Q: Removing Genieo Files

6 Ways to Delete Genieo - wikiHow

Remove Genieo(InstallMac) on Mac | Fix-KB

You installed the "Genieo" scam product.

Helpful Links Regarding Malware Problems

If you are having an immediate problem with ads popping up see The Safe Mac » Adware Removal Guide and The Safe Mac » Adware Removal Tool.

Open Safari, select Preferences from the Safari menu. Click on Extensions icon in the toolbar. Disable all Extensions. If this stops your problem, then re-enable them one by one until the problem returns. Now remove that extension as it is causing the problem.

An excellent link to read is Tom Reed's Mac Malware Guide.

Also, visit The XLab FAQs and read Detecting and avoiding malware and spyware.

See these Apple articles:

  Mac OS X Snow Leopard and malware detection

  OS X Lion- Protect your Mac from malware

  OS X Mountain Lion- Protect your Mac from malware

  OS X Mavericks- Protect your Mac from malware

  About file quarantine in OS X

If you require anti-virus protection Thomas Reed recommends using ClamXAV. (Thank you to Thomas Reed for this recommendation.)

From user Joe Bailey comes this equally useful advice:

The facts are:

1. There is no anti-malware software that can detect 100% of the malware out there.

2. There is no anti-malware that can detect everything targeting the Mac.

3. The very best way to prevent the most attacks is for you as the user to be aware that

     the most successful malware attacks rely on very sophisticated social engineering

     techniques preying on human avarice, ****, and fear.

4. Internet popups saying the FBI, NSA, Microsoft, your ISP has detected malware on

    your computer is intended to entice you to install their malware thinking it is a

    protection against malware.

5. Some of the anti-malware products on the market are worse than the malware

    from which they purport to protect you.

6. Be cautious where you go on the internet.

7. Only download anything from sites you know are safe.

8. Avoid links you receive in email, always be suspicious even if you get something

    you think is from a friend, but you were not expecting.

9. If there is any question in your mind, then assume it is malware.

1. Yes.

2. There are always potential problems. If you don't have any other actual problems, just make sure you never download anything like Genieo again.

blairnoel wrote:

 

The biggest "problem," if you could call it that, is that most of the files mentioned on the list are not showing up on my computer, either through manual path following or via terminal.

The list shown contains files from at least two versions of Genieo, so it is extremely unlikely that any user will find all of them.

According to The Safe Mac guide, it's possible that Genieo isn't actually installed on my computer, but rather that some of the files were downloaded but, for one reason or another, were never installed.

Based on the locations of what you did find, it had been installed. If not there would only have been one file, the installer itself.

It's worth mentioning that all of the Genieo files I can find were last modified in July of this year, indicating that that's when they were downloaded and that they've been inactive since then.

No. That indicates the date it was compiled by the developer (Genieo). They activate immediately, so it was probably installed the same day you first noticed the pop-ups. To understand where it came from and how to avoid it in the future read John Galt's How to install adware.

Since I can't find the noteworthy /private/etc/launchd.conf file mentioned on The Safe Mac it should be okay, but even so I figured I'd check first.

That was a version 1 file which is no longer installed with version 2. I suspect the primary reason they came up with the new version was because of all the problems caused when users tried to remove the initial version.