How to Remove Advanced Mac Cleaner Virus

Geretings Thomas,

It was the phraseology that caught me.

'Then I scanned my iMac for viruses, 7 came up with advanced Mac Cleaner'.

Was Mac Cleaner one of the seven that came up ... or did he scan with Advanced Mac Cleaner and 7 came up?

It was the latter I was thinking ... but

Do not do anything with the pop ups, they're fake. The problem I'm having is removing it from my macbook. When I open my browser it's not my normal browser/favorites etc. It looks like a generic google search bar. When I search for something it pops up briefly to feed. chunck. app (spaces placed there on purpose) I had followed a link from my professor for class, and it redirected me to what looked like adobe, and said i needed a flash update, and then this mac keeper popped up. After that it's been saying I have problems, that I know I do not. So if I find a way to remove it, I'll share it here, but I've been looking for 24 hours now. Missing assignment dates and all, because I don't know what this thing can track or do with personal info, so I'm trying to stay off of important sites while on my laptop. If you find answers, please share.

Here is the procedure that worked for me :

1) In my Applications folder, I found and deleted the following using the Finder [2] :

* Advanced Mac Cleaner

* CoreUpdates

* OptiBuy

2) I also had to go to Chrome preferences and fix my default search search engine and default home page which had been changed. While I was there, I deleted the caches for the last few hours.

3) Then I went to System Preferences -> user accounts -> login items, and removed the unwanted apps from there.

4) Open up folder ~/Library/LaunchDaemons

and delete :

com.CoreUpdates.agent.plist

com.OptiBuy.agent.plist

5) Finally, you may need to remove the helperamc app.

This is an app that pops up ads. It has a daemon so that the app relaunches after it is killed.

To get rid of it, go to a terminal app, and type :

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.pcv.hlpramcn.plist

# kill helperamc app from ActivityMonitor between these commands

rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/amc/helperamc.app

Yesterday, I inadvertently downloaded this malware onto my MacBook Pro also. I contacted the Apple Help Desk by phone, and 40 minutes later, this malware was gone from my computer. I was helped by a wonderful associate whose name was Audrey.

Her advice? Download malwarebytes from the internet. It is a trusted Apple vendor. Once it was installed, I allowed Audrey access to my computer's screen via their connection utility, and she walked me through, step by step, how to run the walwarebytes program to remove every trace of this malware.

This was easy for someone like me who is not terribly computer savvy!

Bob S

PLEASE READ

Although I've only just made an account so I could reply to the thread, I have found a much easier method to delete "Advanced Mac Cleaner," all I had to do was:

Step 1

Open finder and make sure you're in "All My Files." (You can find out by looking at the top of the 'Finder' window.

Step 2

Click the search bar at the top right of your 'Finder' window and type "Advanced Mac Cleaner."

Step 3

Click or highlight (depending on how many copies you have because I had two) the "Advanced Mac Cleaner" and drag to the bin in your taskbar at the bottom of your screen.

Step 4

Enter your bin and at the top right underneath the search bar there is an "Empty" button. Confirm the empty and you should be safe.

MacMechanic wrote:

Just to clarify, the "old" link that was posted by me and in another thread will still take you to the proper place and there is a link on the page informing visitors of the name change. 😉

I'm aware of that. However, I don't see much point in posting a link that will take you another link. So, to clarify for anyone else who might be reading, I posted the current name and current link.

It may be that it wasn't really installed? I get the popups but never installed it. It shows up everyday. I run Malwarebytes, which is free, and every time I run it, it finds the Mac Cleaner. We need really, really good advice. It needs to come from a higher power than Mac Cleaner. It needs to work.

Sam,

What you need to do is to think through your problem and set it out in a new thread. As of now it is confusing and it is never good to intrude into a thread that is not exactly related to your problem.

With your comments I suggest that you include an Etrecheck report so that we can check out what is happening in your machine.

Thank you! This virus has been on my computer for months and within a couple minutes the virus was found and deleted from my computer. Norton didn't work and Linc Davis' solution didn't work for me! This was super easy and super fast.

I downloaded and installed malwarebytes. Had to run the scan, clear the quarantine, empty the trash and restart my MacBook Pro twice, but it finally got rid it. Here's the link: Malwarebytes | Free Cyber Security & Anti-Malware Software

thomas_r. wrote:

Csound1 wrote:

Its not safe, don't go there.

The site posted in Erigo Asparago's message that jrabey was replying to is safe.

Pedantry is a bore, in general if the site is not safe or you think it is not safe, do not go there. Is that OK for you now

Hey mark7484 and everyone else that comes across my post. I too accidentally downloaded Advanced Mac cleaner. It didn't do much harm other then popping up at annoying times. I believed when i updated my adobe acrobat or flash player or something. I guess i didn't download what i was trying to update from an authorized sight. I got Advanced Mac Cleaner popup downloaded and installed all by itself. There was no uninstall for it, and every time i moved it from my applications to my Trash it would repopulate (pop up) itself. Every time i turned on my computer it would appear back in my applications folder. I read every thread i could find on this unwanted pop up or virus or whatever you want to call it. Every solution was pretty much the same, move it to the trash then find any associated files and erase them. 1/2 of the threads i read said for me buy there malware product, or download it for free. it'll fix your problem. Like everyone else before me i was very hesitant to download some software that i didn't really understand. Like everyone else i was afraid it would do more harm then good, or leave some other malware on my computer that would be worse then Advanced Mac Cleaner. I tried every single idea - all of them. Out of desperation i actually went on to the Advanced Mac Cleaner website. It actually had an uninstall program for it. With much trepidation, i downloaded the uninstall and ran it. And you know what....IT WORKED!!!. This was the only solution that actually worked for me. Now i realize this is literally my first post on Apple Discussions, even though I've owned 3 different macs over the last 9 years. I love Mac over PC and i will probably never go back. I say this because if i would have read this post i wouldn't trust it.

All that being said if you get as motivated as i was to uninstall Advanced Mac Cleaner, you might try my solution. Either way, Good luck everyone!! 🙂

This worked--so far Ad Mac Clner has not returned: Download OnyX (It is a free and great Mac maintenance app) from the internet. Open. In "Files" go to "Erase" heading and erase w/1 pass. I also ran the "Maintenance" program at the front of the whole app. Don't know which of the two steps zapped the bad guy. So far, AMC has not shown back up. I'll revisit here if it does and report.

I'm always very careful and do not download anything from any page. I get Adobe outdated click here to update? Nope not going to happen. I will go directly to Adobe and check for updates. Other then that I go to Apple App store for updates. I also clear out any unwanted cookies at least 4 times a day (I have questions on this as well). Last week on some site I had my Mac locked up with that Mac Adv Cleaner. No menu, no dock and force quit not working. Shut the wifi modem off and shutdown. Started up cleaned the cookies (unwanted) and found MACleaner in the app folder. Deleted, modem back on everything working fine again. A few times (at least once a day) MACleaner window pops up? Can't figure what site I'm on that keeps putting it back in the folder? Just kept deleting it. Last night before shutdown I checked to make sure it wasn't in the App folder, it wasn't. This morning at startup, first thing that pops up GMCleaner window and it's back in the App folder? Apple should have SOMETHING to block unwanted downloads. It's going directly to the App folder not the download folder. I do have the ASK before downloading on.

Some thing happened to me. One day when I was cleaning up my Mac anyway, I decided to spend some time getting rid of this. After looking into several things, including things found on this site

and on the Mac site. I finally used Malwarebytes-Mac.3.11. I did some research to make sure that wasn't infected too, and finally downloaded the free 15 day trial. I was delighted when it worked! It also found a couple of other things that I didn't know were on there and corralled them and they are gone! I am so happy!