Adware

Adf.ly is a legitimate advertising service providing a URL-shortening feature. It is known for redirecting users to websites in order to display some paid advertisements before entering the actual page. However, by doing so, it can also provoke pop-ups appearing above the website and force you into pages that include lots of unwanted resources. Basically, push notifications offered by pop-ups can be pretty useful on such informative resources like blogs, online newspapers, and so on. Nonetheless, browser hackers managed to penetrate into Adf.ly and put tricky pop-ups to make you receive deceptive ads in the right bottom of your screen, that are often used to promote adware, browser hijackers, and potentially malicious applications. This may eventually fool you into clicking on these ads that may lead to intrusive advertisements, cause unwanted redirects, modify browser settings, and record sensitive data.

Similar Photo Cleaner is ad-supported application for Mac. It was developed to detect and remove duplicate photos and pictures. It is one of those pointless apps, that provide low functionality, but leads to severe computer and privacy problems. It installs without user's consent, and does not disclose all conditions of the installation. The consequences of installing the program are pitiable: users start seeing ads and pop-ups in browsers, they get unknown programs installed without their intention. Besides, some users complain, that they cannot quit Similar Photo Cleaner, as it displays pop-up, that cannot be closed (see the picture below). All this peculiar properties put the program to the category of potentially unwanted apps.

Advanced Mac Cleaner is a rogue Mac optimization program, that provides false scan results in order to make users purchase the program. It shows users alerts and pop-ups messages saying, that their Mac has severe issues and/or viruses. Advanced Mac Cleaner has quality design and looks like many other programs of this type. Although application, obviously, uses misleading tactics to promote itself and forces users to buy it, most antiviruses cannot detect Advanced Mac Cleaner.

Captcha-verification.systems is an untrustworthy and even dangerous website, that uses technical features of modern browsers (Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Edge, Safari) to push ads, pop-ups and notifications to users desktops. In particular, notifications function in those browsers, which was invented and developed for convenience on news and video sites, is exploited by third-party advertising cloacas, like Captcha-verification.systems and similar, for delivering unwanted and fairly annoying ads directly to the desktop. Often, this is a result of virus infection, but sometimes website just tricks users changing the settings by using deceptive phrases.

TamperMonkey by Jan Biniok is controversial browser extension, that can be installed in many browsers, including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera, Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer and some others. It allows users to install and maintain custom scripts in browsers, that can serve different purposes. For example, it may help download music and video content from social networks or filter ads. TamperMonkey also works in symbiosis with other popular plugins to perform certain tasks or expand functionality. However, along with pros users get unpleasant cons. In particular, many users complain, that TamperMonkey installs without their consent. Some users see third-party ads after installing this add-on. Generally, there are concerns about the security and privacy of this application, as it gets access to deep internal browser settings and has a large user database of 10 million users.

Top Results is bothersome advertising application for Mac. It installs without user's consent and installs as a desktop app and browser extension for Safari, Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. After installation adware may have an impact on browser search, modifying it to a third-party search engine. Top Results is also responsible for showing annoying ads in browsers in the form of pop-ups, banners, in-text ads, underlined words, drop-down menus. Often, such ads are signed as Powered by Top Results, Advertisements by Top Results, Brought to you by Top Results, Ads by Top Results or Ads powered by Top Results. Aside from injecting unwanted advertisements, adware collects browser's data and tracks the online activity of the users. This data may then be used for more targeted advertising and shared with online stores and ads-selling companies.

Ouo.io is a bogus website, that is a part of a huge advertising network. It displays fake pages of Adobe Flash updates, streaming sites, download portals and claims to provide access to restricted content after allowing notifications. Push-notifications is a feature in modern browsers, that allows users to get announcements about important information from online newspapers, Youtube or social networks. This function is exploited by adware to push promotional information via this channel. If you see ads, pop-ups or notifications from Ouo.io, there is a high possibility of malware infection or browser's settings hijack.

Mapsnow.co and Maps Now are, accordingly, unwanted search engine and browser add-on, that modifies and controls browser's settings in Safari, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox on Windows or Mac. Hijacker overrides default or user-installed values of search engine, home page and new tab with www.mapsnow.co website, that, in its turn, redirects search queries to search.yahoo.com. Developers of Maps Now application claim, that it provides quick and convenient access to maps and directions from the start page of your browser. However, in fact, it creates third party search page, with links to well-known online maps, such as Google Maps, Bing Maps and MapQuest. Sole purpose of this extension is to earn on advertising revenue from redirecting to other search engine, and probably, from promoting other websites and programs.