Why does website data show websites I haven't visited? Do I have a problem with Malware or Spyware?

A

Safari automatically checks certain sites for updates:

Top Sites

Subscribed feeds

Sites that you've selected for Quick Website Search

Pages that turn up as Top Search Hits

Pinned tabs

Cookies and databases from those sites will be reloaded even if you don't visit them. If there are particular sites that you don't want to accept cookies from, follow the instructions in the support articles linked above to exclude them. Note that if you visit a page often, it may be added to your Top Sites unless all the available slots are already occupied by pinned sites.

Cookies can also be created by elements, such as ads and invisible "web bugs," that come from a different web server than the one you browsed to. You can block some of those cookies in the Privacy tab of the Safari preferences window.

To block all cookies from a site selectively, you'll need to use third-party software or a different browser. I don't have a specific recommendation.

The file in which web cookies are stored may also be used by third-party applications that use the same mechanism as Safari for communicating with web servers. Those apps may add cookies from sites that you've never visited in Safari.

B

I suggest that you remove "CCleaner." Any software that purports to automatically "clean up" or "speed up" a Mac is a scam.

EY11 wrote:

I have been experiencing some issues since visiting a legitimate website yesterday.

I went to log into the site and prior to inputting my user name and password was directed to another site which said "before you log in download Maccleaner" or something along those lines. (Mac cleaner may not be the actual name but I don't intend going back on the site to clarify).

I simply clicked on the X and closed the webpage but ever since I have been seeing upwards of 50 websites appearing in my website data tab under preferences.

Even when I "remove all website data", close safari, reboot the machine etc when I go back into the website data tab on restart there once again immediately are details of websites that I have never visited and have no idea what they are.

Despite clearing the website data, running CCleaner etc I cannot stop these sites appearing in my website data.

Has my machine been infected with malware or spyware?

What can I do?

Help!!!!

Prior to yesterday I had never had any problems what so ever with my iMac but now something just doesn't seem right with it. Safari seems slow on start up with icons for favourites taking time to populate etc.

All help gratefully received as I want my speed machine back to it's original state.

You don't need CCleaner. Macs don't need cleaners, optimizers, refreshers, organizers, or anything else that sounds similar. They do a wonderful job of taking care of themselves, so when you get a chance, uninstall it. It's not doing anything to your computer that needs to be done, no matter what all the write-ups about it tell you. You should never allow a third-party program to delete anything from your hard drive sight unseen. If you don't know what's going, and you don't know if it's a critical file or not, you're damaging your computer.

That being said, what "legitimate" website was this that was giving you scam pop-ups?

The sites may have been added to top sites - or your mac is set to open all the pages that were last opened in Safari.

Off-line edit top sites and delete any that are not top sites for you (when I did this in Snow - Apple had added some sites (it was some sort of "fix including refreshing these sites"

Use EtreCheck from etrecheck.com and see what is running on your system.

Download link.

Etrecheck – System Information