Your Computer Is Low On Memory on Mac
Your Computer Is Low On Memory on Mac is an application of the browser hijacker type that is designed to promote different products and services on the users’ screens. Your Computer Is Low On Memory on Mac will install a new search engine or replace the existing homepage with one that redirects the user searches to predefined websites.
You may often notice that the browser hijackers are typically referred to as potentially unwanted programs. They often display hundreds of ads, pop-ups, and banners that people find irritating and annoying. However, browser hijackers like “Your Computer Is Low On Memory” are typically legal programs and they usually do not get flagged by anti-virus software as threats that need to be removed. Yet, there are people who desperately want to uninstall them from Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, and other web browsers and there are a number of good reasons for that.
Your computer is Low on Memory Mac Virus
The Your computer is Low on Memory Mac Virus is a browser hijacking type of app that spams false but genuine-looking messages on macOS devices. Actually the Your computer is Low on Memory mac virus‘ notifications will try to make you believe that your Mac is lacking HDD space so you presumably need to free up some more by clicking on the notifications.
RAM and HDD/SSD memory are two different things. Low amounts of free RAM can cause system slow-downs and make the computer sluggish. Oftentimes, unwanted software that users have installed without realizing could be the main reason for the unusually high RAM use.
One of them is the fact that when an application like Your Computer Is Low On Memory virus integrates with your computer, it immediately tends to change the browser’s homepage or its default search engine with a predefined one. In addition, the hijacker initiates page-redirects to specific websites that are typically full of aggressive ads, banners, pop-ups, and other similar commercials. If you are seeking an effective solution to remove those ads and to uninstall the imposed browser changes, we suggest you stay on this page because here you will find a detailed removal guide and a professional “Your Computer Is Low On Memory” removal tool that can help you.
Programs like “Your Computer Is Low On Memory” are created with the sole purpose to advertise different products, services, brands, and their related websites. In order to do their job well, they tend to employ some rather aggressive online advertising tactics such as aggressive ads generation, browser modifications, and automatic page-redirects which ensure that the users will land on the promoted ads and links the moment they open their web browser.
From a marketing point of view, the browser hijackers are great cost-effective tools that optimize the costs for online advertising and automatically redirect the web users to specific sponsored online offers and their related pages. Many users who experience such exposure to aggressive ads and automatic redirects to random sites, however, consider programs like “Your Computer Is Low On Memory” as irritating viruses and put them next to malware such as Trojans and even Ransomware. This is explained not only by the irritating way the ads tend to pop-up on the screen during browsing sessions but also by the fact that none of the imposed browser changes can be removed or uninstalled by regular means. Moreover, programs like “Your Computer Is Low On Memory” may fail to provide any useful service that can compensate for the constant browsing disturbance they create. Besides, if not removed on time, such programs can adversely affect the speed of the system and the performance of the hijacked web browser and eventually lead to sudden browser crashes, unresponsiveness, and sluggishness. For most users, those are enough reasons to uninstall browser hijackers like “Your Computer Is Low On Memory”.
We still need to mention, though, that despite their fame of potentially unwanted programs, the browser hijackers are not identical to computer viruses and don’t share the malicious capabilities of threats such as Ransomware, Trojans or Spyware. At their worst, they can only mess with your web browser while the real viruses are malicious forms of software that infect your computer and initiate malicious activities in the background of your system.
SUMMARY:
Name | Your Computer Is Low On Memory |
Type | Browser Hijacker |
Danger Level | Medium (nowhere near threats like Ransomware, but still a security risk) |
Symptoms | Unauthorized changes in the main web browser and automatic page redirects to sponsored sites can be sure symptoms of a browser hijacker infection. |
Distribution Method | Software bundling is a common method of distribution of browser hijackers along with torrents, ads, free downloads from the web and spam. |
Detection Tool |
How to Get rid of Your Computer is Low on Memory on Mac
If you are lucky, cleaning your browser from unwanted extensions that may be the cause for the disturbances you have been forced to put up with may be enough to resolve your problem. This can be done really quickly and if it works you won’t have to go any further into the guide or complete any of the more time-consuming and sophisticated steps.
- First, once you open the Safari browser, select its menu, go to Preferences, and then select the Extensions tab.
- See if you notice any unfamiliar extensions that haven’t been installed by you and/or that may be behind the obstructions and disturbances in Safari. If you think that any of the installed add-ons may be the cause for your problem, delete them by selecting their respective Uninstallation buttons.
- If you do not know which extension to delete, it’s best to remove all of them. Doing this won’t cause problems with the functioning of the browser but may help you determine which of the extensions is the unwanted one. Just make sure that you uninstall them one by one, testing the browser between each uninstallation to see if the problem’s gone as this would allow you to pinpoint the exact extension that’s being problematic.
- Once you think you are finished with the deletion of potentially unwanted extensions, restart the Mac, open Safari again and see if everything is back to normal. Check the Extensions’ menu again to see if the ones that you have removed are truly gone. If any of the uninstalled extensions have made their way back into Safari and/or if the browsing disturbances persist, go to the next removal steps and complete them to deal with this unpleasant issue.
Some hijackers can get very aggressive and go as far as to prevent you from closing your browser due to the pop-ups and ads shown in it. If this happens to you, you should Force Quit Safari by opening the Apple Menu from the top and selecting the Force Quit option. A window will show up on your screen with the currently active apps shown in it – select Safari from that list and then click on the Force Quit button to close the browser.
In case Safari continues to stay open, restart the computer so that when it starts back up the browser would be closed.
WARNING! READ CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING!
Access the Activity Monitor by going to the Utilities in the Applications Folder and double-clicking on the Activity Monitor icon. Once you are in the Activity Monitor, pay attention to the processes listed there – the one belonging to browser hijacker should be in there. Its name could be anything so we cannot tell you exactly what to look for. However, if you notice a process with an odd-looking name, especially if said process is using up lots of virtual memory and/or CPU, then it could potentially be linked to the browser hijacker. Another possible red-flag is if a given process in the Activity Monitor doesn’t seem to be related to any of the programs that you currently have opened on your Mac. Just bear in mind that some of the processes there are important system ones so be careful not to tamper with them. In general, it’s best to first look up the name of a process you consider suspicious to rule out the possibility of it being a legitimate one related to your macOS.
If you have found a process in the Activity Monitor that you think may be coming from the hijacker, highlight it by clicking on it and then select the information icon (“i“). This will display a window with more details about the process – in that window, select the Sample option and wen the sample file opens, select Save and save that file on your Desktop.
Once you save the sample file, bring it to our online scanner that is shown below by simply dragging the sample file to it and let the scanner do its job.
In case malware does get detected, immediately go back to the Activity Monitor, find the process that you sampled, click on it, and quit it by selecting the Quit Process/ X button that is near the top of the window. After this, delete the sample file by bringing it to Trash.
You will now have to perform a safe launch of Safari. The quickest and easiest way of doing this is to keep the Shift key pressed down while opening Safari normally. This should start the browser without allowing any of the previously-opened pages to load. In some cases, however, this may not work and if this happens to you and you are unable to safe launch Safari in this way, you should perform a Force Quit of the browser as we explained in Step 1 and then disconnect your Mac from the Internet.
If you are connected to the web via Wi-Fi but have no access to the router and cannot shut it down, press down the Option Key and then open the Wi-Fi menu from the top of your screen. In it, select the Turn Wi-Fi Off option. This will stop your Wi-Fi connection for the time being. If you want to turn it back on after you are done with the guide, do the same but this time select the Turn Wi-Fi On button from the Wi-Fi menu. For users who are connected to the Internet via an Ethernet cable, simply plugging out said cable from your Mac is the quickest way to disconnect from the Internet.
Once there’s no more Internet connection to your Mac, try to safe-launch the browser again.
After you manage to safe launch Safari, once again go to Preferences/Extensions to see if any of the extensions you deleted earlier have returned and if they have, delete them again.
Next, select the Privacy tab of Preferences and click on the Remove All Website Data option. The browser will ask you if you are certain you want to do this to which you should reply with Yes. Just remember that deleting browser data would normally result in you getting logged out of your web accounts so you need to be able to reenter them again afterwards.
After deleting the browser data, go to the General tab and see what the address for the browser’s homepage is. If it is one that you don’t want and/or one that has been imposed by the hijacker, change it to a homepage address that you prefer.
Bear in mind that if a hijacker has changed the homepage of your Safari, the web-address that it has added could be contributing to the disturbances you have been experiencing. In some severe cases, some hijackers may even make unsafe sites the homepage of different browsers so it is really important to not allow this in your browser.
Finally, go to the History menu of Safari and opt for the Clear History button. Make sure that the time period for which the browsing history would be deleted is the longest one (from the beginning) and click on the Clear Browsing History button. If this is the first time you are doing this or if you haven’t done it in a while, the deletion process could take several moments to complete so be patient – eventually the browsing history will be deleted.
In case there are other browsers installed on your Mac, you need to clean them too so don’t forget to do that.
Removing ads from Firefox for Mac:
If you also have Mozilla Firefox, you can clean it from unwanted extensions by accessing its main menu, clicking on Add-ons, and then on Extensions to see what extensions your browser has. Delete the ones you think are not supposed to be in there just like you did with Safari. Again, deleting all of them is okay and you are encouraged to do it if you are not certain which of the items in the extensions list need to be removed.
Next, you also have to clean the browsing data – to learn how to do it, go to this link where we will explain it in more detail.
Removing ads from Chrome for Mac:
For Mac users who have Google Chrome, to clean this browser, open it, go to its menu, select More Options, and then click on Extensions. Once again, you must delete the items there that are suspicious and you deem potentially unwanted and, again, uninstalling all of them is perfectly okay.
The next thing you must do in Chrome is go to Settings > Search > Manage Search Engines and make sure that the browser is allowed to only use legitimate and well-known search engines. Hijackers often add their own search engine tools to the browser and even make them the ones that are used by default but this could potentially lead to the user getting redirected to misleading sites with harmful content. That is why you must remove every search engine from Chrome that isn’t known to be reliable and safe.
Lastly, you should refresh Chrome and instructions on how to do this will be available for you right here.
Final Notes
We hope that after you have complete all the steps listed on this page, there will no longer be any problems related to this browser hijacker on your Mac. Still, if you think you need extra help to rid your computer of the unpleasant software, be sure to hit us up down below in the comments and we will do our best to provide you with a helpful reply.
Hi,
I have done all of this and am still getting the same warning. Any help gratefully received. Jayne
Hi Jayne,
did you try to scan your computer with the software provided in this post ?