nasty popups

Good evening.

Yesterday started getting many pop-ups, one of which froze the system claiming to be from Safari and leaving a number to call. Which I did, wound up speaking to what sounded like an offshore site. The rep calmed he could fix the problem, but it would "cost me."

I hung up.

My questions: is there any app I can purchase that will block such intrusions?

And two, is there a piece of software I should buy to clean my hard drive?

Thanks,

bmahin

Best blocker is AdBlockPlus and it is free.

Best utility is Onyx and it is free, but make sure you download the correct version for you operating system.

AdwareMedic is great for Adware and is dontionware.

Ghostery stops tracking.

Hanging up was a very good idea. There is a distinct possibility that the fine folks you were talking to were the ones who created the carper you were trying to remove. Fortunately it should be easy enough to correct the problem and you don't have to part with any hard earned cash.

The following should get you back up and running in short order:
1. Completely quit whatever browser you were using.
2. Completely disconnect your Mac from the internet (turn off wi-fi and disconnect ethernet as well if you are using that).
3. Relaunch your browser and close the window that gave you the message about paying for a cleanup.
4. Re-connect your Mac to the Internet then download and run Adware Medic

That should clear up the problem. Make sure that you type the address adwaremedic.com into the browser. If you don't some malware redirects you away from the Adware Medic site.

Once things are back to normal you might consider downloading https://www.ghostery.com/en/ and https://adblockplus.org