The evolution of rogued Mac software continues to thrive as they enter a new fake virus that acts as another kind of cleaner but for pictures and is called the Similar Photo cleaner. This application is being advertised and creates the same kind of issues that Mac Auto Fixer, Mac Tonic and Advanced Mac Cleaner does. Although it’s not in the same level as the other viruses like it, it’s just as tenacious to fool users.
The adware will tell you that it has found a lot of duplicated and similar photo and other graphic files in your computer and will tell the user that the disk space of the computer is full because of the unnecessary and unwanted photos in the system. It will report a poor system health status and will constantly display frequent scans and warnings
Basically, the Similar Photo Cleaner fakes a scan and tells the user that they’ve detected similar copies of photos on your Mac and it doesn’t matter if your files have been organized and that you only have one copy of every picture, the scareware will state that there are other copies of those pictures. This can alarm users because the scareware will show that there is no longer any space on your computer’s memory and a clean-up is a must to free space on your computer from “unwanted photos”.
What’s worse with this issue is that the scans will frequently pop up when you’re using your Mac and even closing the program wouldn’t do anything about it. It will also continually give you a message that your computer is at risk because of the issues that the unnecessary files pose on your Mac. As a cherry on top, the virus has the ability to slow down your computer which may or may not convince the user to decide to fix the issue, via the options that the malware gives.
Like the other malware that’s similar to this one, the objective is to fool the user into buying a licensed version of the software. What makes matters worse is that the licensed version requires a payment and the cybercriminals are simply fooling the user into buying from them to fix a virus that they themselves have planted on your computer. Nowadays, this kind of issue isn’t as dealt with when it comes to Windows users unlike before but recently, cybercriminals have been the target of this kind of malware.
Some users have no clue how their computer has managed to be infected by the virus without knowing. The reason why the virus has subtly entered the system is simple and it’s a method that’s been used by cybercriminals for a long time. Let’s say you want a software installed into your computer, so you download and install it; it sounds simple but that’s actually how the malware enters your computer.
Downloading and installing a software into your computer without checking the additional items that accompany the software you want downloaded is most likely how the virus entered your system. Simply running and installing the software into your computer without inspecting the bundles that it comes with will put your computer at risk for any malware that’s lurking in the files that you didn’t check.
So, in summary of what the Similar Photo Cleaner is, it’s meant to pose as a disk space optimizer and acts as if it can enhance the performance of your computer. So, to rid your Mac of this annoying issue, there are two things that you’re supposed to do:
- Don’t fall for the bait of purchasing the licensed edition so you wouldn’t end up spending money on something that can actually be easily fixed.
- Uninstall and remove the adware from your computer straight away.
Manual Removal of the Similar Photo Cleaner from your Mac
Manually removing the malware application on your Mac is possible as long as you follow through the instructions that are listed below in specified order. Note that removal of the malware is a must to avoid any further damage on your Mac and for your own protection.
- Look for the Utilities folder on your Mac and open it.
- After you open Utilities, look for the Activity Monitor and double click on it to open it.
- After you’ve opened the Activity Monitor, you now have to look for the Similar Photo Cleaner entry and once you find it, click on it and then proceed to Quit Process.
- You’ll receive a popup window making sure you want to quit the application. Choose the Force Quit option to get on with the process of quitting the application.
- Again, click on the Go icon and choose Applications on the list. Once you’ve done that, look for the Similar Photo Cleaner, right-click and then choose the Move to Trash option. If it requires for your password, simply encode your password.
- Go to your Apple Menu and look for the option System Preferences.
- Click on Accounts and then look for the Login Items. You will see the Mac OS on the list that will come up when you start up the box. Look for the Advanced Mac Cleaner and choose the “-“ button.
Use an Automatic Tool to Remove the Similar Photo Cleaner from your Mac
There are actually utilities that have the ability to counteract the effects that the virus had on your computer. Freshmac not only provides security to your computer against any potential threats but can also clean any unwanted application that has wormed its way into your computer that you did not approve of. Any threats and viruses will be eliminated from your computer with a single click.
Freshmac also makes sure that your privacy is being protected because it eliminates tracking cookies, it can free up your disk space and it also manages the start-up applications so they wouldn’t slow down the boot time of your computer. Freshmac also offers 24/7 tech support.
The steps below are what you need to follow for the automatic removal of the malware on your Mac:
- Download and install the Freshmac application on your device. To install it, simply double-click on the Freshmac.pkg file to start the installation process and then choose the destination disk and click on Continue. There will be a popup dialogue asking for your password to allow the process to happen. Key in your password and choose Install Software.
- After the installation process completes, an automatic scanning of your system will then proceed to happen, and it consists of 5 steps. It will scan the cache, logs, unused languages, trash and will check your Mac for any privacy issue.
- The scan displays the system health status of your computer and any number of issues that the scan has detected. If there’s any issue that the scan has seen, you can click the Fix Safely button to remove any of the junk files and clean and fix your computer.
- To check if the issue about the malware has been fixed, check to see if the lock screen is still there. If it is, then proceed to the Uninstaller option and locate any suspicious entry, choose the entry and click on Fix Safely to force-uninstall the malware.
- You can then proceed to the Temp and Startup Apps and you can have any suspicious items deleted if you want to.
