A Process using huge amount of virtual memory

[Sylves]

Hi,
I think something nefarious may have been installed on my iMac. I'm running Mac OS 10.6.8 on an older iMac. Sometimes the hard drive will begin churning like crazy. When I check on it with Activity Monitor I find a process called "installS" in using huge amounts of virtual memory, nearly 3 GB sometimes! If I quit the process, the churning stops and the Mac runs normally. I downloaded some video software a few months ago and I remember reading somewhere that although the software is good, it tricks you into downloading another hidden program of some sort. I just can't find what it was or how to get rid of it! If I search for "installS" all I get is a ton of results for "install" or installs." Help!

 

[Intell]

Virtual memory isn't real memory. It doesn't exist anywhere. I've had some processes use 16TB of virtual memory when it obviously isn't able to be stored on my machine.

 

[chrfr]

Hi,
I think something nefarious may have been installed on my iMac. I'm running Mac OS 10.6.8 on an older iMac.

Because you're using 10.6.8 you can't run the application Adware Medic, but the developer of that program has some steps which should be able to resolve your problem here:
http://www.thesafemac.com/arg/
In Activity Monitor, you can click on the name of a process, then click the Inspect button which will open another window in which you can see which files the application has open. This will help you find the suspect process but may not resolve what causes it to open automatically at startup.

 

[Sylves]

I think I have it solved

Thank you, Intell. I understood what vm was, just didn't know why something was using so much of it.

chrfr, you were right. I think. It seems to have been the genieo adware causing the problem. Time will tell, but I think I have it all uninstalled. Had to do it manually because my OS did not support using the Safe Mac app.