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@ Freedom Tech Architect
2025-02-21 06:52:30
A call early in the morning. One of my clients, or rather a friend of his, has a problem with his MacBook Air. Whenever he boots it up and logs in, an additional login screen from some kind of malware appears afterward. He doesn’t recognize it and has no idea where it came from. In any case, he can’t access his system because he doesn’t know what to enter. So, his computer is basically unusable for him.
Yeah. My sympathy is limited.
Client: "What should he do?"
Me: (thinking: Ugh, I really don’t want to deal with this) "He should be more mindful of how he uses his computer."
Client: "Seriously though, how can he get rid of it?"
Me: "No idea. Maybe check the startup items and remove it."
Client: "But he can't even get that far."
Me: "He can try booting into Safe Mode. That might bypass the additional login screen. Then he can check the startup items and remove it."
Client: "How does he do that?"
Me: "I don't remember exactly. You have to hold down some key while booting. Maybe Shift or something."
Client: "Can you find out for sure and send it to me?"
Me: (thinking: Absolutely not. I'm not gonna do ***t after this call.) "You can find that yourself online. Just search for 'Start macOS in Safe Mode.'"
Then this goes on in endless repetitions, and I just keep thinking: "Man, I don’t provide support for proprietary systems. Only for Linux. If you choose Mac or Windows, go to their support. I’m not offering free support for Apple or Microsoft except they pay me for that."
Some people just don’t get it. I’ve been telling them this for years. If you have money for such a system, you also have money for their support. Or ask an AI at least. Or just don’t mess around with it so much and stop installing every random piece of crap.