(For example, did they capture passwords, erase files, etc. Here the question is what these specific (and common and well known) apps did when installed. Note that this is not a duplicate of this question. What do these apps do? Have they done any lasting damage? Or are they only a nuisance while installed?

But I would like to know what else they did while installed *that I couldn't see. The best course of action if your Mac is infected with adware is to scan it with an antivirus solution to delete all malicious files from your device. What I could see is that they were very intrusive: launching themselves, setting themselves up to re-launch on start, resetting my browser's homepage to a spoof 'safe' search engine - even popping up a window when they were installed by moving to the Trash. Scan Your Mac With VirusBarrier to Remove Adware and Pop-Ups. However, I wonder what they did while they were on my machine. I followed instructions I found online for removing these apps and believe they are gone (Bitdefender's virus and malware virus scan shows no remaining malicious software). Recently I responded to a suggestion that I 'upgrade Flash' on my macOS system only do end up with several applications running, and intruding into my browser and desktop that I did not (mean to) install:

Uninstall mac ads cleaner on mac