Smart Mac Booster PUP - How to remove

Smart Mac Booster PUP is a creation of an ill-famed company PCVARK. This establishment is known for its other unwanted software pieces, such as My Mac Speedup, Mac Tweaker and Mac Cleanup Pro, plus plenty of other Mac tools, as well as fake antivirus tools for the PC. If this is your first time getting infected with a rogue application like Smart Mac Booster PUP, we highly suggest reading about its features so it would make sense why it’s necessary to get rid of it, on the other hand, if you know exactly what situation you got yourself into, simply skip to the elimination part.

The Smart Mac Booster application is spread by fake virus alerts. Some users might be under the impression that this app is safe or even associated with Apple – it’s not, it’s just scareware that uses malvertising and adware to spread to as many people as possible.

Smart Mac Booster should be removed as soon as it’s discovered:

Type of infection	Scam Scareware PUP (potentially unwanted program)
Smart Mac Booster symptoms	Constant scans and pop-ups about issues Slower Mac, especially startup
Distribution	Malicious ads Adware
How to remove Smart Mac Booster	Uninstall the program manually, by deleting all the associated files Delete the application automatically, using programs like Combo Cleaner

What is Smart Mac Booster

Smart Mac Booster can be categorized as both a potentially unwanted program as well as a rogue application. It uses some extremely dishonest ways (usually fake virus alerts) to slighter into computers and become extremely persistent.

Dishonest scan results

The main website of Smart Mac Booster PUP is slick and professional-looking. It claims that this utility tool will help you speed up your Mac system and ensure security from malware (what a paradox!). It boldly declares itself to be “#1 System Utility for MAC in the World *” with no source. Unwanted programs often decorate their home websites with security seals, partner stickers, and logos exclaiming how safe and good the program supposedly is (they’re usually either outdated, irrelevant, of impossible to verify).

In reality, Smart Mac Booster fakes errors and issues, scaring the victims and then offering a costly solution. While the approach of a free scan with paid removal is often used by legitimate programs, Smart Mac Booster severely misrepresents the scan results to convince people to buy the program – a total scam. The items that Smart Mac Booster considers “issues” include:

• files in your Trash folder,
• logs,
• extra languages,
• cache.

Deleting these items will free up a few Megabytes and that’s about it. This software marks useful items like cookies as needing to be removed to make your Mac perform better – when, in reality, websites will just load slower.

No wonder it manages to discover issues even on freshly installed systems – Smart Mac Booster is desperate to mark anything as a problem. It declares your Mac status as “Critical” with no justification and shows you pop-up warnings every time you start up your Mac, all to scare and bully people into buying the full version of the program.

Expensive useless program

It might be useful to understand that Smart Mac Booster is not a virus and cannot do much malicious to your Mac, except for irritating you badly. It’s more like a scam. Once it is done scanning your computer automatically, it will urge you to clean the “errors” by getting the full version of this product. Then it redirects you to a payment site, which claims that every 2 years of Smart Mac Booster will cost you around $130 (or €118). Mind you, the payment will go through a third-party service which may not be able to refund you if you change your mind, and also the charge will be automatically set to renew, so even if you will stop using this program but won’t discontinue the subscription, crooks will be emptying your account regularly.

And if you will decide to postpone the purchase, Smart Mac Booster PUP will make sure to remind you about the bogus errors every couple minutes. It might even hide itself from being removed from startup, so you might have to quit it manually every time you turn on the computer.

To make a long story short, Smart Mac Booster is not dangerous malware, but a cunning application that uses scareware techniques to earn the revenue from gullible users who believe in its lies. There are plenty of worthy tools that can help you manage your Mac efficiently, but Smart Mac Booster PUP is clearly not one of them. Because of its persistence, you might need extra help during the elimination, so please feel free to follow our guided instructions below in order to rid of this unwanted app.

How Smart Mac Booster infects systems

Not this is the interesting part. For the last few years, Smart Mac Booster has spread by using fake virus alerts. The proliferating domain might look something like  ‘play3736.simplelife35.agency’, ‘prize7450.mondaysunday96.live’, and others.

At first, a pop-up appears in your browser:

‘Virus Found. A website that you visited today has infected your Mac with a virus. Press OK to begin the repair process.’

It might even lock your browser until you eventually decide to run the offered scan.

One example of such malicious pop-ups is the ‘Bankworm virus‘ scam. Another is the “Your Mac is infected with 3 viruses!” alerts, including this later example. There’s also Your Mac might be infected. There seems to be a thriving industry of scamming people into believing that their Mac is infected and selling them useless programs to “fix” the problem.

These scams offer a fake scan which “runs” and very quickly pretends to find malware on your Mac. After seeing the made-up scan results, you’re taken to Smart Mac Booster’s home site, or have the installer download immediately. The installer comes hidden under the name of maccleaner.pkg.

It’s best to uninstall Smart Mac Booster. Don’t use the provided uninstalling application, though, because it’s unsafe and can cause even more problems.

Users who are not sure about their technical skills or don’t want to take the risk, can straight away begin scanning their compromised systems with malware removal programs, such as Combo Cleaner, but those who are willing to try can follow our guide below in order to eliminate Smart Mac Booster PUP by hand. Feel free to choose any security software of your choice, just make sure that it indeed detects malware.