FQ TAG Popups when GarageSale is opened on my Mac

GarageSale
1

Hi All - I am little concerned in regards to the security on my Mac. I am starting to get pop-ups randomly when I have GarageSale opened in Safari… even when Safari isn’t opened. This has only happened with GarageSale so far, so I am afraid to use the program. What happens is that pop-ups will automatically jump to a website called, “fqtag.com” which based on my research is some type of malware / adware that could potentially gain access to personal information on my computer. I have scanned for malware / adware on a couple of different programs and come back clean thus far. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Just today I applied a Mac system update and Flash update. Thanks, Jacob

2

Just another note. I did read that this virus can sometimes be disguised as a flash installer, so I went ahead and uninstalled my flash player to be safe…

3

Hi Jacob,

you maybe have adware installed. Please see this Apple helppage how to clean your Mac:

Also, it might be that there’re ads in the eBay auction website that are causing this.

Regards, Kristian

4

I also just noticed this exact issue that started today on mine. I noticed that the popups only occur right after I’ve relisted something.

5

The tool “Malwarebytes” (was AdwareMedic) might be helpful for you:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/52105/adwaremedic

Regards, Kristian

6

I believe this may be caused by ads in the E-bay system. The only time it occurs on my system is when I’m on the actual listing page, then Safari goes crazy with the additional pages. I downloaded, and ran the Malware bytes scanner, and it found nothing, so this is what makes me think it’s an “E-Bay thing”.

7

Yeah, I did the exact same thing & the scanner didn’t find anything. Probably just a eBay ad error.

8

Agreed I ran the malware scanning program and didn’t find anything. Thanks all, this greatly eases my mind, glad I’m not the only one in this boat!

9

Same problem here. Is there a way to install and Ad blocker extention in Chrome? I cannot use Garage Sale when every time I click on a running ebay auction from within Garage Sale, numerous web pages pop up from fqtag.com with a -1 sign on the page. Please help.

10

This is most likely a malicious flash widget that somebody injected into the eBay web page, probably by buying an ad on the eBay platform.

Since GarageSale uses the same system libraries as Safari, installing an ad blocker in Chrome won’t have any effect.

I suggest you either uninstall Flash from your computer and install the “ClickToFlash” extension in Safari: https://extensions.apple.com/details/?id=com.hoyois.safari.clicktoflash-GY5KR7239Q

11

I have the same problem with popups in safari only when GarageSale is open and running auctions are clicked.
Flash is not installed, Malwarebytes didn’t find anything.
Just some weeks ago I moved from GarageSale 5 to 6, with GarageSale 5 I didn’t had this problem.
Regards, Rainer
Version 6.9.8b2 (627)

12

I have observed the problem a few days. The problem occured only 2 days, it seems to be the advertising links on the ebay page. This seems to be the reason why only some users have this problem temporarily (depends on the advertising, country …). Nevertheless it would be usefull to switch off e.g. Java Script in auction view of GarageSale.
Regards, Rainer

13

Thanks for the hint. We’ll turn off the the “Allow popups” flag for the auction view in the next release of GS 6.

14

Hello,
the problem is still present with GarageSale Version 6.9.8b4 (629)

15

That sucks. We’ll do another beta release this time turning off JavaScript, too.