Unwanted bloatware on MacBook Air M2

edouard58 wrote:

I think you are mistaken. I have NEVER started any of the above software that I mentioned but yet, they are working in the background. I kill them by using the monitor program and they end up starting back up by themselves.

No, I'm not mistaken.

There are many many processes that happen in the background on the Mac, as with any PC. Yes, you can kill some with the Activity Monitor, but those that are required for every day ops like storage management, file system ops, graphics processing and display, RAM processes, keyboard and hardware management, network communications, bluetooth communications, etc, etc... will of course be relaunched. At any given time there may be hundreds of processes running in the background in support of the normal operation of the Mac and any apps that are open or paused. This is all normal.

When I am streaming TV series, the CPU cycles will all of a sudden consume a massive amount of resources which is from sending packets to Apple servers. After about 3 minutes, the resources go back to normal. This happens on average every 30 minutes or so.

It is not unexpected that processes will start and stop when streaming network and internet communications via browser services and supporting applications. Video streams must be downloaded and buffered, device and network identifications must be established and maintained, information about video selection, progression, timecode progress and other info is shared. In short, there is a ton of stuff that must travel back and forth any time the Mac is connected to any network and running apps. I don't see anything going on here that is unexpected.

I don't use the iCloud backup services as I have my own backup system at home.

This is certainly your prerogative.

You have a MacBook Air, but you don't specify how it is configured - the amount of drive storage or RAM. I will assume that you might be experiencing some sort of performance degradation given the tone of your original post. If your computer is lacking the drive space that macOS needs for its best performance, then perhaps you need to consider freeing up space on the startup drive and maybe offloading some of your user data and libraries to an external drive. If the computer has only a minimal amount of RAM, there is nothing you can do about that but be judicious in your simultaneous use of apps, including browsers. Some apps, Chrome browser for example, are known resource hogs. Adjust your user habits accordingly.

edouard58 wrote:

I don't use the iCloud backup services as I have my own backup system at home.

There is no iCloud Backup service for your Mac. You must use your own backup System whether that is done with Time Machine to an external drive of your choice or not.

Of course your computer is going to send packets to Apple servers occasionally for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with iCloud.

List the software that you see starting on your computer. As stated already, the only game on your computer installed with the OS is the Chess app and is not running unless you launch it and the only finance software would be the Stock app/widget, if you consider that finance software. Anything else is third party programs you have installed.

edouard58 wrote:

Im sorry but you are mistaken by saying that iCloud does no backup for my MacAir Book M2. It keeps wanting to backup my photos, notes, emails and more even though I stopped them numerous times.

Nope! Using iCloud on the Mac is only for syncing data so it is available on other devices using the same Apple ID. That in no way is a backup and anyone that think it is would be sorely mistaken. Backups for the Mac are done locally using Time Machine.

What is apparent is that you don't understand the information you are receiving from packet analysis or SpinDump and are trying to make up a problem you do not have. You think contacting Apple Servers means that Apple is spying on you, while not realizing that server contact will be done for:

• Verifying device has not been marked as lost on FindMy
• Checking for new emails regularly. (I assume you didn't set Mail to only check once every 6 hours)
• Syncing iCloud as already explained.
• Checking for OS updates
• Checking for App updates
• Validating Music/Video content when played
• Sending Analytics data when you have allowed it
• Contacting the time server to calibrate

It really sounds like you have gone down some internet rabbit hole and can't seem to be able to dig yourself out. Just because you don't understand something does not mean that you have a problem that needs addressed.

"Unwanted bloatware on MacBook Air M2"

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Troubleshooting Unwanted Software:

A. Rid of Software:

Don't use it the software, or just remove it, if an option. Note that some apps cannot be uninstalled. IMPORTANT: Create a Time Machine Backup of your Mac prior to the uninstallations. that way, you can have something to restore your Mac form, should anything go wrong afterwards.

B. Remove Login Items:

Boot in Safe Mode, and remove all of your Login Items, and then restart the Mac. In Safe Mode, Login Items do not open at login, and certain system caches are fixed.  Go Here: Change Users & Groups Login Items Preferences on Mac - Apple Support

C. How Much RAM?

RAM is intended for multitasking. So, if you have only 8GB of RAM, then that may just not be. enough to handle so many open items. Go to: Apple menu > About this Mac... > Memory. In your model, RAM cannot be changed.

D. Scan with Malwarebytes for Mac:

Start with running a scan for malware, using Malwarebytes for Mac and remove what is found. Perhaps something was installed that made this occur. Remove what is found from the quarantine. Malware is short for: Malicious Software, which makes you computer act in a mislead manor.

Downloads:

1. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for Mac
2. Malwarebytes Uninstaller

What exactly are the apps running in the background that you consider bloatware? Where are you seeing them and, more importantly, what are you experiencing in your everyday use of your Mac that is a problem? Is is slow, is there lag/latency in video/audio? Does the cursor take ages to respond to mouse input? Unless you tell us what the actual problems are with some examples then it's hard to help or advise.

So which process or processes are consuming the CPU cycles and/or RAM? Which ones are spin-dumping?

edouard58 wrote:

I have no need to games, finances, classroom, teacher, and many other bloatware running in the background consuming resources and slowing down my internet.

Unless you have installed extra software, the only thing of a "games, finances, classroom, teacher" nature that you would have on a modern Mac would be the Chess and Stocks applications. Both are small. Neither consume CPU or network resources when you are not running them.

My advice would be that if you do not want "games, finances, classroom [and] teacher" "bloatware", don't install it.

Apple doesn't participate in these user to user forums. If you want to complain to them or request a change to their feature set or default programs, do that here: Product Feedback - Apple.

Otherwise, there is not much you can expect from other users beyond commiseration (from those who agree with you) or indifference (from those who don't)...unless you have a question - in which case there are lots of people happy to try and help.

It's not backing up Notes, Photos, emails, etc. Notes and photos are being synched with iCloud so they can be shared with your other Apple devices like iPhones and iPads. If you don't want your notes and photos synched with iCloud then you can turn it off. Go to System Settings click on your Apple ID (your name at the top) then where it says "save to iCloud" click on "see all" and you can turn off all the services you don't want to be synched with iCloud. It means that you won't see them on any of your other devices. If you don't want to use iCloud at all then just sign out of it - System Settings, click your name at the top the scroll to the bottom and click Sign Out. Make sure you save local copies of whatever you want to keep on your Mac.

Mail synchs as often as you want it to. Go to the Mail app's settings, click the General tab and you can set how often you want mail to check for new mail. If you never want it to do anything in the background then select "manual" and it will only look for mail when you refresh it manually.

edouard58 wrote:

Im sorry but you are mistaken by saying that iCloud does no backup for my MacAir Book M2. It keeps wanting to backup my photos, notes, emails and more even though I stopped them numerous times.

No, iCloud does not backup your Mac. iCloud is involved in syncing certain data if you have those features enabled. Synced data could include Photos, Messages, Mail, Contacts. However, you can turn off that syncing if you don't want it. Syncing and backing up are two different things.

Sending packets to Apple should not be done so often. Once every 6 hours would be okay but every 10 minutes and at times, 30 minutes is way too much network resources.I don't use the stock app/widget or any other widgets as they consume resources which I prefer to conserve.

Why do you need to conserve them? What problems are you having that you think this will solve?

You haven't yet told us what problems you're actually seeing. All the stuff you report as bloatware consuming resources is happening on my Mac too, but it works fine. What is actually crashing or running slowly or happening that is a problem and prevents you using your Mac like you want to use it?

On iPhones and iPads, "backup" vs. "synchronization" can be a little confusing. iPhones and iPads are set up so that any data that you synchronize to iCloud is not included in iCloud backups. The implication is that the master copy of synchronized data in iCloud is the backup. iCloud Photos won't protect you against permanently deleting a photo (despite the phone's attempts to dissuade you), but it might protect you if your phone got run over by a truck.

Macs don't use iCloud for general backups, and while iCloud synchronization can provide some measure of safety for data that is synchronized, local backups are still a good idea.

Ideally, if you were using iCloud Photos on a Mac, you would have your preferences set to "Download Originals to this Mac" instead of "Optimize Mac Storage". (If you were using "Optimize Mac Storage" and the system Photos library contained some "space-saving" reduced-quality photo files, your backups would presumably only contain those reduced-quality versions.)