Recently discovered that the Cub has downloaded something called “Top Results” on my Mac (using Mojave). Can’t delete it; just says it can’t be moved to trash because it’s open.
Any thoughts on how to get rid of it?
Recently discovered that the Cub has downloaded something called “Top Results” on my Mac (using Mojave). Can’t delete it; just says it can’t be moved to trash because it’s open.
Any thoughts on how to get rid of it?
Malwarebytes/Adwcleaner for the Mac (i forget what name they’re using) should find and clean it.
Open Activity Monitor (in Utilities), and find the app, force-quit it, trash it from Finder.
It looks like it also installs as a browser extension. Killing the app looks like it’s step one from a couple different sites.
Remove Top Results adware from Mac (Virus Removal Guide)
That site is still pushing Malwarebytes for Mac as step 3. Not sure if there’s a good reason for it not being the entirety of the process. It’s probably not a bad idea to run it after the manual process of killing the app and extension.
Just realized I never came back to report - thanks for comments, everyone!
Used Beowulf technique and it worked fine, thanks! I didn’t know about the Activity monitor - very handy! I’ve used it now and then sine this thread to check for other unwanted activity, and used it to delet a few other things that shouldn’t be there.
Question: all these years, I’ve done without virus protection, because Mac, you know. But this sort of thing isn’t a virus? It’s an actual app that pretends to be useful but actually mucks things up?
Do you smart Mac guys have any recommendations about how I should protect my Mac?
I don’t use any A/V.
I will (very occasionally) run a full scan with MalwareBytes. The result is always negative.
That tells me that just practicing “safe computing” (not downloading dodgy software) is sufficient on OS X.
Any real malware (as opposed to these annoying browser hijackers) is extremely rare under OS X right now, and I watch the various Mac-specific websites for information about such threats.
Technically that sort of thing is usually a trojan. But virus has become used as a catch-all term for any kind of malware.
Here’s an article that explains the differences
. https://www.websecurity.symantec.com/security-topics/difference-between-virus-worm-and-trojan-horse
I’ve used Macs for quite a while, and I’ve always cringed when people said that Macs were safe and didn’t need protection. Macs have just haven’t been an attractive target until relatively recently because of the smaller user base.
The schools I’ve worked at have used Sophos for protection.