softonic?

[MacInWin]

Keith, the Apple store will most likely suggest just reinstalling the OS to get rid of it. They are not going to spend any time searching for the malware or whatever it is that is doing the notification. And that you can do at home, without the hassle of transporting the iMac to the store. You said you have a backup from December. What I would recommend at this point is to do a new backup, then a clean reinstall of the operating system and to migrate only your files, no applications or anything else, from the backup to the machine after the install. If you have any additional software installed, you could then reinstall it from the developer website, or the Mac App Store, and NOT Softonic or any other dodgy location.

And you may even be able to avoid it all together if you can get etrecheck to run and then post the results here. You can get etrecheck at EtreCheck . It's free and works well and that site is safe to download from. You will get a warning when you first run it about not coming from the Mac store, but you can run it anyway. I gave more detail on this process in post #63.

 

[MacInWin]

Keith to make it easier for you, here is a better description of what to do to run etrecheck:

1. Download from the website. You may get a zip file. If you do, just double click on it and it will extract etrecheck from the zip. It should end up in the Downloads folder on the iMac.
2. Run it. You may get a warning from the system that it came from an unknown source and are you sure. Let it run, it's safe. If you aren't certain, you can download it from the Apple store and you won't get that warning. To do that, click on the  in the upper left corner, then click on "App Store..." and search for etrecheck. There is only one.
3. As it starts, you get this window:



Click on the window where it says "Choose a problem" and pick anything or type in what you want. Once you choose a problem, the "Start Etrecheck" button will change color. Click on the button to run it.
4. When it is running you see this window:



It's animated so things will move across from left to right. The stopwatch actually moves to show it's working. Let it run to completion. For me it took about 2 minutes, but I have a ton of stuff attached to my Mac, so it had to check a lot. If your iMac is cleaner than mine, it will most likely end sooner.
5. When it is done, you get this:



Scroll down on the left column until you see this:



Note that the bottom item in the left column says "Report." That is what we want to get posted.
6. At the top of that window is a little icon that looks like a sheet of paper with an arrow point up. I put a circle around it and then clicked on it here:



The little menu box that you can see has an option to "Copy Report." Click on that. Nothing will happen, but you now will have a copy of the report on the clipboard so we can use it. You can now close Etrecheck. It will offer to save the report, which you can do to avoid having to run it again if we need to get back to the report, or you can just discard it for now.
7. Come back here, open a reply to this thread. Put your cursor in the box for the reply and right-click. You should see "Paste" as an option. Click on "Paste" and the report should be pasted into the post.

Once that is visible, we can see what is triggering the notifications and be able to tell you what to remove from your system to get rid of it.

This is not that hard to do, it takes longer to read about it than to get it done, so I know you can handle it. Its certainly easier than lugging your iMac to the Apple store!

 

[sllewk]

Hi Ferrari, Sorry but you (like myself) seem to be completely in the dark regarding my problem, so I will try and explain as briefly as I can. Please see post number 85 - there you will see a screen shot of a "notification" from Softonic as an example of the six or seven plus that I get each day. Now I realise it is not the end of the earth and my computer is not going to explode but it is annoying to say the least and I would like to stop the notifications from appearing uninvited. Surely there is nothing complicated in there as an explanation, I know I am very old (85), I know I am not very intelligent, I know I am not very computer literate! No-one but no-one has to point these facts out to me as I am aware of my short comings. Very soon the iMac will be transported to an Apple franchise in town to be professionally cleaned.
Very best regards from Keith in Derby England.

 

[ferrarr]

Notifications come from two sources, System preferences, and any browser you have installed and used. If you have used Chrome, Firefox, or Safari, or any of the other browsers available for Mac, they will all need to be examined. You will need to look in each browsers Preferences for Notifications and go through them.

Here's my Safari Preferences for Notifications.

 

[MacInWin]

Bob, notifications can also come from applications you have installed. I have several apps that send me notifications. So it is not limited to System Preferences or a browser. I suspect Softonic installed something that is getting notifications from the mothership and annoying Keith. Etrecheck would help locate and kill that app. So would a nuke 'n' pave install, but that's a bit more drastic.

 

[ferrarr]

Bob, notifications can also come from applications you have installed. I have several apps that send me notifications. So it is not limited to System Preferences or a browser. I suspect Softonic installed something that is getting notifications from the mothership and annoying Keith. Etrecheck would help locate and kill that app. So would a nuke 'n' pave install, but that's a bit more drastic.

Really? I never seen that before, how do they get authorized? Do you have an example? And, wouldn't they still be listed in System Preferences > Notifications?

 

[MacInWin]

Sure, Carbon Copy Cloner sends notifications when it runs, so does Chronosync and even Mail, amongst others. Here is a screenshot of my Notifications today, for example:



They can be turned off in System Preferences, but they don't annoy me so I let them keep coming. They expire after 7 days, so nothing accumulates.

 

[ferrarr]

All of those apps are open, and easily identifiable, and in System Preferences. So they are listed there and can be turned off. That's why Softonic is not coming from there, but from a browser.

 

[MacInWin]

We don't know that, Bob. Softonic could well be listed there under a different name, Keith has not eliminated that possibility. If it's a browser, I think it should show the browser icon in the notification, but what Keith posted has the icon of the Softonic folks. Now, it might be a browser issue, but we cannot say that with that much authority. If it is a browser, Keith could turn off the browser authority and kill the notifications. And if it's some extension to the browser, it should have shown when he went looking for it.

I think the bottom line is that until/unless we can get an etrecheck report we just don't have enough information to know.

 

[ferrarr]

A notification provides the name of the app, or website, activating the notification. If it says Softonic, the Notification is coming from Softonic, either an app or the website. In the browser, I used to get notifications from CNN, and they didn't say Safari.

Also, Keith may have other browsers that may need to be looked into.

 

[MacInWin]

I will defer to you on this, Bob. I have Safari banned from notifications so I don't know how it works. It really doesn't much matter at this point as Keith intends to have the Apple Store team "fix" it, which will probably end up in a complete reinstallation to factory standard.

 

[sllewk]

Good morning Ferrarr Bob, thank you from the bottom of my heart, Your suggestion regarding looking in preferences for each browser seems to be the bees knees. I opened preferences in safari and low and behold there was Softonic and B&H PHOTO. I then changed the banner from allow to deny - hooray I thought, job done; thank you very much indeed. It would appear that you have sorted out my problem. Though how they managed to get there I do not know. I will keep an eye on preferences in the future. My thanks also go to all who took the trouble to subscribe to this thread.

Very best regards from Keith in Derby England.

 

[Horsa]

Hurrah - at last! Well done, Keith.

Personally, I find so-called "push notifications" well named - because to me they've always seemed exactly that: pushy and intrusive!

If ever you want to switch them off entirely for all websites, go back to that Safari preferences pane and un-check the tickbox at the bottom:



Cheers,
Ken

 

[MacInWin]

Keith, I hope that does fix it, but you tried that approach already. Posts 88 through 95 show a sequence where Ian suggested that approach, you tried it, but the notifications came back again. Good luck with it this time, though.

However, if the notifications return, I'll recommend one more time that you get and run etrecheck and post the results here. Even with notifications turned off, you still have the Softonic software installed on your system. But it's up to you what you want to do about that.

Glad it's working, even if only for a while!

 

[IWT]

@Jake

With due acknowledgement to Bob, his suggestion varied from mine in that I got to Notifications via System Preferences > Notifications.

Bob got there via Safari > Preferences > Websites > Scroll down to Notifications - unless the end result is the same Notifications?? But if that is the case, why did Keith find Softonic and B&H Photo listed using Bob's advice; but not when he followed mine?

Ian

 

[Horsa]

...why did Keith find Softonic and B&H Photo listed using Bob's advice; but not when he followed mine?

Hi Ian - perhaps because your method dealt with onboard System/App-based notifications, whereas Bob's shows notifications originating from the web, via Safari?

 

[ferrarr]

Ian, apps installed need to get system authorization in System Preferences for Notifications. Only websites need owners permission in the browser, to send notifications.

 

[IWT]

Thank you Bob & Horsa.

Thought there would be a difference; now you explained it.

Ian

 

[sllewk]

Hi MacInWin - Jake, I thought I had reported Etrecheck and it's report; It shows two Major faults - there are two anti virus running on this machine (Or something of that nature). Other than that there was not much to report at all but Etrecheck is (To me) quite a complicated bit of software so I do not want to get too involved; taking the coward's way out on that one ---sorry. This glitch has got me very wound up indeed and should it return I will go to an expert. Have even lost sleep over it all, daft as it may seem to all of you but that is how bad things have been for me. Must report Softonic has not left any dirt up to present. With thanks to one and all I feel we can close this post as sorted!

Very best regards from Keith in Derby England.

 

[Rod]

Keith it's starting to sound like an erase and clean install would be the most reliable process to remove this annoying "bug" but having said that there is a lot of work involved. Of course you don't have to do it all in one day.

Use Time machine or better yet a clone as a reference of what you had. The application folder will serve as a list.
Apps from the app store can be reinstalled from the Purchases window in the case of 32bit apps or dragged an dropped from a clone or restored via the Time Machine window.
Third party apps which required an installer will need to be downloaded again from the developers sites and registration numbers and or key codes re entered.

Email addresses and settings may be restored from iCloud in some cases in others you will need user name and passwords re entered.

The Documents, Photos, Music and Downloads folders can be D&D'd from a clone or restored from Time Machine Ui.

I have done this a few times and if just email accounts and browser bookmarks are restored in the first day that is probably enough. Other essential apps can be downloaded a few at a time each day and within a week most stuff should be back how it was.

The reason I've listed all this is just to stress what a big job it is. Even if you have all your passwords in a password manager as I have there will be the inevitable exceptions and difficultiies. Microsoft is one such developer that seems to go out of their way to make reinstallation of their apps difficult and it is worthwhile to ensure you have CD Keys and registration info at hand before erasing your hard drive.

So it's worth considering all of the above and weighing it against the annoyance of this Softonic bug. Is it worth it? Have you exhausted all other possibilities?

Maybe Apple will try to remove the offending software but like others I think it more likely they will just reinstall the macOS. My concern is that this may not fix the issue.