Adware

Ive been having problems with adware on the mac... specially the netster thingie thats getting on my nerves... google doesnt work anymore for me from my laptop, all i get is the netster "search engine" which just gives me a headache

is there any software or solution for adware in my case... ?

PD i just downloaded firefox.. it says its safer in this matter, and people overall say it rocks

Whatcha people think

oh and by the way, ive just noticed that netster is also "hazarding" in firefox also....

I suspect it's infected the OSX settings at a lower level, and thus is browser neutral. I'd look into an antispyware, but I can't seem to find a free one.

i started downloadin a bunch of extensions for the firefox, and its helping a lilbit... but still i get sometimes that netster crap, and i have to go and erase the cache and cookies....
im trying to get a suite for security like mcafee or norton.. i dont mind paying a reasonable price for it, but i just need to protect this babe...

i have never had anything infect a browser on my mac and i am online at least 6h a day the last 15 years .....
what the *** is netster?
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edit:

i looked into this and you might wanna check out your 'hosts' file .... to do so:
in the finder, locate the 'GO' menu item and click on go to folder....
type: /etc
locate 'hosts' and double-click on it to open in text edit
you should have only ... like 3 entries or so ....

following article describes what can happen if it is altered and how to change it back
http://www.dreamlight.com/insights/bugs/Apple/lookupd.html

i can imagine that you have lots of entries in there that point to this netster thing - delete those entries and you should be fine. this is a shot in the blue - most things about netster i found on the web where windows related, but it always had to do with the hosts file ....

good luck

Either that or the system-level proxy settings. I'm not familiar enough with darwin to say whereabouts that is configured, however. On my linux system, there is an environment variable for it that you could check.

type 'set' and look for one with 'proxy' in it.

I'd be really interested to see this spyware ( AFAIK, this would be the first for OSX ). Can you close all programs, open up a terminal and run this command "ps -aux" and show us the output?

--Simon

thatll be ok..
but to be totally honest, ive been using mac for a while now, but just foe work, like using creative suite programs, and audio programs.. i kinda dont know how to run a comand... if you can help me with that

for the other posts... like now is that im really using this mac for the internet. before that, i have a pc laptop also, which i used it for internet, but thats unavalable right now.. maybe u guys have any type of like security suite or somthing?? i really dont mind paying for one, but ive read so much hazards with the intel-based computers with like norton and mcafee that ive just not bought anyone... any help on that??

im goin to check right now the host stuff to see what i get

*** that netster *** you can google it or whatnot, and you'll get a lot of "offers" of netster, but some of the result says the truth about it, like the real adware defenition of it... ive made like a reasearch on it, cause its really annoying... but the curious thing is that i erase history, cache, and cookies, and its gone for a while

thanx for the help guys

You need to get a 'terminal' open. It should be in the applications folder of the finder.

type 'ps aux' and copy-paste the output into here so we can take a look.

Please then type 'cat /etc/hosts' and paste that output

hector-samuels-computer:~ hectorsamuel$ ps aux
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TT STAT STARTED TIME COMMAND
hectorsa 282 7.3 13.8 354856 72116 ?? S 3:51PM 1:05.66 /Volumes/Firefox/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin -psn_0_6946817
hectorsa 287 1.8 4.1 217868 21356 ?? R 3:57PM 0:01.12 /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app/Contents/MacOS/Terminal -psn_0_7208961
windowse 60 1.4 6.2 235932 32504 ?? Ss 11:59AM 3:20.08 /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Resources/WindowSer
root 157 0.1 0.1 28516 568 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:22.10 /usr/sbin/cupsd -L
lp 183 0.1 5.1 159920 26548 ?? S 11:59AM 0:23.07 _7100_Series 10 hectorsamuel Microsoft Word - Document1 1 Sharpening=Automatic ColorModel=Color noMirror Media
hectorsa 178 0.1 0.9 284992 4880 ?? S 11:59AM 0:41.39 /Library/Application Support/Lexmark/7100 Series Scanner.bundle/Contents/SharedSupport/7100 Series Button Moni
root 31 0.0 0.0 27268 112 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.31 /usr/sbin/syslogd
root 33 0.0 0.1 29828 628 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.64 /usr/sbin/configd
root 34 0.0 0.1 31612 480 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.25 /usr/sbin/coreaudiod
root 35 0.0 0.1 27756 552 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.28 /usr/sbin/diskarbitrationd
root 36 0.0 0.1 28304 332 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.02 /usr/sbin/memberd -x
root 37 0.0 0.2 29320 812 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.26 /usr/sbin/securityd
root 39 0.0 0.1 27844 272 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:01.23 /usr/sbin/notifyd
root 41 0.0 0.2 30724 908 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.21 /usr/sbin/DirectoryService
root 42 0.0 0.1 27656 404 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.49 /usr/sbin/distnoted
root 46 0.0 0.0 27232 176 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:12.68 /usr/sbin/update
root 53 0.0 0.0 37796 216 ?? S 11:59AM 0:00.16 /usr/sbin/blued
root 56 0.0 1.2 49992 6092 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:01.15 /System/Library/CoreServices/coreservicesd
hectorsa 62 0.0 0.8 55180 3960 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:08.89 /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/ATS.framework/Support/ATSServer
hectorsa 63 0.0 1.0 216964 5312 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:14.55 /System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS/loginwindow console
hectorsa 72 0.0 0.1 55204 480 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.34 /System/Library/CoreServices/pbs
root 78 0.0 0.2 29184 1100 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.76 /usr/sbin/lookupd
hectorsa 80 0.0 0.5 187076 2792 ?? S 11:59AM 0:04.37 /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app/Contents/MacOS/Dock -psn_0_393217
hectorsa 99 0.0 1.8 234496 9140 ?? S 11:59AM 0:03.85 /System/Library/CoreServices/SystemUIServer.app/Contents/MacOS/SystemUIServer -psn_0_524289
hectorsa 106 0.0 3.7 279964 19044 ?? S 11:59AM 0:11.50 /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder -psn_0_655361
root 115 0.0 0.0 27232 84 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.00 /usr/libexec/crashreporterd
root 123 0.0 0.0 27716 228 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.93 ntpd -f /var/run/ntp.drift -p /var/run/ntpd.pid
root 135 0.0 0.0 29292 64 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.00 nfsiod -n 4
root 161 0.0 0.5 44676 2428 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:03.37 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Support/mds
root 163 0.0 0.0 27292 68 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.00 rpc.lockd -w
root 167 0.0 0.1 29700 408 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.03 /usr/sbin/automount -f -m /Network -nsl -mnt /private/var/automount
root 174 0.0 0.1 29404 280 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.04 /usr/sbin/automount -f -m /automount/Servers -fstab -mnt /private/Network/Servers -m /automount/static -static
hectorsa 175 0.0 0.1 190504 524 ?? S 11:59AM 0:00.18 /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/iTunesHelper.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper -psn_0_786433
hectorsa 176 0.0 0.8 279188 3928 ?? S 11:59AM 0:01.19 /Applications/Microsoft AutoUpdate.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft AU Daemon.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft AU Daem
hectorsa 177 0.0 0.2 101424 1000 ?? S 11:59AM 0:00.71 /Library/Application Support/Lexmark/LexNetServices.app/Contents/MacOS/LexNetServices -psn_0_1048577
root 181 0.0 0.2 283068 1260 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.38 /usr/libexec/oah/translated
lp 182 0.0 0.0 48816 204 ?? S 11:59AM 0:00.06 _7100_Series 10 hectorsamuel Microsoft Word - Document1 1 Sharpening=Automatic ColorModel=Color noMirror Media
root 184 0.0 0.1 27824 328 ?? S 11:59AM 0:35.47 usb://Lexmark/7100%20Series?serial=21H000000100538 10 hectorsamuel Microsoft Word - Document1 1 Sharpening=Aut
hectorsa 256 0.0 0.2 38072 1028 ?? S 12:52PM 0:00.03 /System/Library/Services/AppleSpell.service/Contents/MacOS/AppleSpell -psn_0_4456449
hectorsa 278 0.0 0.7 40004 3480 ?? SNs 3:19PM 0:00.50 /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/A/Support/mdimportser
root 289 0.0 0.4 27556 2020 p1 Ss 3:57PM 0:00.02 login -pf hectorsamuel
hectorsa 290 0.0 0.2 27708 1240 p1 S 3:57PM 0:00.02 -bash
root 295 0.0 0.1 27272 404 p1 R+ 3:59PM 0:00.00 ps aux
root 1 0.0 0.1 28328 296 ?? S<s 11:58AM 0:00.31 /sbin/launchd
root 21 0.0 0.0 27248 88 ?? Ss 11:58AM 0:00.02 /sbin/dynamic_pager -F /private/var/vm/swapfile
root 25 0.0 0.1 28192 672 ?? Ss 11:58AM 0:01.21 kextd
root 28 0.0 0.0 27832 168 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.03 /usr/sbin/KernelEventAgent
root 29 0.0 0.1 28544 564 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.39 /usr/sbin/mDNSResponder -launchdaemon
root 30 0.0 0.1 27560 348 ?? Ss 11:59AM 0:00.18 /usr/sbin/netinfod -s local

hector-samuels-computer:~ hectorsamuel$ cat /etc/hosts
##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting. Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1 localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost