I just updated a bunch of MAS apps and as I did so CleanMyMacX jumped into play calling one of the updated apps, Focus & Blur, malware.
This is literally the first time in the years I’ve owned CleanMyMacX that it’s ever warned me of an app, either when manually running the app or, as in this case, while sitting in the background, watching the system.
I cannot remember the last time I used the app, which basically fakes limited depth of field in images. I’m not about to run it any time soon, but I’m wondering if I should just delete it.
Has anyone had any experience with CleanMyMacX offering false positives for malware?
Thanks. It was just odd because I do not remember configuring the app to look for malware. I manually run Malwarebytes for that - and it too never finds anything except once finding Windows malware in a 10+ year old Word document.
I don’t even remember using that app, it was probably one of those apps that went free on the MAS and I decided to snag it Just In Case. So I deleted it from my Mac.
I searched my internal drive and realized I have a bunch of ‘blur’ apps I never use:
From googleing it seems that apparent piece of malware appears to masquerade as a file cleaner app, or gets installed by another innocent-seeming app. No app with that name was on my Mac but when I did a ‘reveal to Finder’ in CleanMyMacX it resolved to the Focus & Blur app.
Was the app taken over somehow and designed to deliver the AdvancedMacCleaner payload, and make it through the Mac App Store? Or was it an error?
I wish I hadn’t been so quick to delete the app after it updated, so I could have run Malwarebytes.
Damn, what’s the size of your internal SSD for having all those apps you don’t remember having? (I’m struggling with 256 Gb on my iMac even offloading all docs to an external drive…)
No SSD: I’ve got a 3Tb Fusion Drive in a 2017 Retina iMac, plus external drives. (Plus backup drives.)
Fusion was a stopgap technology for Apple until SSD prices dropped and capacities increased, and I think it’s no longer an option in new Macs. But that’s a shame because it’s been rock-solid for me, and extremely fast for my most-used apps. And while internal SSD capacities have expanded - you can now get up to 8Tb storage in iMacs - prices are still nuts: $600 for 2Tb, $1200 for 4Tb.
Next iMac I buy (possibly an Apple Silicon model in a year) will have internal SSD, but if storage prices don’t change I’ll spend $200 for the 1Tb SSD upgrade then add an external 2Tb Samsung T7 SSD for $300.
Absolutely. Theoretically TB3 at 40 Gbps is 4x faster than the USB 3.2 v2 in the Samsung T7 (which is around $200 cheaper). But I’m not sure what the real world difference is, especially if I don’t use the external as a boot drive.
