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ComputersSoftware & AppsAdvanced Mac Cleaner Review – Best Mac Computer Cleaning Software?
Aug 02, 2019 Try uninstalling Advanced Mac Cleaner by moving the app the Trash icon. Save your work and reboot your operating system. Try cleaning up Advanced Mac Cleaner related remains on your Mac. To do so, you typically need to head to the Library folder.
Advanced Mac Cleaner Review
Advanced Mac Cleaner is optimization software designed for Mac OS X 10.7 and higher.
- How to Uninstall Advanced Mac Cleaner on Mac OS X? Advanced Mac Cleaner can’t be thought of as a virus because it does not produce any virus-like behavior such as multiplying and copying itself on your computer and causing irreversible damage. This program is a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program).
- Afterward, Advanced Mac Cleaner shows a reasonably convincing, but fake variant of the normal OS X dialog message box which says that no suitable app is installed. The fake message box links to the official Advanced Mac Cleaner website, owned by PCVARK, which tries to install Mac Adware Remover or similar applications to Advanced Mac Cleaner.
- Users are highly recommended to remove Advanced Mac Cleaner from their Macs automatically by using a reliable antivirus and anti-malware software that can easily remove potentially unwanted programs and other types of malware with all their files and registry entries related to them. Get rid of Advanced Mac Cleaner manually from Mac OS X.
It claims to clean, fix, and speed up any Mac. Does it actually work? Read our review to find out.
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/2/6/1/126133328/218808333.png)
What Is Advanced Mac Cleaner?
Advanced Mac Cleaner is optimization software designed for Mac OS X 10.7+. The software claims to use “state of the art technology” to help keep your Mac running smooth, fast, and error-free.
If you’ve been on the internet for more than 10 minutes, then you’ve probably encountered similar software programs for PCs. These software programs typically give you a free trial, and then that free trial encounters hundreds of fictitious problems. The only way to fix these problems is by paying a pricey fee.
Is Advanced Mac Cleaner just a Mac version of these optimization software scams? Or is this a real program that can genuinely help your PC? Let’s find out more about its features and tools.
How Does Advanced Mac Cleaner Work?
Advanced Mac Cleaner comes with all of the following features and tools:
-App Manager: Helps you manage installed applications, remove your internet history, and choose which applications startup with your system.
-Multiple Cleanups: Helps you reclaim lost drive space by removing unnecessary data. Get a breakdown of where data is stored on your Mac and decide which files you need to keep – and which can be removed.
-Duplicate Remover: Locate and manage duplicate files to remove excessive drive clutter.
That’s it. You get three core tools included with Advanced Mac Cleaner – which is surprisingly little for a software program priced at $40 with ongoing subscription fees.
Another problem is that a lot of these features are available built-into your Mac. You can always choose which programs startup, for example, and wiping your internet history is as easy as making two clicks in your internet browser. You can easily uninstall software for free using built-in tools on your Mac. You don’t need to pay $40 extra for it.
There’s also software programs available for free online that offer similar functionality. Finding duplicate files or scanning your hard drive for space isn’t that novel of a feature.
One of the biggest problems we have with Advanced Mac Cleaner is the ongoing subscription fees: you’re asked to pay $20 every 6 months for your subscription, yet the software doesn’t appear to receive any major updates. Typically, you only pay a subscription when you’re using antivirus software or other software that requires regular updates. With Advanced Mac Cleaner, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Advanced Mac Cleaner Pricing
Advanced Mac Cleaner is priced at $39.95 USD for your first 6 months, then an ongoing subscription fee of $19.97 every 6 months thereafter.
Depending from where you buy the software, you may be offered an additional software package – like a Sticky Password subscription for $14.55 USD for the first 6 months.
Your payment information is automatically charged every 6 months if you don’t cancel. All purchases also come with a 60 day money back guarantee.
Your purchase is processed through FastSpring, which also does business under the name Bright Market LLC. It’s unclear why the developers do that – although we don’t have much information about the developers to begin with.
Who Makes Advanced Mac Cleaner?
We know very little about the developers of Advanced Mac Cleaner. The developers never give their name. However, this appears to be an Indian-based developer which primarily markets their software in the United States.
The company’s terms of use document lists this address in Rajasthan:
32 Gopal Tower
Gopal bari, Jaipur – 302001
Rajasthan, India
Gopal bari, Jaipur – 302001
Rajasthan, India
You can contact the developers by toll-free phone at 877-861-1418 or by email at [email protected]
It does not appear that the developer makes any other software. However, their marketing and contact information is similar to another software program called PC Speedup Pro, so it seems likely they share a developer or at least a publisher.
Should You Use Advanced Mac Cleaner to Clean your Mac?
Advanced Mac Cleaner doesn’t appear to be worth its $40 price tag (not to mention the ongoing $40 per year subscription fee). The software only features three basic tools – and most of these functions are already available on your Mac for free. You don’t need to install pricey software to clear your browser history, check your storage space, or uninstall programs, for example.
It’s also weird to see an ongoing subscription fee. The software doesn’t appear to receive any major updates, so it’s unclear why the developer wants to charge you $20 every 6 months (aside from this being a cash grab).
Overall, Advanced Mac Cleaner seems to be too similar to PC optimization software scams we’ve seen for years. These scams find fictitious problems on your computer during a free scan, then request you pay a hefty fee to remove these problems.
Ultimately, even if Advanced Mac Cleaner isn’t a scam, the developers don’t give us enough information to justify the $40 price tag (plus $20 / 6 month subscription fee). It’s just too similar to free software programs available online today – so you should probably save your money.
Remove Advanced Mac Cleaner rogue optimization tool from Mac OS X to stop its frustrating alerts and undo the concomitant bad effects it calls forth.
Update: October 2019
Advanced Mac Cleaner usually appears on Mac boxes out of the blue and floods the victim’s experience with annoying warning messages. Also known as Mac Cleaner, it dupes the user into thinking that their machine has got numerous problems hindering normal performance. According to the fake alerts, the operating system’s productivity is impacted by junk files, duplicate objects, unneeded login items, crammed up cache, trash and logs, as well as rogue apps that are claimed to occupy excessive hard disk space and thus reduce the processing speed as well as responsiveness to commands. The number of these wrongfully reported items is flagrant, going over 1000 even on a well-tuned or new Mac computer.
It’s not a commonplace distribution practice that’s leveraged by Advanced Mac Cleaner makers to promote their nasty brainchild. A great deal of infected users have caught this pseudo optimizer when installing free tools such as FileZilla or updating Adobe Flash Player via downloads from unofficial sources. In these cases, the setup wizard prompts you that an extra applet will be installed as a bonus to make the Mac run smoother. Some people are prudent enough to avoid such offers, which are generally known to deliver adware programs, but this caution doesn’t always help. Unless the bundle is manually unchecked and thus opted out of from the start, Advanced Mac Cleaner will still be installed in the background.
Furthermore, the culprit may additionally cross-promote affiliated scareware like Mac Adware Cleaner by means of prompts on its GUI. To add insult to injury, it may hijack the victim’s default web browser and redirect their traffic to landing pages pushing its licensed version or a copy of another rogue system utility, such as Mac Tonic or Mac Auto Fixer. The malware is also known to propagate alongside browser redirect viruses and persistent adware apps that affect the victim’s web surfing experience. One of the notorious campaigns pushing the scareware in question relies on sketchy browser alerts that report alleged infection with a combo of 3 viruses called Tapsnake, CronDNS, and Dubfishicv. The victims are redirected to phony web pages that mimic AppleCare and insist on urgent download of Advanced Mac Cleaner to sort out the problem that isn’t there in the first place. It appears that the gang behind the rogue program in question is deploying a well-orchestrated malicious marketing campaign with a distinct flavor of social engineering.
The user may be unaware of this forcible setup from the get-go, but not until a message like the one above pops up. It says that a huge number of issues have been found, specifying this information as follows “Issues may include duplicate files, system & internet junk, rogue software & recoverable drive space. Fix and enjoy a performance boost.” The ‘Start Repair’ button, if clicked, takes you to the junk application’s main interface that displays high improvement potential for each cluster of problems. Obviously, cleaning the purported bugs is a paid service. At that point, it’s reasonable to contemplate over what’s happening: you are being told to pay for rectifying issues that do not exist. It’s certainly the best move to get rid of the Advanced Mac Cleaner scam rather than follow the evildoers’ recommendations.
Another flavor of this scareware problem surfaced in October 2019. It was precipitated by a release of Apple’s macOS Catalina 10.15. After upgrading their operating system to the new version, numerous users started experiencing obnoxious popup activity with Advanced Mac Cleaner at its core. The annoying notifications say, “helperamc will damage your computer. You should move it to the Bin.” The process mentioned on these alerts is spawned by the rogue system tool under scrutiny and can be seen in the Activity Monitor, along with other related executables called “amcuninstall” and “hlpramc”.
Here is what’s happening: the latest macOS build, evidently, leverages an improved algorithm to identify potentially harmful apps. In particular, it will flag a program as a malicious one if it was installed on an unknown date, if its installer was downloaded from an unverified source, or in case some other telltale signs of sketchy activity are spotted. To let the users know about such suspicious objects, the system displays the above-mentioned popup dialogs. In this situation, the infection is probably in a dormant state and doesn’t manifest itself conspicuously. The Catalina update has simply unearthed the issue due to new security perks it delivers. Unfortunately, although the warnings include a “Move to Bin” button, it doesn’t work as intended. Therefore, the victims have to do their homework and find a way to remove Advanced Mac Cleaner despite its persistence.
Advanced Mac Cleaner manual removal for Mac
The steps listed below will walk you through the removal of this application. Be sure to follow the instructions in the order specified.
- Open up the Utilities folder as shown below
- Locate the Activity Monitor icon on the screen and double-click on it
- Under Activity Monitor, find the entry for Advanced Mac Cleaner, select it and click Quit Process
- A dialog should pop up, asking if you are sure you would like to quit the Advanced Mac Cleaner (it can be manifested as an object named helperamc) executable. Select the Force Quit option
- Expand the Go menu in Apple Finder and select Go to Folder
- Type or paste the following string in the folder search dialog: /Library/LaunchAgents
- Once the LaunchAgentsdirectory opens up, find the following entries in it and move them to Trash:
- com.pcv.hlpramc.plist
- com.pcv.helperamc.plist
- com.pcv.amcuninstall.plist
- com.PCvark.AdvancedMacCleaner.plist
- Use the Go to Folder lookup feature again to navigate to the folder named ~/Library/LaunchAgents. When this path opens, look for the same entries (see above) and send them to Trash
- Similarly, go to the ~Library/Application Support folder. Locate and move the following entries to Trash:
- Advanced Mac Cleaner
- amc
- Click the Go button again, but this time select Applications on the list. Find the entry for Advanced Mac Cleaner entry on the interface, right-click on it and select Move to Trash. If user password is required, go ahead and enter it
- Now go to Apple Menu and pick the System Preferences option
- Select Accounts and click the Login Items button. Mac OS will come up with the list of the items that launch when the box is started up. Locate Advanced Mac Cleaner there and click on the '-' button
Use automatic tool to completely uninstall Advanced Mac Cleaner from your Mac
- Download and install MacBooster application (read review). The tool provides both optimization and security features for your Mac. Before you get down to obliterating Advanced Mac Cleaner virus proper, consider checking your machine for other security risks and performance issues by hitting the Scan button. Download Now
- Proceed to the Uninstaller feature, find Advanced Mac Cleaner on the Applications list and have MacBooster completely eliminate all components of the app from your Mac by clicking Uninstall in the bottom part of the GUI. Doing so will ensure all components of the malware and its remainders, which may have not been removed in the manual way, will be thoroughly cleaned up.
Does Advanced Mac Cleaner Work For Mac
FAQ
Does Advanced Mac Cleaner Work
Unlike benign software, Advanced Mac Cleaner is a stubborn app that attempts to complicate the uninstall process. It means that you need to circumvent its hindrance before deleting the associated components and files. This adds an extra step to the removal logic. In most cases, the following workflow does the trick:
- Open the Activity Monitor, find an entry named “helperamc”, “hlpramc” or another process with “amc” part in its name, and quit the malicious executable.
- Look for related files (com.pcv.hlpramc.plist, com.pcv.helperamc.plist, com.pcv.amcuninstall.plist, com.PCvark.AdvancedMacCleaner.plist, Advanced Mac Cleaner, amc) in the LaunchAgents and Application Support folders. Remove these objects if found.
- Go to the Finder and select Applications. Spot ‘Advanced Mac Cleaner’ app and move it to the Trash. Empty the Trash when done.
Ideally, this technique should eradicate the scareware, but with the caveat that the files may vary as new versions of Advanced Mac Cleaner appear in the wild. Stay tuned for updates in the guide above to make sure your removal efforts are effective.
Advanced Mac Cleaner Scam
Advanced Mac Cleaner is a rogue system utility that wrongfully purports to look for and fix Mac performance issues and privacy risks. Instead of carrying through with these promises, it reports non-existent problems and tries to pressure the user into buying its licensed version to unlock the repair features. This scareware is installed behind the user’s back, usually arriving with complex app bundles camouflaged as one useful program.
Is Advanced Mac Cleaner Legit
At first sight, it may seem that the impact of Advanced Mac Cleaner is restricted to annoying scan reports and scary-looking popup alerts. That’s a misconception. This fake optimizer isn’t safe to use, because it can harvest your sensitive information and send it to the cybercriminals in charge of the campaign. Your usernames and passwords, as well as credit card information, are potentially at risk as long as this pest is running on your Mac.
Does Advanced Mac Cleaner Work For Free
No, it’s not. The huge amount of negative feedback about this program speaks volumes about its dirty practices, not to mention the obvious elements of foul play in its modus operandi. Advanced Mac Cleaner is distributed via covert software bundles and fake virus alerts shown on numerous malicious websites. Once installed, it deluges the host system with deceptive scans and popup alerts reporting hundreds or even thousands of imaginary performance and security issues. The objective of this brainwashing is to coerce the victim to purchase the app’s license, which is supposedly a prerequisite of addressing the detected threats. Another shady quirk is that Advanced Mac Cleaner is harder to uninstall than regular Mac applications. All in all, this scareware is neither legit nor safe.