My pop up blocker is activated, and Cookies are only allowed on websites I visit frequently, yet i have been having a recurring issue on my Macbook air (11in, 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3) ever since I updated the software on my laptop to OS X Yosemite. The issue is with a website called Offers4u and smartsearch.net, but i cannot find anything up to date about how to get rid of this. I have spoken to a person from apple over the phone who went through possible reasons with me, and i went through all of the links on another page to find the issue but found NOTHING. If i want a troubleshoot i have to pay £25 as I've had the mac since 2012 but as i am a student and on a student loan that already gives me very little it is difficult for me to be able to do that. If anyone would be of any help it would be greatly appreciated.
There is no need to download anything to solve this problem. You may have installed a variant of the 'VSearch' ad-injection malware. Malware is always changing to get around the defenses against it. These instructions are valid as of today, as far as I know. They won't necessarily be valid in the future. Anyone finding this comment a few days or more after it was posted should look for a more recent discussion, or start a new one. The VSearch malware tries to hide itself by varying the names of the files it installs.
Browsers & Email Enable or Disable Adobe Flash Player in Microsoft Edge in Windows 10 in Tutorials How to Enable or Disable Adobe Flash Player in Microsoft Edge in Windows 10 Microsoft Edge is a new web browser added in Windows 10, and will be available across the Windows 10 device family. Editing the hosts file Editing the hosts file in Mac OS X – Leopard, is a pretty easy task, especially if you are familiar with the terminal. Step 1: – Open the Terminal.app Either by start typing Terminal on the Spotlight, or by going into Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal.
To remove it, you must first identify the naming pattern. Triple-click the line below on this page to select it, then copy the text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C: /Library/LaunchDaemons In the Finder, select Go ▹ Go to Folder. From the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return. A folder named 'LaunchDaemons' may open. Look inside it for two files with names of the form com.
Something.daemon.plist and com. Something.helper.plist Here something is a variable word, which can be different in each case. So far it has always been a string of letters without punctuation, such as 'cloud,' 'dot,' 'highway,' 'submarine,' or 'trusteddownloads.' Sometimes the word is 'apple,' and then you must be especially careful not to delete the wrong files, because many built-in OS X files have similar names. If you find these files, leave the LaunchDaemons folder open, and open the following folder in the same way: /Library/LaunchAgents In this folder, there may be a file named com.
Something.agent.plist where the word something is the same as before. If you feel confident that you've identified the above files, back up all data, then drag just those three files—nothing else—to the Trash. You may be prompted for your administrator login password. Close the Finder windows and restart the computer. Don't delete the 'LaunchAgents ' or ' LaunchDaemons ' folder or anything else inside either one. The malware is now permanently inactivated, as long as you never reinstall it.
You can stop here if you like, or you can remove two remaining components for the sake of completeness. Open this folder: /Library/Application Support If it has a subfolder named just something where something is the same word you saw before, drag that subfolder to the Trash and close the window. Don't delete the 'Application Support' folder or anything else inside it. Finally, in this folder: /System/Library/Frameworks there may an item named exactly v.framework It's actually a folder, though it has a different icon than usual.
This item always has the above name. Drag it to the Trash and close the window. Don't delete the 'Frameworks' folder or anything else inside it. If you didn't find the files or you're not sure about the identification, post what you found. If in doubt, or if you have no backups, change nothing at all.
The trouble may have started when you downloaded and ran an application called 'MPlayerX.' That's the name of a legitimate free movie player, but the name is also used fraudulently to distribute VSearch. If there is an item with that name in the Applications folder, delete it, and if you wish, replace it with the genuine article from. This trojan is often found on illegal websites that traffic in pirated content such as movies. If you, or anyone else who uses the computer, visit such sites and follow prompts to install software, you can expect more of the same, and worse, to follow. Never install any software that you downloaded from a bittorrent, or that was downloaded by someone else from an unknown source. In the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences, select the General tab.
The radio button marked Anywhere should not be selected. If it is, click the lock icon to unlock the settings, then select one of the other buttons. After that, don't ignore a warning that you are about to run or install an application from an unknown developer.
Then, still in System Preferences, open the App Store or Software Update pane and check the box marked Install system data files and security updates (OS X 10.10 or later) or Download updates automatically (OS X 10.9 or earlier) if it's not already checked. Helpful Links Regarding Malware Problems If you are having an immediate problem with ads popping up see,. Open Safari, select Preferences from the Safari menu. Click on Extensions icon in the toolbar. Disable all Extensions. If this stops your problem, then re-enable them one by one until the problem returns. Now remove that extension as it is causing the problem.
The following comes from user. I have made minor changes to adapt to this presentation. Fix Some Browser Pop-ups That Take Over Safari. Common pop-ups include a message saying the government has seized your computer and you must pay to have it released (often called 'Moneypak'), or a phony message saying that your computer has been infected, and you need to call a tech support number (sometimes claiming to be Apple) to get it resolved. First, understand that these pop-ups are not caused by a virus and your computer has not been affected.
This 'hijack' is limited to your web browser. Also understand that these messages are scams, so do not pay any money, call the listed number, or provide any personal information. This article will outline the solution to dismiss the pop-up.
Quit Safari Usually, these pop-ups will not go away by either clicking 'OK' or 'Cancel.' Furthermore, several menus in the menu bar may become disabled and show in gray, including the option to quit Safari. You will likely have to force quit Safari. To do this, press Command + option + esc, select Safari, and press Force Quit. Relaunch Safari If you relaunch Safari, the page will reopen. To prevent this from happening, hold down the 'Shift' key while opening Safari.
This will prevent windows from the last time Safari was running from reopening. This will not work in all cases. The shift key must be held at the right time, and in some cases, even if done correctly, the window reappears.
In these circumstances, after force quitting Safari, turn off Wi-Fi or disconnect Ethernet, depending on how you connect to the Internet. Then relaunch Safari normally. It will try to reload the malicious webpage, but without a connection, it won't be able to.
Navigate away from that page by entering a different URL, i.e. Www.apple.com, and trying to load it. Now you can reconnect to the Internet, and the page you entered will appear rather than the malicious one. There is no need to download anything to solve this problem.
You may have installed a variant of the 'VSearch' ad-injection malware. Malware is always changing to get around the defenses against it. These instructions are valid as of today, as far as I know. They won't necessarily be valid in the future. Anyone finding this comment a few days or more after it was posted should look for a more recent discussion, or start a new one. The VSearch malware tries to hide itself by varying the names of the files it installs.
To remove it, you must first identify the naming pattern. Triple-click the line below on this page to select it, then copy the text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C: /Library/LaunchDaemons In the Finder, select Go ▹ Go to Folder. From the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return. A folder named 'LaunchDaemons' may open. Look inside it for two files with names of the form com.
Something.daemon.plist and com. Something.helper.plist Here something is a variable word, which can be different in each case.
So far it has always been a string of letters without punctuation, such as 'cloud,' 'dot,' 'highway,' 'submarine,' or 'trusteddownloads.' Sometimes the word is 'apple,' and then you must be especially careful not to delete the wrong files, because many built-in OS X files have similar names. If you find these files, leave the LaunchDaemons folder open, and open the following folder in the same way: /Library/LaunchAgents In this folder, there may be a file named com.
Something.agent.plist where the word something is the same as before. If you feel confident that you've identified the above files, back up all data, then drag just those three files—nothing else—to the Trash. You may be prompted for your administrator login password.
Close the Finder windows and restart the computer. Don't delete the 'LaunchAgents ' or ' LaunchDaemons ' folder or anything else inside either one.
The malware is now permanently inactivated, as long as you never reinstall it. You can stop here if you like, or you can remove two remaining components for the sake of completeness.
Open this folder: /Library/Application Support If it has a subfolder named just something where something is the same word you saw before, drag that subfolder to the Trash and close the window. Don't delete the 'Application Support' folder or anything else inside it.
Finally, in this folder: /System/Library/Frameworks there may an item named exactly v.framework It's actually a folder, though it has a different icon than usual. This item always has the above name. Drag it to the Trash and close the window. Don't delete the 'Frameworks' folder or anything else inside it. If you didn't find the files or you're not sure about the identification, post what you found. If in doubt, or if you have no backups, change nothing at all.
The trouble may have started when you downloaded and ran an application called 'MPlayerX.' That's the name of a legitimate free movie player, but the name is also used fraudulently to distribute VSearch. If there is an item with that name in the Applications folder, delete it, and if you wish, replace it with the genuine article from. This trojan is often found on illegal websites that traffic in pirated content such as movies.
If you, or anyone else who uses the computer, visit such sites and follow prompts to install software, you can expect more of the same, and worse, to follow. Never install any software that you downloaded from a bittorrent, or that was downloaded by someone else from an unknown source. In the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences, select the General tab. The radio button marked Anywhere should not be selected. If it is, click the lock icon to unlock the settings, then select one of the other buttons. After that, don't ignore a warning that you are about to run or install an application from an unknown developer.
Then, still in System Preferences, open the App Store or Software Update pane and check the box marked Install system data files and security updates (OS X 10.10 or later) or Download updates automatically (OS X 10.9 or earlier) if it's not already checked. Linc, I have some issues, as follows: First folder search reveals 2 folders by the name 'com.adobe.fpsaud.plist' and 'com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist' so the something isn't the same, one being adobe and the other oracle. The second search reveals the folder 'com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist'. Although it matches oracle in the first search, it doesn'nt match both the files (since one was had the word adobe and the other oracle) but it does match one of them. Should I just drag the two files named oracle and not three as instructed by you? The third search does, however, reveal a folder named 'oracle' in the application support folder but I am not sure of whether to delete it due to the discrepancies in the first search Finally, in the frameworks folder, there is no ' v.
Framework' although many others with.framework as the ending term, such as 'tk.framework', 'tcl. Framework' etc. Thank you in advance. Apple Footer. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided; every potential issue may involve several factors not detailed in the conversations captured in an electronic forum and Apple can therefore provide no guarantee as to the efficacy of any proposed solutions on the community forums.
Apple disclaims any and all liability for the acts, omissions and conduct of any third parties in connection with or related to your use of the site. All postings and use of the content on this site are subject to the.
Caution: Downloading and using any leaked builds or any hacked/cracked version of any software is not only illegal and a crime punishable by law, but also pose great security risks and should be avoided. The information posted here is for news purposes only and any illegal links posted in comments will be deleted. Do you ever get this error message? If you use a key generated serial without using this hosts file technique, It will not work permanent and gives you the error above again and again Remember Serials may be different but hosts file editing is same required for one time only so make it now and use all Adobe cs4 and cs5 products with a key generated serial number Adobe CS5 Hosts File Editing Windows / Windows 7 / Windows XP Step 1: Under windows 7 go to this path “C: Windows System32 drivers etc” there you can see some files. We just need to work with hosts file. First we will copy this file and paste to somewhere else as a backup so if anything goes wrong we can replace that with our edited one. Step 2: Now click on your start button search for Notepad, right-click and select Run as Administrator.
This should launch notepad with all possible privileges. Now open the hosts file from the directory path: “C: Windows System32 drivers etc” if no file displayed, you have to display All Files by typing (.) in the box. It will show you all files of this directory. Now you can open hosts file from there. (remember the above path won’t show any file if you try it without star number: (.) You have to use it to see the All Files) Step 3: Now the file is front of you check the last line which is “#::1 localhost” and paste the below lines right after it. MAC / OS X Editing the hosts file Editing the hosts file in Mac OS X – Leopard, is a pretty easy task, especially if you are familiar with the terminal. Step 1: – Open the Terminal.app Either by start typing Terminal on the Spotlight, or by going into Applications - Utilities - Terminal.
Step 2: – Open the hosts file Open the hosts by typing on the Terminal that you have just opened. $ sudo nano /private/etc/hosts Type your user password when prompted.
Step 3: Edit the Hosts File The hosts file contains some comments (lines starting with the # symbol), as well as some default hostname mappings (e.g. 127.0.0.1 – localhost). Simply append your new mappings underneath the default ones.
Or edit one of the default values if you know what you are doing! You can navigate the file using the arrow keys.
Step 4 – Save the hosts fileWhen done editing the hosts file, press control-o to save the file. Press enter on the filename prompt, and control-x to exit the editor. Step 5 – Flush the DNS cache On Leopard you can issue a simple Terminal command to flush the DNS cache, and have your host file changes to take immediate effect. Hi, I am new at this whole unix/terminal thing and to be honest quite nervous to dive in for fear or ruining my new mac.
Here is my dilemmaI HAD Adobe CS4 installed on an older imac that I had (2010 model)– It worked flawlessly, I bought a new macbook air, running OS 10.8, transferred all of my files from old mac to the new macbook sold the old mac after zeroing the drive and now I am getting a message when I go to launch any of the CS4 apps “Excuse the interruption, but our records indicate that this serial number has already been used to set up and activate Creative Suite (CS4)″ I am hoping that someone can point me in the direction of productivity and more over happiness. I need this software to work again without the 30 day count down until the software no longer works.I understand that I need to edit a host file in my mac but I am unsure how to exactly do it, where to add the code(s) to, what NOT to do, and what code to add so that this Adobe activation thing will go away.
Please Heeeeeelp! Thanks in advance, much appreciated!