How to safely close this window and forever avoid seeing similar pop-ups from Mackeeper Zeobit’s malware and spyware

malwaresafarispywarevirus

The attached image shows a window that just popped up and the only button available is the OK button. I could Force quit Safari, but I've got several sites open right now and don't want to try and find my place again. Besides, I've seen similar hacks in the past and I'd like to learn how to handle them in a way better than just a brute force-quit.

I've never heard of MacKeeper or Zeobit, so I opened Firefox and did a few searches while Safari is obviously still stuck, waiting for me to click the sneaky OK button in the dialog window. Anyhow, at least the first few pages of most search results contain lots of blabbering from questionable witnesses about how MacKeeper saved them from some malware or spyware. However, any company that is hacking the browser to maliciously install their product is itself the criminal and not providing a true security application. So, there are three questions here:

  1. How can I close this window?
  2. Can I do something to Safari to
    avoid these hacks in the future?
  3. (Just curious) Is MacKeeper or
    Zeobit somehow loading the search
    results so that no information about
    their application being malware or
    spyware is listed (I can't be the
    only person in the world that is
    offended by their tactics, even
    though it appears I am)?

enter image description here

Best Answer

  • Generally speaking, clicking OK on a dialog box like that in a webpage will not let the website actually download any files to your computer. That dialog is a JavaScript Alert dialog, and is in and of itself harmless - I wouldn't call it a "hack" per se. It is possible that after clicking OK, the page might redirect to a download, but cicking ok would not in and of itself cause an infection, unless there were already malicious scripts on the page, in which case, you'd already have been infected.

    That being said, this is still a sleazy tactic to use on the web, and is a good example of a misleading UI designed to confuse users into downloading software they may not want. It sounds like this may not actually be a malware site, but for future reference for other sites, you can report badware to various groups such as Google and Microsoft, and they can place the site on the block lists for their browsers. See "how to report a malicious website" for more info on that.

    If a website is showing incessant alert dialogs, some browsers will allow you to check a box asking not to show any more alerts from that site. I know Chrome has this capability, and gives you the option after more than 2 dialogs are shown in a row. I'm not sure if Safari does or not.

    prevent additional dialogs

    Some companies use nefarious SEO tactics and flood online review sites with fake positive comments; some will even hire people to write positive reviews for the. I don't know if the company in question is doing this or not, but it is one possibility.

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