Is mackeeper safe to use?

etresoft wrote:

I admit that I know little about MacKeeper.

But your first post to the OP was

It is safe, but like any Mac anti-virus, completely unnecessary.

I think that is where the confusion lies. By your own admission, don't try to solve the OP's issue if you know little about their problem.

Cheers

Pete

You're not remaining neutral - you're trying to start World War III.

I admit that I know little about MacKeeper. But what little I know directly contradicts everything the MacKeeper-bashers tell me about it.

If that's the case, then listen to people who know more about it - like Allan, who has uninstalled it on many Macs. Do you honestly believe that anyone who says something negative is lying about it? Because again, that's not "remaining neutral." Those who review it and report all sorts of problems with it are people who have actually downloaded it - it is very presumptuous of you to call all of these people liars, especially when there are so many of them saying that.

You seem to make a big deal out of the need to download MacKeeper before bashing it. Look all over Google, on review sites. Again, these are people who have downloaded it, just like you said. Then you call them liars.

Your argument is a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning. In other words, pure unadulterated sophistry.

Gentlemen, by continuing to argue with etresoft you are giving him the soapbox he so desperately needs. You aren't going change his mind but I'm sure he is enjoying this immensely.

stevejobsfan0123 wrote:

You're not remaining neutral - you're trying to start World War III.

More like a tempest in a teacup.

Look all over Google, on review sites.

Ah, but there's the rub. No matter what you want to believe, you will find some support for it on the internet. If you read something on the internet and then automatically believe it to be true, you are in for a confused life. You can't even count on a preponderance of evidence because it is so easy to just report the same story over and over again.

If there are individual people here who need helping installing MacKeeper, Sophos, Kaspersky, etc. then we should help them. In many cases, they have tried to follow internet advice and have scrambled their systems. I don't doubt that this happens quite often with MacKeeper. I happen to think if people just used the uninstaller it would happen less often. However, I can't change the internet and I can't keep people from reading blogs. All I can do is try to pick up the pieces afterwards. But if you give me a chance to give some advice before the fact - I'm going to take it.

Then give advice on things you know about. By your own admission you know little about MacKeeper, so try helping out elsewhere instead of feeding the OP misguided information.

Pete

petermac87 wrote:

Then give advice on things you know about. By your own admission you know little about MacKeeper, so try helping out elsewhere instead of feeding the OP misguided information.

So you are going on record as saying MacKeeper is necessary then?

You know he was referring to the "safe" remark.

As a level six I thought your level of maturity may have been higher. Your Never Wrong attitude is depremental to those seeking help. I will adhere to advice earlier in this thread and stop feeding you and building your soapbox.

Bye

Pete

Is MacKeeper safe in what sense?

It is not safe to use its 'Fast Cleanup' option, which cuts binaries, removes foreign languages (without which some programs will not work) and takes out other necessary system files. I have documented cases of people's entire systems crashing after using it.

It is not safe to encrypt files with MacKeeper since only MacKeeper will allow you to unencrypt them. Mac OS nor any other program will be able to unencrypt any file you have encrypted with MacKeeper. This unnecessarily ties you into the application for the life of your data, a very unsafe thing to do, it seems to me, particularly when OS X has its own built-in encryption. It also leaves your data open to a backdoor possessed by Zeobit, who can unencrypt your data even when you can't (again, I have documented evidence of this)

It is not safe to believe MacKeeper's website. For instance, they claim that MacKeeper has received a 5 star review from MacUpdate, but in fact the review originaly linked to rated MacKeeper at 1.5 stars, and the comments on MacUpdate are full of people complaining about the damage it has done to their system. Now, there is a second entry on MacUpdate that gives it a 4-star review, and which has been populated by positive reviews as a result of MacKeeper's street team. Even the guy at MacUpdate concedes that this is the case, and is suffering a backlash from MacUpdate readers because of it.

Other dodgy practices undertaken by Zeobit are documented here:

http://www.reedcorner.net/news.php/beware-mackeeper/

It is not safe to believe etresoft. First, because by his own admission he doesn't know anything about the program. Second, because he falsely claims that people are coming to this forum because

they have tried to follow internet advice and have scrambled their systems.

There is not a single case of this documented on this forum or any other to my knowledge. Perhaps etresoft could enlighten us as to his evidence for this claim.

On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence of the grateful help that people have received from following my uninstall guide in the over 300+ comments at the end of this page, as well as some real horror stories of what MacKeeper did to their systems:

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

(Disclaimer: this links to my own personal website which contains links to other pages that advertise my services and from which I may derive some benefit).

Perhaps etresoft thinks these peoples experience don't matter in light of his own personal agenda here, I don't know what that is. Either he is part of the MacKeeper 'street team', hired by Zeobit to populate discussion forums disputing the reality of people's problems with the program, or he is doing the very same thing for nothing other than personal amusement.

Either way, he is not helping you, the OP.

Unlike others in this forum, I have no need of any commercial disclaimer because I have no commercial interest. I find it interesting when people immediately accuse me of being employed by Zeobit. It reminds me of Shakespeare's famous line "methinks they doth protest too much." People who actually are shills for some company or are engaged in a paid astroturfing campaign assume other people must be doing it as well.

I have not recommended that anyone use or install MacKeeper - not even once. My only goal is to stop this vicious and libelous campaign against a company and product that has not done anything wrong or illegal. I am trying to write some software this summer and get it in the Apple App Stores. What if my software becomes the next target? This behaviour is flat out wrong.

I see no evidence that MacKeeper is any more dangerous than any other software. There are a number of language and binary stripping utilities. I agree with softwater that they should not be used, but when I recommend against the use of Monolingual or other non-Zeobit in other threads, I get jumped on just as I do here. Many other tools provide proprietary encryption, but you don't see people attacking Truecrypt.

Ultimately, my biggest complaint about ZeoBit is that they have not sued the people in this forum for libel. It is illegal, after all. Companies have a responsibility to protect their interests and if they fail to act, it encourages this sort behaviour and makes it more difficult for another company ir individual to sue the next time it happens.

etresoft wrote:

I see no evidence that MacKeeper is any more dangerous than any other software.

Give it a break. You are making yourself looking sillier everytime you try to justify each preceding post. Your arguement here is both petty and of no use to anyone. Repost here all you want, but you have turned someone's legitimate thread into a shambles of untruths.

Bye

Pete

etresoft wrote:

I see no evidence that MacKeeper is any more dangerous than any other software.

And yet the evidence is plain to see. I've already indicated some of it in my previous post.

etresoft wrote:
Ultimately, my biggest complaint about ZeoBit is that they have not sued the people in this forum for libel. It is illegal, after all.

What is illegal? What, referring to myself specifically, untruths have I told? Point to a single one.

Zeobit have indeed threatened me with legal action for defamation, so rest assured they are not slacking in the regard that you accuse them.

I will point out to you what I pointed out to them:

Criticism and opinion in "the marketplace of ideas" (i.e., commercial speech) are not defamation but protected speech under the US Constitution. US law protects consumers' rights to make informed decisions based on freely exchanged opinions about commercial experience. As you will see from the many comments on my blog page, on ASC, on MacRumors, on MacUpdate and on many other forums, that is precisely what is taking place. I do believe Apple's lawyers and Zeobit's are somewhat better placed than you to decide whether this exchange of opinions constitutes libel or any other crime. Zeobit's obviously did not, as their response to the points I just made was to offer me a job.

Once again, etresoft, you simply do not know what you're talking about.

Once again you have everything backwards. The users I am helping did NOT use anything other then code from Zeobit. Your assumptions on this point are totally unfounded. I on the other hand used the command line procedures posted on the web vithout any of any problems at all to repair the mess that Zeobit had left on their Mac. You need to get your fact straight before you go around accusing people of things.

Allan

you have turned someone's legitimate thread into a shambles of untruths.

Well, that remains to be seen. I notice the OP has remained silent through this whole exchange. Interestingly, the OP joined on 4th April 2010, exactly 11 days before MacKeeper's infamous 'Sana Paul', and appears never to have posted a single thing since then until starting this thread.

All circumstantial, of course, but it does make you wonder...unless the OP would like to let us know what he/she thinks...

Probably can't get a word in with the drawn out posts here. I don't think it constitutes another conspiracy theory though.

Pete