Tried to torrent a show, ended up with malware. Help!
May 18, 2014 12:28 AM   Subscribe

Specifically, it's a mplayer virus. It has infected Google Chrome and Firefox, and is showing infuriating pop-up ads and frequently redirecting the browser to ad-like pages. Who knows what else it's doing/stealing/collecting. This may be what I deserve for trying to download some TV, but I need to get rid of it. Running Mac OSX 10.8.5.

I tried Googling for solutions to the problem, but many of them seem as if they might be scams themselves. Clearly, I'm in over my head. Thanks.
posted by toomuchkatherine to Computers & Internet (5 answers total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
This happened to a colleague of mine recently and this seemed to do the trick.
posted by LongDrive at 12:50 AM on May 18, 2014 [3 favorites]


Deezil is pretty famous around here for helping with these sorts of problems. Start with the advice in his profile. He may also consult via MeMail if you need more help than that. (Like I did.)
posted by SLC Mom at 1:07 AM on May 18, 2014 [3 favorites]


I will second that The Safe Mac generally has good instructions for dealing with OS X malware and its downloads can be trusted. I used one of their walkthroughs to get rid of Genieo on two Macs used by older folks in my family. Just make sure you do everything step by step and don't skip anything.

Deezil's profile advice is terrific for PC users but it won't be of much help in this case.
posted by bcwinters at 7:09 AM on May 18, 2014 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: Safe Mac worked perfectly! Thanks!

(I also took the machine to the Mac store, where they pointed out to me that since the problem wasn't with my computer but with the non-Mac-supported browsers I like to use, they couldn't help me. I ran Safe Mac right there, and it did the trick.)
posted by toomuchkatherine at 3:32 PM on May 18, 2014


Deezil's advice is pretty Windows-specific.
posted by pompomtom at 4:34 PM on May 18, 2014 [1 favorite]


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