is mackeeper legit

It is supposed to be legitimate but stick with Norton. 🙂 I wouldn't be suprised if Mackeeper is the successor to Macdefender!

If you will do a search for it here in the community, you will find that it is best ignored. I would not let it near my machines:

https://discussions.apple.com/community/desktop_computers/search.jspa?peopleEnab led=true&userID=&containerType=&container=&spotlight=true&q=mackeeper

FWIW, Norton's is second on my list of things to avoid - what needs does it fulfill for you?

Sorry, but I have never had any troubles with Norton up my sleeve. Some people do avoid it like te plague, preferring *cough*windows defender*cough* but I see no base to this claim 😉

I have absolutely no AV software on my Macs. I don't run Windows. If there is ever a virus for Macs, I will reconsider; until then, I see no need for it.

As long as it doesn't cause any problems, it should be fine. You do know that Macs have a built in firewall? And, if you have a wireless router, they have firewalls as well. You might find this interesting:

http://www.reedcorner.net/guides/macvirus/

And, Mas OS does a good job in cleaning up after itself; maintenance scripts are run in the middle of the night (if the Mac is on) or after it wakes up. And the system defrags files up to 20 MB on the fly.

Very interesting! And yes viruses are very unlikely but why not have AV installed anyway? 😝

Because it is an unnecessary and a waste of money. If you are that set on a/v software, all you need is ClamXav, which is free from the app store.

And Clamxav is the one I use 😉

The best AV protection lies between a user's ears: do not download anything unless you know what it is and only from reputable sites (i.e. directly from the developer); torrents are not reputable - a lot of them include "additions" in the illegal software they make available.

MacKeeper is highly invasive malware that can de-stablize your operating system. It is also a rip-off.

How to uninstall MacKeeper malware:

http://applehelpwriter.com/2011/09/21/how-to-uninstall-mackeeper-malware/

Norton Antivirus has a very long and illustrious reputation for mangling Mac OS X systems, sometimes to the point where a complete reinstall is necessary. Among other things, it installs kernel extensions which are known to cause kernel panics and system freezes; it contains known and documented bugs which can silently corrupt Adobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign files, destroy a user's ability to authenticate as an administrator, and (on PPC systems) can cause Classic to stop functioning; and Symantec has on at least two occasions now released flawed .dat file updates which erroneously report certain critical Mac OS X files as "viruses." (Deleting these "viruses" causes damage to the system that in some cases renders it unbootable.)

You may find this User Tip on Viruses, Trojan Detection and Removal, as well as general Internet Security and Privacy, useful:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2435

jji7skyline wrote:

. . .

why not have AV installed anyway? 😝

In addition to being unnecessary and a waste of money, as shldr2thewheel posts, many (especially the expensive ones) can busy your CPU needlessly, and/or interfere with Time Machine backups.

Several very knowledgable folks recommend the free ClamXav as the least obtrusive, and as effective as the expensive ones, for those who think they really need something.

erickfromcastro valley wrote:

i wouldnt have a AV at all but i play alot of online games and my WOW acc got hacked and for some reasone someone convinced be it was a keylogger and that i should get a AV and scince norton is free with comcast i just downloaded it really quickly to run scans

Since most keyloggers are legitamate software they are usually considered to be Potentially Unwanted Applictations (PUA), so most AV software doesn't look for them. I don't know how Norton treats them, but there was a time when MacScan first started up to fill that gap and that would seem to still be their specialty.

is mackeeper legitimate i currently and useing norton and that fufills my needs but mackeeper seems to be more mac based (hence the name)

MacKeeper was derived from PCKeeper and for several months was actually using the PC version of their AV module to provide such support. See Beware MacKeeper for why you should not use it and alternative free / low cost software.

Wasn't sure about MacKeeper, it popped up on my screen, after reading the information everyone has provided, I won't be installing this.

thanks for bringing the topic up!