocking software, I guess. I was hoping to avoid the expense.

No, that's not a productive solution. I've seen plenty of people infected with the same thing you were infected with (Downlite, aka VSearch) despite having anti-virus software installed. Adware, like Downlite, is often not detected by anti-virus software at all. So, you'll just sacrifice performance, possibly stability, and even possibly lower the security of your computer rather than increasing it, according to some recent research.

Instead, you need to avoid the activities that led you to be infected with Downlite in the first place. In the vast majority of cases, Downlite infections happen when people are trying to stream videos online. These are usually illegal commercial videos (movies, TV shows, etc), being offered "for free" by some shady website. Avoid such sites like the plague. Similarly, downloading illegal files (software, movies, etc) via torrents has been another common cause for infections.

So, basically, you just need to be a little more careful what you're downloading and from where, and you'll probably never have to worry about adware like this again.