I was searching for a good VPN and found hotspot shield and, as we now know, it's garbage. Unsure if you're still having the issue but I thought I'd let you know what I've done. I'd appreciate in-depth help from someone at Apple, since this is clearly a common problem on the forums. I've found advice online to start trawling for kext files, but I don't want to go messing with stuff at the kernel level without knowing exactly what I'm doing.

I know this because I am still getting their banner ads in my browser, which tell me they won't go away until I give them money. This will not get rid of it, in spite of the fact that their website says it uninstalls it completely. This will stop it, so now you can move Hotspot Shield to the trash. Then click the X button above the list of processes.

To stop it running, go to your applications folder, and start the Activity Monitor.įind Hotspot Shield in the list of running processes, and click on it. This is why they make it incredibly difficult to get rid of, and outright lie on their website about to uninstall it.

The company uses it to mine data for Anchor Free, their ad data company. Hotspot shield is scam spyware, and Apple should do something about it.