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Hi, so this morning, my computer worked perfectly and there's no file downloaded in my Mac. But after I put it to sleep, this afternoon, I logged in and I saw a file that has been instantly downloaded called hbpix
Before I put my Mac to sleep, there's no file downloaded. And then after I logged back in, there's a file called hbpix right in front of my eyes.
MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7.5)
Hello Old Man,
That is because that is all it is - just a grey pixel. It is a spy pixel used in ads. For some reason, whoever is serving this file in their ad network has their server misconfigured. Instead of putting a single, imperceptible grey pixel on your screen, it is downloading the pixel as a file. It's harmless.
See this thread for additional information: hbpix virus removal? (hbpix.dms file)
It only works for Windows so you can safely delete it. Have you downloaded any anti-virus applications? If so, delete them, you don't need them.
hbpix is part of the Reddit anti-virus application:
https://www.reddit.com/r/antivirus/comments/6ubowp/hbpix_what_is/
Its not normal, in that websites should not be downloading random things like that, but its a problem with an ad in the page so not much you can do about it.
You should not have any problems with it. Just drag it to the trash, empty the trash, and forget about it.
No way to know whether they all will have this. I've only seen it a few times, but google searches point to ads as the primary culprit.
There's no mention of it being malicious in anything I've found. And it just seems to be an error with how the ads are coded and displayed.
No indication of any maliciousness in it either, though some websites claim its a virus and offer tools to remove it, its not really malicious in and of itself, and those websites offering removal should be ignored as well.
It's just a gif image file that some ads may use to track visits and clicks on themselves. Quite normal for ads to do.
The only abnormal thing is it being automatically downloaded, but that may just be due to some incorrect header info.
There's nothing really dangerous about it at this point.
https://www.reddit.com/r/antivirus/comments/6ubowp/hbpix_what_is/
Yes, it seems to be caused by some ad. I've had it download a couple times from different websites. It's not really an executable or anything just an image.
You can delete it, and ignore it.
Nope, I didn't download any anti-virus cuz I don't trust any. Also thanks.
Also when I opened that hbpix file, it opened in image type.
And it said the source is: idpix.media6degrees.com. I opened that page and all it said was "It works!"
So is this normal or not? Am I in trouble right now?
I already dragged that into the Trash. But does all the ads contains this? Or only some that are malicious?
What's hbpix?
