Is MacKeeper safe to use?

No. MacKeeper is scamware. It should be avoid to the best of your ability.

Since cache is for the storage of data you may need again clearing cache only decreases the performance of your computer.

How much free space do you have on your system disk?

How large is your Desktop folder?

Allan

I keep getting ads for MacKeeper...... is it safe to use? It is worth the effort?

IMHO, no and no.

Do a search in these forums on Mackeeper. You will get a lot of information and most of it is negative feedback.

Your performance problems have several possible causes - lack of memory is one. If you are really running OS X 10.4.11 I cannot really give you much meaningful advice as I have not run that for years.

Barry

The Desktop folder is inside of your Home folder. So if you select it and then press Command + I that will display information on the Desktop folder. If you will give us that information is would be helpful.

Seeing as how you are running such an old version of OS X with 10.4.11, it is difficult to remember exactly what still works back there. Is there a reason you are so far behind on the version of OS X you are running.

So far in my testing I have failed to find anything that I am willing to install on my system in the way of "Clean up" applications. So far most of them have actually proven to be dangerous when I tested them in my sandbox. All of them failed to do what they claimed to do.

Allan

While I've never used MacKeeper, the general consensus around here is "no".

You say you are "clearing cache"...how are you doing this? Terminal command? Safari menu command? Third party program (such as Onyx or MacJanitor)?

For a slow(ing) computer, these are the things I would check (since you seem to have enough free hard disk space):

How much RAM (memory) is in your computer?

Have you run Software Update to make sure you have all the available patches and updates?

Have you repaired permissions on your hard drive?

How many programs are you running at once?

The next time you start up your computer open up Activity Monitor and set it to sort by CPU usage and see if one particular program or process is using up all of your system resources.

Speaking of starting up your computer, have you restarted it recently?

hope this helps

Richard

EasyFind runs perfectly on any Power Mac running Tiger 10.4.11.

If it doesn't run on your system, you must have a messed up install.

How much RAM do you have installed?

What routine maintenance do you perform on your computer?

2.5 GHz Power Mac (PPC) G5-Quad; 16GB RAM; mutant, flashed 550MHz nVidia GeForce 7800GTX 1,700MHz 512MB VRAM; ATTO ExpressPCI UL5D LP SCSI card; Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 and Leopard 10.5.8 boot drives; Spotblight, Dashboard and Time Machine permanently disabled; dual 22" CRT monitors; USB wireless 'n' available but connected to the Internet via wired Ethernet; FW flatbed scanner; 2 SCSI scanners (one tabloid-size transparency scanner and a film scanner); various internal & external HDs; FW Epson 2200 and Ethernet Samsung ML-2850ND printers; 2 X Back-UPS RS 1500 XS units.

Quadruple NO, NO, No, No. 😟

Hey Allan

I wanted to ask you for specifics about this:

So far in my testing I have failed to find anything that I am willing to install on my system in the way of "Clean up" applications. So far most of them have actually proven to be dangerous when I tested them in my sandbox. All of them failed to do what they claimed to do.

I don't want to thread-jack, so we can either start a new thread, or feel free to send me an e-mail. 🙂

TIA

Richard

MamaWolf

First off, thank you for the prompt and detailed information. 🙂 This will help us troubleshoot a little better.

Now for your first question about "where is the home folder?":

Double-click your hard drive icon and open it. On the left hand side, there should be a column of icons, one of which should look like a house and have your user name under it. This is your home folder, and is the default folder for a lot of things. Right-click on the house (or control-click, if you only have a one-button mouse) and then select "get info". A window should pop up with a bunch of details about the home folder, and the second line you see should be "Size". Please let us know what that number is.

And as for using 10.4.11 - please don't apologize. 🙂 While it's not the "latest and greatest" it is still a viable and flexible operating system. I still have a 10.4.11 drive for my G5 Powermac - I occasionally use "Classic" (and 10.4.11 is the LAST operating system to use Classic), and I think it runs a little bit faster than 10.5 Leopard.

OK, Good that you automatically run Software Update.

However, I notice that you only have 1GB of RAM. I think the single most important thing that you could do for your system slowdowns is to ad more RAM. I *believe* that you are running a QuickSilver 2002 G4 (I'm not an expert on the PowerMac G4), and the maximum RAM it can take is 1.5GB, which means that you *should* be able to add one more 512MB RAM module to the computer. It will make a difference in speed.

To repair permissions on your hard drive: Open up the Applications folder. In the Applications folder, there is a folder called "Utilities" - open this. Then find the program called "Disk Utility". Run this. When Disk Utility pops up, there will be a list of all of your drives (hard drives, and any mounted CDs or DVDs) on the left hand side. Select your hard drive then go to the lower center of the window and click "repair disk permissions". Let it run - this may take a while. You may want to run "repair disk permissions" twice just to make sure.

Activity monitor will tell you what is running on your computer - you say that you are only running only one program at a time, but if that program is Safari (or another web browser) you will start to notice slowdowns if you have several tabs open at once (especially only with 1GB of RAM). Go back to the same Utilities folder (inside of the Applications folder) that you opened for Disk Utility. (It's the same folder that Disk Utility is in.) Find the Activity Monitor program in this folder, and run it. At the center top of the program window, there should be a drop-down menu - click it and select "all processes". Look at the listing below - there are all of the programs and processes that are running on your Mac right now. As you go across the top row, you will see "Process Name", "User", "CPU" and more stuff. Click the little box that says "CPU" until you get a down arrow (or downward pointing triangle). This will order the list of programs in descending order, starting with whatever is using most of your CPU...the numbers in this column are the percentage of your CPU that the programs are taking. If you have one program that is taking, say 80% or more, then this will also slow your computer down as it devotes is resorces to that one program at the expense of other things.

Also, at the bottom of the Activity Monitor window, there should be several choices including "CPU", "System Memory", "Disk Activity" and so on. Click on "System Memory". This will tell you how much of your RAM is being used at the moment (if there is a pie chart, the more green the better!). It will also tell you "VM size" and "Page ins" and "Page outs". VM is "virtual memory" - when your computer runs out of real RAM, it starts storing things on the hard drive - pretending the hard drive is "real RAM". However, the hard drive is many, many times slower than ream RAM, so this will slow your machine down. The "Page ins" and "Page outs" will tell you how much this Virtual Memory is being used. The only cure for this is to add more real RAM to your computer.

Whew. My fingers are tired. LOL 🙂 🙂 I hope this wasn't to eye-straining to read! Just respond back with any more questions...we're here to help!

Richard

Mamawolf wrote:

Ramon,

If it runs so "perfectly" then why did it AUTOMATICALLY pop up a message saying it would not run on this system??????????????

If there is one that runs perfectly how about a link?

Yes, EasyFind version 4.5 runs perfectly well on my G5 Quad an on my Dual Bootable DP MDD G4, both running Tiger 10.4.11.

http://www.4shared.com/file/IG6mwckB/EasyFind_45_for_Macdmg.html

Do not attempt to use a higher version on 10.4.11.

Mamawolf wrote:

…why did it AUTOMATICALLY pop up a message saying it would not run on this system??????????????

Your question-mark key appears to be stuck. 😝

Richard Williams Jr wrote:

…as for using 10.4.11 - please don't apologize. 🙂 While it's not the "latest and greatest" it is still a viable and flexible operating system. I still have a 10.4.11 drive for my G5 Powermac - I occasionally use "Classic" (and 10.4.11 is the LAST operating system to use Classic), and I think it runs a little bit faster than 10.5 Leopard…

You are quite right on both counts. On a Power Mac, Tiger beats Leopard hands down.

I have independent, physically separate, dual (Tiger/Leopard) boot drives, and find Tiger 10.4.11 much snappier than Leopard 10.5,8.

2.5 GHz Power Mac (PPC) G5-Quad; 16GB RAM; mutant, flashed 550MHz nVidia GeForce 7800GTX 1,700MHz 512MB VRAM; ATTO ExpressPCI UL5D LP SCSI card; Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.11 and Leopard 10.5.8 boot drives; Spotblight, Dashboard and Time Machine permanently disabled; dual 22" CRT monitors; USB wireless 'n' available but connected to the Internet via wired Ethernet; FW flatbed scanner; 2 SCSI scanners (one tabloid-size transparency scanner and a film scanner); various internal & external HDs; FW Epson 2200 and Ethernet Samsung ML-2850ND printers; 2 X Back-UPS RS 1500 XS units.b