Remove “Ads by Games Crystal” malware from Chrome on a Mac

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A user on one of our computers infected her user with some kind of adware malware that results in pop-back ads by "GamesCrystal", an ad that appears on random sites with a tag "Ads by Games Crystal" in the bottom, and multiple calls to various unfamiliar servers.

I tried various things to get this removed. There was nothing obvious in Chrome that I could tie to Games Crystal. Malwarebytes for Mac didn't detect anything. Spotlight doesn't show any files with names like "Games Crystal" or any of the permutations of that I tried. There weren't any unfamiliar apps to delete in /Applications or ~/Applications.

How do you get rid of this malware?

Best Answer

Although I was hoping to find a more surgical solution, I ultimately settled on simply resetting Chrome, by following the instructions here:

  1. On your computer, open Chrome.
  2. At the top right, click More > Settings.
  3. At the bottom, click Show advanced settings.
  4. Under the section "Reset settings,” click Reset settings.
  5. In the box that appears, click Reset. ​

So far, no additional Games Crystal ads have displayed, so hopefully this took care of it.

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