How do I get rid of a virus I mistakingly got from a site called 'firstrow.eu'?

There are no viruses that affect a Mac running OS X. A site many recommend to remove malware is thesafemac.com.

Barry

It's best to describe the problem in as much relevant detail as possible, rather than what you think is causing it or how you think it should be solved.

That site is a notorious source of adware. You probably have multiple different adware programs installed. See my Adware Removal Guide for help finding and removing it.

Avoid all First Row Sports sites in the future. They are all bad. In addition, avoid any other sites like it that offer free access to commercial TV or movies. These sites are all illegal, except in certain countries that don't care about other countries' copyright laws, as they provide free access to something that is not free... ie, they engage in piracy. These sites are run by criminals, and you don't want to be downloading and opening something given to you by a criminal.

(Fair disclosure: The Safe Mac is my site, and contains a Donate button, so I may receive compensation for providing links to The Safe Mac. Donations are not required.)

Yes, the TSM Adware Removal Tool will get rid of adware, and it sounds like it found and removed Downlite.

Also, be aware that CleanMyMac is crap software that you do not need. The only thing you need to do to clean up the trash is empty it (Finder -> Empty Trash, or press command-shift-delete). CleanMyMac offers no features that you actually need, and worse, its "cleaning" features have been implicated in damaged systems numerous times. Get rid of it, and don't install any similar apps.

MacKeeper was at least right about one thing... you shouldn't have Norton either. Norton is notorious for causing problems on the Mac, and it doesn't even protect you all that well against Mac malware anyway. You should also get rid of MacKeeper, of course, as it's a scam and is currently the subject of two separate class-action lawsuits.

Never install any kind of "cleaning" software, including "memory cleaners," and with regard to anti-virus software, you need to be extremely careful if you install it at all. There's a lot of crap out there. See my Mac Malware Guide for more information about the more important task of learning to protect yourself.

I think it's very unlikely that you actually have any malware. Adware on the Mac has never yet been documented to do any actual spying, unless you count the monitoring of your web browsing habits that I'm sure they all do.

(Fair disclosure: The Safe Mac is my site, and contains a Donate button, so I may receive compensation for providing links to The Safe Mac. Donations are not required.)

Ru-tang wrote:

Ok then one last dumb layman's question...how do I rid myself securely of mackeeper/cleanmymac/norton? Does my Mac have an uninstaller or do I just dump them securely into the trash from Applications in my finder?

How you remove an app depends on the app. There's no built-in uninstaller in Mac OS X. Apps that were purchased through the App Store can just be dragged to the trash. Apps that required an installer should also require an uninstaller, and that uninstaller should be provided by the developer. Apps that are installed just by dragging to the Applications folder are a bit of a gray area... they should be removable just by dragging them to the trash, but sometimes such apps will install things that run in the background and that need removing. You'd need to see if the developer has removal instructions or an uninstaller.

There are special cases, of course. MacKeeper, for example, requires an installer, but has no uninstaller. Instead, you just drag the app to the trash, and a component of MacKeeper will notice that and ask if you want to remove it.

To remove Norton, you need to run the original installer, which will offer to remove Norton if it's already installed. If you don't have that installer, you can re-download it or check with Symantec about an uninstaller.

As for CleanMyMac, here's what the developer has to say:

http://macpaw.com/support/cleanmymac/knowledgebase/how-to-uninstall-cleanmymac-2

As a general rule, when dealing with apps from outside the App Store, you should always find out how an app is properly removed before installing it, as some apps from irresponsible developers may need - but not have - uninstallers. If an app doesn't have an easy removal process, you should think very carefully before installing.