Q: what is advanced mac cleaner

It's crap scammer. Get rid of it.

Would also advise against it.

An advanced scam!

I also would advise against it. It's a total scam. Don't pay anything for it. If there's anything wrong with your mac, it's that program. If you want some good antivirus for your mac, google AdwareMedic. It's donationware, and after you run it, it'll find most viruses on your Mac. Good Luck!

Advanced Mac Cleaner is crap software frequently found installed alongside adware (aka, ad-injection malware). It should be removed. Unfortunately, it worms its way deeply into the system, so removal isn't trivial.

To remove it, make sure to quit the Advanced Mac Cleaner app, then drag it from the Applications folder into the trash.

Next, you'll need to remove all of the following files:

/Library/Application Support/amc/
~/Library/Advanced Mac Cleaner/
~/Library/hlpramc/
~/Library/Application Support/Advanced Mac Cleaner/
~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.pcv.hlpramc.plist
~/Library/Logs/helperamc.log
~/Library/Preferences/com.PCvark.Advanced-Mac-Cleaner.plist

If you're not sure how to find these files, see:

http://www.thesafemac.com/locating-files-from-paths/

Hope this helps!

(Fair disclosure: I am affiliated with Malwarebytes, whose site I am recommending above.)

A slight variation of one of the files in the list:

~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.pcv.hlpramc 1.48.39 PM.plist

1.48.39 is probably a version number, so one should look for and remove anything matching com.pcv.hlpramc*

Hi there,

I'm having this same helperamc problem. I located these files apart from '/Library/Application Support/amc/', '/Library/Advanced Mac Cleaner/' and '/Library/Application Support/Advanced Mac Cleaner/. - none of which appear in my /Library. The remaining files have been dragged to my trash.

When I go to clear the trash it tells me that these files are already running and therefore cannot delete.

Could someone please let me know how to completely remove all traces of helperamc as I'm getting very frequent and periodical notifications from my Avast security, letting me know that /Library/Application Support/amcr/... is blocked.

Thanks in advance

It's probably important to add that when I go into Activity Monitor to try to force quit the helperamc.app, I am unable to stop it. Upon clicking force quit the only thing that happens is that the PiD number increases by 1.

Hello, try a Safe Boot, holding Shift key at bootup & empty the Trash then.

Upon clicking force quit the only thing that happens is that the PiD number increases by 1.

That is because it's set to "Keep Alive", which means it will restart if killed off.

I found that Malwarebytes Anti-Malware program detects and removes the vestiges of Advanced Mac Cleaner. You can download it from here. You don't even have to install the program to get it to work. You can run it right from the disk image once you mount it. You don't even need to choose to install the helper. So, if you aren't keen on installing a program to solve this issue but aren't enjoying the manual process, this is a good way to go. A bonus is that it will look for and remove other similar malware like the infamous MacKeeper.

Is the hardware in this topic thread really a G5 PowerMac running 10.5.8?

Usually there had not been a version of AdwareMedic or Malwarebytes

capable of running on a powerPC based Mac... As such, I've asked host

to move this to the MacPro intel based Mac tower section, if so.

just curious - how does this thing install itself?  Just found it on wife's iMac but her account is not admin and she doesn't know the password to enable installs.  (learned this the hard way!)  It appears this little gem was able to bypass the password.  scary to say the least if true.

and btw - thanks for the removal tips  s

What OSX version?