How much damage can fixpc99 do?

[Rat]

I always thought the Download.com (from Cnet) was one of the go-to, trusted places? I've gotten dozens of items from there, but I usually only take one of the top two in whatever's listed.

No, not for many years, if it ever was. Even Sourceforge is not trustworthy these days, which doesn't leave many places to choose from, other than the writer's site, if they allow direct downloads.

With both download.com and sourceforge, the issue was not that the software you're downloading is not itself safe, but that the site injects their own installers in to the installer that you're downloading.

 

[elgarak]

I always thought the Download.com (from Cnet) was one of the go-to, trusted places? I've gotten dozens of items from there, but I usually only take one of the top two in whatever's listed.

This article disagrees, and lists the complaints.

Personally, I try to avoid any such repository site that hosts numerous apps from multiple developers except Apple's App Store, which technically is nothing else than such a repository site.

If possible, I try to download from the developer directly if the app is not on the App Store.

There are one or two apps I have which the developers distributes only over a repository site (mostly Sourceforge). In those cases, I take extra precautions when I download from there.

I have used such repository sites a lot in the past, but all of them have turned to the dark side sooner or later. Sometimes its just bad managing of the content (not keeping the apps up-to-date), but quite often it's like with download.com that they start changing the installers and add their own ****.

Apple's App Store has the big advantage of not being required to finance itself.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

found this at something called Apple Club

"What if I Called the Number?
There may be cause for concern if you were not aware this was a scam and called the number in the pop-up. If you gave them your credit card information, you should call your bank as soon as possible, ask them to reverse the charge, and explain what happened to them, so they might consider blocking charges from the scammers altogether. If you are using an iOS device, the scammers probably just asked for money. If you are using a Mac, they probably asked for money, but also may have told you to install some software on your computer or give them remote access. There is no telling what that software might do, or what they might have done while they had access to your computer. (NOTE: You do not need to do any of the following unless the scammers installed anything on your computer - the pop-up alone is not a cause for worry about compromised data). Reboot your Mac, and hold the Command ⌘ and R keys until you are taken to OS X's recovery partition. If you made a Time Machine backup before you called the number, you can restore from that. Otherwise, the only way to be absolutely safe is to erase your hard drive (if you have important data that was not backed up, you can manually save these files to a flash drive, etc. before proceeding). In the Recovery partition, instead of selecting Time Machine, select Disk Utility. When it opens, select Macintosh HD or whatever your partition is named from the sidebar. Go to the Erase tab (it is one of the tabs near the top of the window), and click on Erase." link

 

[Rat]

Apple's App Store has the big advantage of not being required to finance itself.

But the disadvantage (to some) that the apps that are allowed on are vetted by Apple, which has both good and bad points. The guidelines are somewhat...idiosyncratic.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

good news, sort of

The building's IT person came by today and did what was on this link, which suggests using Adware Medic. But he did not do anything else in terms of searching for malware. He also said that the university does not purchase antiviral software for Macs, only Windows-based machines. There has always been a problem getting support for Macs here, BTW. I have a copy of MacKeeper for my home. Should I buy a copy of it or something else for my work machine?

 

[Elagabalus]

The building's IT person came by today and did what was on this link, which suggests using Adware Medic. But he did not do anything else in terms of searching for malware. He also said that the university does not purchase antiviral software for Macs, only Windows-based machines. There has always been a problem getting support for Macs here, BTW. I have a copy of MacKeeper for my home. Should I buy a copy of it or something else for my work machine?

No.

http://www.thesafemac.com/ongoing-mackeeper-fraud/