MacKeeper

Hi Rusty,

First issue, NEVER use MacKeeper...this has been discussed ad nauseum on here and everyone who has ever used that software has had nothing but problems. And to make matters even worse, if you try to uninstall via the author's procedure you will not uninstall but end up with several hidden files that will give you more and more problems. There is a thread on the uninstall that you can pick up by a simple search.

If you feel compelled to use anti-virus software on a Mac, which is really unnecessary, you can get ClamXAV which actually IS a free download and highly thought of.

To back up via Time Machine, the easiest method is an external hard drive connected by Firewire (the way I do it) or USB. Partition the drive into a backup space and further user space. I bought the 2 TB Mercury Elite Pro from OWC, www.macsales.com and it works like a champ.

After a quick search, thisdiscussion has a link to a process by Phil Stokes that several say actually does the job of getting rid of MacKeeper.

To reiterate, you really don't need to worry about viruses with Mac OS X but you do need to be vigilent about not clicking on popups that say you have a problem, get their software...there is no way they could know if there was a virus on your computer in the first place.

I don't understand the message you are getting about TM backup and internet...TM needs an external drive to backup to rather than the internal...part of the theory that if you loose the internal drive and the backup is located there, you have no backup since you lost the drive. You really need to look into an exernal drive, prices are pretty reasonable for good quality drives. Setup is very easy with Disk Utility.

Hope this helps with your concerns.

Rusty K wrote:

Here's the catch...my computer has stopped hanging/buffering on videos which was the main complaint I was orginally having. Moral...MacKeeper can't be all bad?

This article "Beware MacKeeper" contains a list of mostly free alternatives to MacKeeper functions without all the hassle.

Even the alternatives for MacKeeper for the most part are not needed. The only "maintenance", or regularly scheduled events you should run on your Mac include:

1. Backing up your Mac at least twice* http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html

2. Cleaning the system logs. Anacron, and Macjanitor are probably the best known tools to do this if you choose to always shut down your machine at night, or put it in Energy Saver, and don't want it to preoccupy your machine's time the moment it wakes up.

3. Keeping your system from getting too full* http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html

Everything else, as Anheiser Busch likes to say, is "just a light..." (and no, I don't work for them, I just find their commercial humorous!)

Seriously, if cleaning system caches the way some people do it around here with those tools was that necessary, wouldn't Apple have included it in the cron jobs

for the logs?

Cache files are there to speed system operations. Cleaning them only slows you down, and if deleting one as it is being created happens, they get corrupted.

Don't try to defeat the system at its own purposes.

If you do start exhibiting system symptoms that would need such tools, your backup will always be a recourse anyway. If you aren't backing up, then you are playing Russian Roulette with your data anyway.

No. Only if the hard drive becomes full, or was changed with another that had no Time Machine status to it only to be switched back to the Time Machine backup, or you changed the files on it. Time Machine generally needs twice the space of the original drive to make a full backup that has archival backups to go with it. Check this tip for Time Machine.

a brody wrote:

2. Cleaning the system logs. Anacron, and Macjanitor are probably the best known tools to do this if you choose to always shut down your machine at night, or put it in Energy Saver, and don't want it to preoccupy your machine's time the moment it wakes up.

Running the maintenance scripts is over-rated as you can go for weeks or months before your logs start causing issues. But if you feel you must and you shut your machine down at night, Anacron won't solve the problem but PseudoAnacron will.

#A Brody suggested - if cleaning caches was necessary, wouldn't Apple have included it in the cron jobs? I think if it were necessary it would have been released as an app by now. That it hasn't been, says it all.

seventy one wrote:

#A Brody suggested - if cleaning caches was necessary, wouldn't Apple have included it in the cron jobs? I think if it were necessary it would have been released as an app by now. That it hasn't been, says it all.

Apple abandoned cron for launchd years ago, but your point is still valid.

I never turn my Mac off at night. The only time I turn it off is when I will be away for at least a couple of days.

Allan

I never turn off unless I will be away for a couple days...keeping it up and even in sleep mode maintains a constant temperature which the internals much prefer.

See Pondini's Time machine FAQs:

http://pondini.org/TM/FAQ.html

Time Machine was designed to be allowed to Do It's Thing, best to let it do just that.