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It happened again last week.
A friend was telling me she had convinced her mother to get a Mac laptop.
'But what is this MacSweeper?' she said, with a hint of puzzlement in her voice.
She meant, of course, MacKeeper.
Again: 'What is it?'
A recurring problem
In the early days of web browsing, windows containing ads would often pop up randomly and without notice, blocking content on the screen. Annoyed users would have to close these pop-up windows over and over again in an on-going game of whack-a-mole. Then, the very first iteration of Safari included a unique feature: Block Pop-Up Windows. With a simple check box, you could rid yourself this nuisance.
In short order, other browsers adopted this feature and all was well with the world....until it resurfaced, largely via new windows or tabs, and we were all back to Square One.
But what's been happening of late with these uninvited guests at our browsing parties is a little different. Instead of relatively harmless ads, we're seeing a hard sell by advertisers that uses fear, uncertainty, and doubt to scare users, strongly suggesting that their unprotected Mac is at risk of a virus, or might--horror of horrors--already have one.
And then comes the pitch: Wouldn't you like to download some software or call us right away at the number listed on your screen and buy a service plan to help protect you from evildoers in cyberspace? Or maybe even let us have control of your computer so we can scan and see if your device has already been infected?
While no one can guarantee that your Mac will always be completely safe from viruses and other malware, chances are pretty good that if you are careful and don't fall for scammers' tricks then your Mac won't be impacted.
There are lots of entities that are pushing unsuspecting users to download or buy software and services that have been reported to be of questionable value. These aggressive marketing techniques happen in many ways, including phone calls (more on that later).
MacKeeper is one of these products, and because it seems so prevalent thanks to its extensive on-line advertising campaign, we'll focus on it here. It is a suite of software programs that can securely erase files, perform backups, and other utilities. But some users claim that it slows down their Mac, and many people who accidentally downloaded and installed it now want to remove it.
Here's how.
Step 1. MacKeeper's Way
According to MacKeeper's website, the steps are simple: quit the app and drag it to the trash. If you're running an older version of MacKeeper, you may need to remove its menu bar icon first
- From the Apple menu, choose Go > Applications.
- In the window that appears, double-click the MacKeeper icon.
- From the MacKeeper menu choose Preferences.
- In the window that appears, click General.
- Uncheck the box for Show MacKeeper icon in menu bar.
- From the MacKeeper menu choose Quit.
- Drag the MacKeeper app icon from the Applications window to the Trash.
- Enter an administrator password twice when prompted.
Your Mac may open a web browser window for a MacKeeper survey that asks you to select a reason for uninstalling the software. It's purely optional.
Step 2. But you're not done yet...
Like just about every Mac app, MacKeeper spreads a bunch of support files in several different locations on your computer. Unfortunately, MacKeeper's uninstall process might not remove all of them, particularly if you have an older installation of the app.
You can download and install Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware for Mac and have it do the heavy lifting for you, or you can do it by hand as outlined in Step 3 below. If you choose to install Malwarebytes, launch it and do this:
- Click the Scan button.
- In the sheet that appears, check the box for any software that you would like to delete and click Confirm. (As an aside, PUP stands for Potentially Unwanted Program.)
- Once the process is finished, restart your Mac.
If at some point you want to remove Malwarebytes, there are directions at malwarebytes.com. You will probably also need to follow steps similar to those in Step 3 below to remove all the support files that Malwarebytes installs.
Step 3. The Manual Way
Even Malwarebytes may not get all of MacKeeper's supporting files. You should take a look in the Library folder in your home directory to make sure they're all gone. Here's where and how to find them.
- In the Finder's Go menu, choose Go to Folder....
- In the dialog box that appears, type ~/Library and click Go. This will open the Library folder which is normally hidden by default in your home directory.
- If you find a folder named MacKeeper Backups, drag it to the Trash.
- Scroll through your Library folder and open the Application Support folder. If you find any files or folders with MacKeeper in its name, drag them to the Trash.
- Scroll through your Library folder and open the Caches folder. If you find files named com.mackeeper.MacKeeper, com.mackeeper.MacKeeper.Helper, or any other files or folders with MacKeeper in their name, drag them to the Trash.
- Scroll through your Library folder and open the LaunchAgents folder. If you find a file named com.mackeeper.MacKeeper.Helper.plist, or any other files or folders with MacKeeper in their name, drag them to the Trash.
- Your Library folder may contain a folder named LaunchDaemons. If you find inside it a file named com.mackeeper.MacKeeper.plugin.AntiTheft.daemon.plist or any other files or folders with MacKeeper in their name, drag them to the Trash.
- Scroll through your Library folder and open the Preferences folder. If you find inside it a file named com.mackeeper.MacKeeper.AdwareAnalyzer.plist or any other files or folders with MacKeeper in their name, drag them to the Trash.
- From the Finder menu, choose Empty Trash... and Empty the Trash if prompted.
Step 4. If the hits just keep on comin'...
Sometimes installing MacKeeper will result in Safari extensions and cookies also being installed...and the prodding to install MacKeeper—as well as other ads—may keep appearing. The latest version of macOS contains a built-in tool that will remove known unwanted adware and malware when you restart your Mac. So try that first. If that doesn't work, here's what to do.
- From the Apple menu, choose Force Quit....
- In the window that appears, select Safari and click Force Quit.
- Relaunch Safari while holding down the Shift key on the keyboard. This will prevent any windows that were open when you force quit Safari from reopening.
- From the Safari menu, choose Preferences.
- Click Extensions.
- In the list that appears, select any extensions that you don't recognize and click Uninstall for each of them.
- Click Privacy.
- Click Manage Website Data.
- In the sheet that appears, enter MacKeeper in the Search box to show any data related to MacKeeper and click Remove All.
- Close the Preferences window and from the Safari menu, choose Quit Safari and restart your Mac.
Postscript
You can take all these steps when it comes to MacKeeper, but even so, aggressive marketing tactics may take a different form. The very morning right before I sat down to write this article, the phone rang at my house.
A guy named 'Jim' said his company had been tracking a problem with my computer for several weeks. He breathlessly asked me—a couple of times—to hurry up and turn on my Windows computer and sit down in front of it so he could show me what the problem was before it got any worse.
My turn to be aggressive.
'Well, James, I know you're lying to me because there isn't a Windows computer in this house. Now please take me off your call list and don't ever call this number again or I will contact the authorities and have you thrown in jail. How does that sound to you?'
Click
Made my day.
Any questions?
I put my own Mac at risk in order to help clarify how to uninstall MacKeeper on your Mac, so I've got first-hand experience. If you've installed the program and are still having trouble removing it completely from your Mac, let me know in the comments section and I'll try to help you out.
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Remove Advanced Mac Cleaner rogue optimization tool from Mac OS X to stop its frustrating alerts and undo the concomitant bad effects it calls forth.
Update: October 2019
Advanced Mac Cleaner usually appears on Mac boxes out of the blue and floods the victim’s experience with annoying warning messages. Also known as Mac Cleaner, it dupes the user into thinking that their machine has got numerous problems hindering normal performance. According to the fake alerts, the operating system’s productivity is impacted by junk files, duplicate objects, unneeded login items, crammed up cache, trash and logs, as well as rogue apps that are claimed to occupy excessive hard disk space and thus reduce the processing speed as well as responsiveness to commands. The number of these wrongfully reported items is flagrant, going over 1000 even on a well-tuned or new Mac computer.
It’s not a commonplace distribution practice that’s leveraged by Advanced Mac Cleaner makers to promote their nasty brainchild. A great deal of infected users have caught this pseudo optimizer when installing free tools such as FileZilla or updating Adobe Flash Player via downloads from unofficial sources. In these cases, the setup wizard prompts you that an extra applet will be installed as a bonus to make the Mac run smoother. Some people are prudent enough to avoid such offers, which are generally known to deliver adware programs, but this caution doesn’t always help. Unless the bundle is manually unchecked and thus opted out of from the start, Advanced Mac Cleaner will still be installed in the background.
Furthermore, the culprit may additionally cross-promote affiliated scareware like Mac Adware Cleaner by means of prompts on its GUI. To add insult to injury, it may hijack the victim’s default web browser and redirect their traffic to landing pages pushing its licensed version or a copy of another rogue system utility, such as Mac Tonic or Mac Auto Fixer. The malware is also known to propagate alongside browser redirect viruses and persistent adware apps that affect the victim’s web surfing experience. One of the notorious campaigns pushing the scareware in question relies on sketchy browser alerts that report alleged infection with a combo of 3 viruses called Tapsnake, CronDNS, and Dubfishicv. The victims are redirected to phony web pages that mimic AppleCare and insist on urgent download of Advanced Mac Cleaner to sort out the problem that isn’t there in the first place. It appears that the gang behind the rogue program in question is deploying a well-orchestrated malicious marketing campaign with a distinct flavor of social engineering.
The user may be unaware of this forcible setup from the get-go, but not until a message like the one above pops up. It says that a huge number of issues have been found, specifying this information as follows “Issues may include duplicate files, system & internet junk, rogue software & recoverable drive space. Fix and enjoy a performance boost.” The ‘Start Repair’ button, if clicked, takes you to the junk application’s main interface that displays high improvement potential for each cluster of problems. Obviously, cleaning the purported bugs is a paid service. At that point, it’s reasonable to contemplate over what’s happening: you are being told to pay for rectifying issues that do not exist. It’s certainly the best move to get rid of the Advanced Mac Cleaner scam rather than follow the evildoers’ recommendations.
Another flavor of this scareware problem surfaced in October 2019. It was precipitated by a release of Apple’s macOS Catalina 10.15. After upgrading their operating system to the new version, numerous users started experiencing obnoxious popup activity with Advanced Mac Cleaner at its core. The annoying notifications say, “helperamc will damage your computer. You should move it to the Bin.” The process mentioned on these alerts is spawned by the rogue system tool under scrutiny and can be seen in the Activity Monitor, along with other related executables called “amcuninstall” and “hlpramc”.
Here is what’s happening: the latest macOS build, evidently, leverages an improved algorithm to identify potentially harmful apps. In particular, it will flag a program as a malicious one if it was installed on an unknown date, if its installer was downloaded from an unverified source, or in case some other telltale signs of sketchy activity are spotted. To let the users know about such suspicious objects, the system displays the above-mentioned popup dialogs. In this situation, the infection is probably in a dormant state and doesn’t manifest itself conspicuously. The Catalina update has simply unearthed the issue due to new security perks it delivers. Unfortunately, although the warnings include a “Move to Bin” button, it doesn’t work as intended. Therefore, the victims have to do their homework and find a way to remove Advanced Mac Cleaner despite its persistence.
Advanced Mac Cleaner manual removal for Mac
The steps listed below will walk you through the removal of this application. Be sure to follow the instructions in the order specified.
- Open up the Utilities folder as shown below
- Locate the Activity Monitor icon on the screen and double-click on it
- Under Activity Monitor, find the entry for Advanced Mac Cleaner, select it and click Quit Process
- A dialog should pop up, asking if you are sure you would like to quit the Advanced Mac Cleaner (it can be manifested as an object named helperamc) executable. Select the Force Quit option
- Expand the Go menu in Apple Finder and select Go to Folder
- Type or paste the following string in the folder search dialog: /Library/LaunchAgents
- Once the LaunchAgentsdirectory opens up, find the following entries in it and move them to Trash:
- com.pcv.hlpramc.plist
- com.pcv.helperamc.plist
- com.pcv.amcuninstall.plist
- com.PCvark.AdvancedMacCleaner.plist
- Use the Go to Folder lookup feature again to navigate to the folder named ~/Library/LaunchAgents. When this path opens, look for the same entries (see above) and send them to Trash
- Similarly, go to the ~Library/Application Support folder. Locate and move the following entries to Trash:
- Advanced Mac Cleaner
- amc
- Click the Go button again, but this time select Applications on the list. Find the entry for Advanced Mac Cleaner entry on the interface, right-click on it and select Move to Trash. If user password is required, go ahead and enter it
- Now go to Apple Menu and pick the System Preferences option
- Select Accounts and click the Login Items button. Mac OS will come up with the list of the items that launch when the box is started up. Locate Advanced Mac Cleaner there and click on the '-' button
Use automatic tool to completely uninstall Advanced Mac Cleaner from your Mac
- Download and install MacBooster application (read review). The tool provides both optimization and security features for your Mac. Before you get down to obliterating Advanced Mac Cleaner virus proper, consider checking your machine for other security risks and performance issues by hitting the Scan button. Download Now
- Proceed to the Uninstaller feature, find Advanced Mac Cleaner on the Applications list and have MacBooster completely eliminate all components of the app from your Mac by clicking Uninstall in the bottom part of the GUI. Doing so will ensure all components of the malware and its remainders, which may have not been removed in the manual way, will be thoroughly cleaned up.
FAQ
Unlike benign software, Advanced Mac Cleaner is a stubborn app that attempts to complicate the uninstall process. It means that you need to circumvent its hindrance before deleting the associated components and files. This adds an extra step to the removal logic. In most cases, the following workflow does the trick:
- Open the Activity Monitor, find an entry named “helperamc”, “hlpramc” or another process with “amc” part in its name, and quit the malicious executable.
- Look for related files (com.pcv.hlpramc.plist, com.pcv.helperamc.plist, com.pcv.amcuninstall.plist, com.PCvark.AdvancedMacCleaner.plist, Advanced Mac Cleaner, amc) in the LaunchAgents and Application Support folders. Remove these objects if found.
- Go to the Finder and select Applications. Spot ‘Advanced Mac Cleaner’ app and move it to the Trash. Empty the Trash when done.
Ideally, this technique should eradicate the scareware, but with the caveat that the files may vary as new versions of Advanced Mac Cleaner appear in the wild. Stay tuned for updates in the guide above to make sure your removal efforts are effective.
Advanced Mac Cleaner is a rogue system utility that wrongfully purports to look for and fix Mac performance issues and privacy risks. Instead of carrying through with these promises, it reports non-existent problems and tries to pressure the user into buying its licensed version to unlock the repair features. This scareware is installed behind the user’s back, usually arriving with complex app bundles camouflaged as one useful program.
At first sight, it may seem that the impact of Advanced Mac Cleaner is restricted to annoying scan reports and scary-looking popup alerts. That’s a misconception. This fake optimizer isn’t safe to use, because it can harvest your sensitive information and send it to the cybercriminals in charge of the campaign. Your usernames and passwords, as well as credit card information, are potentially at risk as long as this pest is running on your Mac.
No, it’s not. The huge amount of negative feedback about this program speaks volumes about its dirty practices, not to mention the obvious elements of foul play in its modus operandi. Advanced Mac Cleaner is distributed via covert software bundles and fake virus alerts shown on numerous malicious websites. Once installed, it deluges the host system with deceptive scans and popup alerts reporting hundreds or even thousands of imaginary performance and security issues. The objective of this brainwashing is to coerce the victim to purchase the app’s license, which is supposedly a prerequisite of addressing the detected threats. Another shady quirk is that Advanced Mac Cleaner is harder to uninstall than regular Mac applications. All in all, this scareware is neither legit nor safe.