DMD44 wrote:
Yes, Gamecontrollerd is not there. I still don't know what that exec does. No game player around here.
There are literally hundreds of similar utilities constantly running on your Mac for all manner of services that you never intend to use. In most cases, if you never use them, they never use a noticeable amount of CPU. If they do, then that is a problem. You won't solve the problem by deleting the executable. That would likely only make it worse. You have to identify why the service is misbehaving and correct the problem.
That why I think your hosts file is the most likely culprit. There are so many bad suggestions on the internet to add dead entries to that file to prevent various systems and apps from "phoning home". That will work, but it might also cause those same apps to misbehave because they can't contact their servers.
Etrecheck seems to do some job, it is a Canadian startup and I am sure they can refine their software by collecting data. So I am happy to contribute, if they don't do more than that to my hard drive without me knowing it.
EtreCheck doesn't collect any data from scans. If you had paid for the Power User package and submitted your report to the artificial intelligence Solution server, then your report's data would be included in the aggregate Insights feature. A limited number of Insights pages are available in the free version. You do have to pay to see them all.
In any event, all personal information is automatically stripped from the report before submitting it.
EtreCheck never makes any permanent changes to your system. The most it will do is read and write some temporary files as part of its hard drive performance test. It will also delete malware, but only if you specifically ask it to.
So no, you haven't submitted anything.
The software also scans my applications but doesn't generate a report (want me to pay for that). Don't think application scan is even necessary, or is it nowadays?
It's a long story. It does need to scan for applications to look for things like login items and embedded system modifications.
In the free report, it only show the total count of "old" (either 32-bit or Intel) applications. The free report is specifically designed to help people here in the forums see what is wrong with your computer. Any specific old apps aren't going to be significant for that. That list of old applications are more useful for learning more about your computer and software and planning for the future. That kind of activity is more within the responsibility of the paid Power User package.
Additionally, the design of the software and the Power User package in-app purchase doesn't give me a way to display this information outside of the paid, enhanced version of the report. There is a free alternative in the Tools menu that is equivalent.
I don't see any uninstaller for Etrecheck either.
Do you know how to uninstall it, if needed?
Drag it to the trash. Please don't use any "clean up" tools or "app zappers". Any "leftover" files aren't going to consume much disk space and/or were probably created by the operating system anyway. The "app zapper" tools are more likely to do harm than save any disk space.
I will run Mac's own tools and see what I find concerning slow writing to the disk. Partition issue? It has been a while I didn't update myself.
You could try other disk performance tools or just generate additional EtreCheck reports. Disk performance is always tricky because the hard drive is always in use. With any tool, including EtreCheck, an accurate assessment will usually require multiple tests.
This might even be normal for a computer that has seen very heavy use. Your batter is already under "service battery" condition. Apple has a flat-fee battery service program available. I highly recommend it. I recently had this battery service on my old 2014 and 2015 computers that were swelling. Apple actually replaced more parts than just the battery.
A battery under "service" condition might even be causing the system to throttle performance. Since you have to leave the computer with Apple anyway, you'll need to backup the computer and erase the hard drive. Then, when you get it back, you'll want to do another erase and reinstall of the operating system. All of that may very well restore your hard drive to optimal performance.
Hosts: I see a couple of entries in that file that I can't identify as legitimate. Should edit in vim after double checking, or just let them be to do whatever they want to do. Will see.
I say just do the battery service and wipe everything away. When you restore your data, only restore your user accounts. Do not restore apps or "other files" (which would included this hosts files). Then manually reinstall only the latest versions of the apps you really need. That will wipe away the hosts file.
