macbook
I'm unsure if MacKeeper is safe or not for download, I simply want to point out that the above user is woefully undereducated about malware for apple computers. There are a small number of malicious programs that have been designed for the OSX operating system. It is blatantly untrue that there are "no known virus's for macs today" as trojans ARE in fact viruses, but more importantly there are programs such as Mac Defender, which is a very well known virus. My suggestion is that if you are worried about a virus on your computer, you can purchase anti-virus software from McAfee, and possible norton. In the last few months I have seen several apple computers come into the shop where I work with viruses on them, which we needed to completely reinstall OSX in order to remove.
There has been a lot of information over the past few weeks about Trojans vs Virus etc. Good information here:
http://www.reedcorner.net/guides/macvirus/
also Apple has issued:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4650 with instructions for removing the Trojan.
Also, NEVER install something that you didn't search for or choose yourself. Unsolicited software is always dangerous.
laverne's mom
If it is the MacDefender malware this will help a lot.
http://www.reedcorner.net/news.php/?p=138
This guy knows a lot.
http://www.reedcorner.net/guides/macvirus/
Check out this Malware Catalog that the guy made http://www.reedcorner.net/guides/macvirus/malware_catalog.php
A virus is a self-replicating, self-propagating, malicious piece of software designed to destroy files and folders on a computer system.
Name the viruses that affect or infect OS X.
MacDefender is not a virus. It is phishing scam.
While there is technically a difference between a virus and malware... it's purely semantics to the average consumer. The average consumer considers anything "bad" that gets on their machine to be a virus... be it an actual virus or malware. From a micro biology perspective, a virus and a bacteria are totally different things... but most people use the terms interchangably. While there is some benefit for the sake of educating people in explaining the difference, the end result is that someone has something on their system which shouldn't be there and they're looking for help in getting rid of it.
Knowinf that this thread is a couple months old, I wanted to jump in anyway, because I am not sure where poeple are getting there information. There is a distinct difference between a Virus, a Trojan, and Malware. One reason so many PC users become victoms is that they get protection from one and not the other and blindly think they are safe. But getting into the very obvious difference is something else, I wanted to elaborate on soething else, First Mackeeper is not a virus, but it is rather spammy and they have a reputation of poor support. There are much better programs/ways to solve concerns you may have....
Now that that's out of the way...
As a mac user of more than 20 years I can tell you that there are absolutely viruses. Most of which have long been patched and no longer harmless. There are trojans too. as well as malware. What made Mac so "safe" over the years is that not many people had them, simply because of cost. PC's are cheaper. Without a large user base, therehas been no point in crafting any of these pests to run on mac, but times are changing and as the Mac gets more popular people are starting to develope viruses, trojans, andmalware for OSX, so being protected is always the safe route.
Sept. 11, 2001 America was attacked. What made it so easy, was that we were too cocky. Thinking that we were not vulnerable. That was stupid. I suggest you don't be stupid, there are plently of ways to protect yourself and you should take precautions just to be safe. One thing that I love hearing from some PC users is this... "I don't have any protection and don't need it, because I don't go on site that I don't trust nor do I open mail from people I don't know." And while this is good practice, some people don't realize that some viruses are out in the wild, meaning ll you need to get them is to be online....
Clamav, AVG, and a few others are good programs. If you want to look for a ways to scan or protect your system, look for something with a good user base and a forum. Forums can go along way with helping people. And you get a chance to talk to real users.
I wsa on speedtest.net and accidentally clicked on the icon that downloaded MacKeeper. Can I just take the icon, put it in my trash, and empty it? Will this safely yrid me of it?
81TIGER04 wrote:
I wsa on speedtest.net and accidentally clicked on the icon that downloaded MacKeeper. Can I just take the icon, put it in my trash, and empty it? Will this safely yrid me of it?
PS ... I have not purchased the program or anything. The "answered" link above applies to a user that downloaded and purchased MacKeeper. All I've done is accidentally downloaded the MacKeeper.pkg file (as far as I know).
It's not semantics, it's a very important difference. It's like saying food poisoning and self-inflicted alcohol poisoning are the same because they have some similar symptoms. The causes and ways to protect yourself are completely different.
Hi 81TIGER04,
Yes, just drag it to Trash and then empty the trash bin.
If you haven't run the .dmg file, you will be fine.
Update:
If your not sure, read this page
http://www.reedcorner.net/news.php/?p=138
Hope this helps
Message was edited by: actionmarker
actionmarker wrote:
Hi 81TIGER04,
Yes, just drag it to Trash and then empty the trash bin.
If you haven't run the .dmg file, you will be fine.
Update:
If your not sure, read this page
http://www.reedcorner.net/news.php/?p=138
Hope this helps
Message was edited by: actionmarker
It was a .pkg file ... Either way, I did as you said - dragged it to the trash and emptied. Everything seems to be fine. I assume I would easily know if I was infected?
No problems,
You haven't even 'unpacked' the file which is even better.
Nothing has been installed onto your computer.
If the program were installed you will know because dragging to the trash and trying to empty you will get a message cannot remove because it is in use. There are several good antivirus programs you can use them on a trial run for free for a month before you choose. Make sure not to erase the uninstall folder or it will be difficult to remove them correctly. Google antivirus for mac and there are several reviews and you can see the comparison of real legit software. Just dont download and allow it to run until you know its ok and not a scam. Enjoy your mac! I have found it is a much better and more secure experiance.
Hi all,
i bought a macbook pro about a year ago now, id been using and building computers for quite a few years so knew a good amount about them, but when it came to the mac operating system my knowledge base was woefully inadequate, i was actually recommended mackeep by one of my friends whod had a mac for about 5 years. now at the time i trusted hat persons judgement and went on to download this program onto my brand new, shiny perfect and relatively empty macbook. id had this mac for 2 weeks and had just managed to download nearly 80 GB of music and just under 200 GB of film onto it, organised all the media files alphabetically and got my internet and system programs personalised just for me. then mac keeper coems along. apple had to take away my shiny new mac 😟, thank god for applecare is all i can say haha. turns out that when i got it back 2 weeks later, they had had to put a whole new harddrive inside, there was a lovely sticky note on the top that read (in capitals), and i quote - "WHAT DID YOU DOWNLOAD!!".
now after id calmed down about losing nearly 300 GB of data i had a little laugh about it, then it got my thinking, what did i download, and the only conclcusion that i came to was mackeeper must have had something to do with it, the only other things id downloaded were apple software and im pretty sure that they wont try and break their own hardware (not unless theres a new model on the way 😉.)
i now warn everyone to steer clear of mackeeper
hope this has helped,
martin
Mackeeper a virus!
