Hidden processes?

Question

Level 1

4 points

Hidden processes?

I've already posted on the Google Chrome forum's but nobody could help me there. Hopefully someone here can.

I've noticed that spontaneously, Chrome is updating in the background. Growl shows a notification that the chrome update image was mounted and a little bit later it unmounted. This happens when Chrome isn't even open. My questions are:

1) no relevant google update process is running in activity monitor when this happens. Are there hidden processes that are not shown by activity monitor?

2) If there are, how can I view and manage these hidden processes/services?

Thanks for the help.

Macbook Unibody Late 2008, Mac OS X (10.5.8), C2Duo 2 GHz

Posted on Aug 22, 2009 6:28 AM

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Answer 1

Aug 22, 2009 7:21 AM in response to themacfreak

themacfreak wrote:
I've already posted on the Google Chrome forum's but nobody could help me there. Hopefully someone here can.

I've noticed that spontaneously, Chrome is updating in the background. Growl shows a notification that the chrome update image was mounted and a little bit later it unmounted. This happens when Chrome isn't even open. My questions are:

1) no relevant google update process is running in activity monitor when this happens. Are there hidden processes that are not shown by activity monitor?

2) If there are, how can I view and manage these hidden processes/services?

What is the setting of the drop-down list in Activity Monitor's tool bar? If you choose "All Processes" you should be able to see that update process.

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Answer 2

themacfreak Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 22, 2009 4:33 PM in response to themacfreak

I do have activity monitor on "show all processes" but I still don't see an update service. Why are there automatic updates happening?
Thanks

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Answer 3

Aug 22, 2009 6:38 PM in response to themacfreak

themacfreak wrote:
I do have activity monitor on "show all processes" but I still don't see an update service.

I think the Google updater isn't a proces that runs all the time, but a launchd job that runs when you boot and every so often after that. Google com.google.keystone.user.agent and you'll find a number of explanations of what they've done (and how to get rid of it if you want).

charlie

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Answer 4

themacfreak Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 22, 2009 7:17 PM in response to themacfreak

Thank you so much for the help! Yes, you are right: there is a com.google.keystone.agent.plist file in my launchagents folder. I can't believe google didn't ask me/tell me that it was installing an autoupdater.

Do you have any suggestions on a good program to view launchd .plist? Is Lingon a good program even though it is being developed anymore?
Thanks

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Answer 5

Aug 22, 2009 9:15 PM in response to themacfreak

themacfreak wrote:
Thank you so much for the help! Yes, you are right: there is a com.google.keystone.agent.plist file in my launchagents folder. I can't believe google didn't ask me/tell me that it was installing an autoupdater.

Are you sure you didn't agree to this when you signed up for and/or installed Google material?

Do you have any suggestions on a good program to view launchd .plist?

The "official" way to view .plist files is with the Property List Editor utility, part of the Developer package. You can view the text in a .plist file with TextEdit, although the result is somewhat messy.

Is Lingon a good program even though it is being developed anymore?

I'm not familiar with that program.

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Answer 6

themacfreak Author

Level 1

4 points

Aug 23, 2009 6:22 AM in response to themacfreak

Thanks for the help.

Lingon can be found at:

http://lingon.sourceforge.net/

This program will read out the .plist files in a simple form and allows you to edit them easily.

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Answer 7

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,518 points

Aug 23, 2009 6:42 AM in response to themacfreak

It just went out of development and will continue to work fine I imagine for quite some time.
If Apple adds options to the launchd mechanism that Lingon doesn't have automated on the basic interface, you can go into advanced/expert mode and edit the plist directly.

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