Mac Browser issues

[lowell]

I have a 2012 Mac mini. Running Maverick OSX 10.9.5. Both Safari and Firefox browsers have a bug. When clicking links on pages, an extra tab opens to some random website. Now and then this website says I need to download this or that software or sometimes it says I have a virus and need to call some number immediately. I know this is all BS. So I force quit and then I'm good a while till it happens again.

Here's what I've checked. None of these have fixed it.

Deleted unwanted extensions
In preferences I deleted exceptions that I didn't recognize
I made sure that NO PROXY is selected

Any ideas what to do here? I do all my recording on this computer and this is really important to me to fix. Thanks in advance for any help!

[Steve A.]

I have a 2012 Mac mini. Running Maverick OSX 10.9.5. Both Safari and Firefox browsers have a bug...

Any ideas what to do here? I do all my recording on this computer and this is really important to me to fix. Thanks in advance for any help!

At least on PCs it was recommended that your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) be connected to the internet only when downloading necessary updates and to normally keep anti-malware programs off when not actually on-line. In other words it was usually best to keep one computer dedicated to your DAW and another for general tasks like browsing and email.

Failing to follow that advice could cause problems like pops and clicks, or limiting the number of tracks you could record simultaneously. What I ended up doing was using a dedicated off-line computer for recording and my regular on-line computer for editing.

I don't know if any of that is relevant in the Mac world today.

Steve Ahola

[lowell]

That is an ideal setup Steve agreed... but I'd like to fix this problem.

[DrGonz78]

Have a look at this website here...
https://malwaretips.com/blogs/remove-mac-os-x-virus/

Resetting the browsers is what I was thinking but perhaps reset Firefox first and then un-install it. Idea there is that it might be Safari system that reinfects the Firefox. Then later when it is all sorted re-install Firefox.

[lowell]

I tried that as well... still having problems. Safari is REALLY slow now too. Is there a way to uninstall Safari completely and reinstall?

[DrGonz78]

Actually un-installing Safari does not seem feasible to me really, unless your in the mood to reinstall everything anyway. The safari browser is deeply embedded in the OS and hacking it out might just screw up the whole system badly. Is it possible for you to screen shot what this warning page looks like? Also, have you tried running any antivirus scans (Avast for mac) or even running malwareBytes for mac? Main point is to give us more information as to what possibly led to this problem and even more specifics(screen shots).

Edit: Try these if you have not already gotten here yet.

http://www.adwaremedic.com/index.php

http://www.thesafemac.com/arg-identification/

[Steve A.]

In the event that you have to reinstall everything you might want to copy all of your data files to an external hard drive.
In the PC world whenever everything got really screwed up from malware or whatever I'd replace the internal hard drive and reinstall Windows. I don't know if that is an option on your Mac.

Good luck!

Steve Ahola

[carlg]

That it happens in both browsers sounds like a clue. In the finder go to the top level of your hard drive and open "Library" then "Internet Plug-ins". What do you see in there? A few things should be there, like "Default Browser.plugin" and "Quartz Composer.webplugin". Those are part of the OS and should show the same "date created". Take note of that date. Files that have a different date created are things that have been added to the system. Flash Player is very likely to be one of these, almost everybody installs that, but if you see something in there with a name you don't recognize and a date different than those OS files it might be a file worth checking into.

[lowell]

Thanks all. There are the two plugins you mentioned Carlg. And one more, silverlight. So doesn't seem there is an issue there.

I'll check out that software and report back. And will take a screen shot if it happens again.

[bob p]

be careful about approving a browser reset. while that sounds innocuous enough, it will likely purge all of your data. at least that's what happened when i did that on firefox.

one thing to look for is your browser's configuration. firefox has the ability to turn off the ability of a web site to pop open a new tab. it likely ships with that feature enabled, and it sounds like you might want to disable it. insofar as these shennanigans are often implemented with javascript, you might want to restrict javascript execution using an add-on.

[lowell]

Thanks for the help guys. It seems fixed! I got Malwarebytes for Mac and found a bunch of sketchy items.

Screen Shot 2016-07-12 at 2.06.56 PM.PDF
Screen Shot 2016-07-12 at 2.06.18 PM.PDF
Screen Shot 2016-07-12 at 1.54.16 PM.PDF This is one of the extra tabs that opened telling me to get this software.

[Steve A.]

Thanks all. There are the two plugins you mentioned Carlg. And one more, silverlight. So doesn't seem there is an issue there.

Microsoft Silverlight is a program/app/plugin that on the PC helps display graphics and videos, etc. I found it to be buggy as all heck a few years ago so I uninstalled it.

Sounds like you are making headway... great!

Steve Ahola