Useaget

[Bruce Whittington]

I received a reminder, much like the update reminders that appear in the upper right corner of my screen, that made a reference to Useaget. I vaguely remember seeing some reference to that but don't know where. I managed to make the window disappear, and went to the 'net to look it up, and found this site:

https://www.pcrisk.com/removal-guides/1 ... direct-mac

Seems like this is a bad thing. I see that I have a Useaget icon in my list of apps, don't know how it got there. I have not yet trashed it, in case it leaves other things behind that cannot be traced and trashed. How serious a concern is this? Can this website be trusted for removal advice, or is there a better one? Late 2013 27" iMac, 3.2 GHz, High Sierra 10.13.2.

 

[DaveWT]

I see an article that suggests you remove it with Malwarebytes and that, I believe, is a safe approach.

 

[Bruce Whittington]

Thanks - I have never used Malwarebytes, but downloaded it and it immediately found and quarantined Useaget, and also Smokyashan, which I was not aware of. Also quarantined was an archive app which I assumed was from Apple, but no. Interesting to me is that some of this malware comes via Google and other search engines, which I do not use. I use Ecosia, which I believe operates through Bing, so is the bad stuff coming through there? Or from somewhere else? I'm always careful to download only from trusted sources, but maybe I need to look more closely.