MacKeeper, in detail please

You're a better man than I, Pr0digy V.! Every time I try to inject a little sanity into the anti-MacKeeper rants I get accused of everything from being an idiot to a shill.

Zeobit claims it is an organized campaign from one of their competitors and there is some credence to that. Back in early 2009 there was a similar campaign against Parallels. I got duped myself and bought a copy of VMWare while it was on sale, just in case. At least that allowed me to see clearly that both products were virtually identical, with Parallels slightly more stable. I made it a point not to fall for any internet groupthink again.

One of the key anti-MacKeeper points was that the uninstaller either did not remove all files or actually sabotaged your system. I downloaded MacKeeper (in a VM), installed it, and removed it. Not only did the uninstaller work perfectly, it was actually quite slick. The application watched itself and when you put it into the trash, it would ask if you wanted to remove the rest of it. People have since backed off on that point and claim that the newer versions are better. Who doesn't write better Mac software over time? Intuit abandonned the Mac market altogether for years and no one ranted about that - they ranted about Apple not supporting Intuit.

I don't think any Mac users need antivirus or "clean up" software. The operating system will do both on its own. As for their advertising, I find it over the top with way too many pop-ups. But it does seem to be very effective. Why stop doing something when it works so well?

Something that I didn't see mentioned was a few reports (I am unable to check with my setup) of hard disks being filled up with invisible files. I've seen this with other utilities that provide a quick way to "unerase" a file that has been trashed. In order to do this as rapidly as possible, they keep a copy of everything that is erased in a hidden directory so that when the user requests it be restored it can be done as quickly as possible without having to resort to scanning freespace for it. The other app that I'm familiar with monitors the amount of freespace remaining on the hard drive and starts permanently removing files to make room, starting with the oldest to have been erased.

When the users I mentioned uninstalled MacKeeper it suddenly freed up a large amount of hard drive space, leading me to believe that the uninstall process removes a hidden directory full of previously erased files. Perhaps you can confirm this for us.

According to MacKeeper's web site, its File Recovery is the passive type that just scans free space and recovers certain well-defined file types. Before Time Machine days, I paid $80 for FileSalvage to recover some important documents. Perhaps the "Shredder" feature scrambles free disk space too.

MacKeeper is just a catch-all of a number of utilties that range from useful, to not-necessary, to redundant, to dangerous. If Zeobit just dumped the antivirus and "clean up" modules (not-necessary and dangerous, respectively parts of MacKeeper, I would have a much easier time defending it.

One thing, though - it keeps the support forums busy rescuing data from messed up systems. And as for advertising, ClamXav´s Mark Allan wasn´t happy about this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd7YXcjadks&feature=channel_video_title

cozar wrote:

One thing, though - it keeps the support forums busy rescuing data from messed up systems.

Not as busy as Apple keeps them 🙂

And as for advertising, ClamXav´s Mark Allan wasn´t happy about this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd7YXcjadks&feature=channel_video_title

From the misinformation I've heard, this was supposedly some overzealous marketing services. That sort of thing seems quite popular with anti-virus folks. The whole industry is shady. If someone wants to bash anti-virus, fine. But when they start bashing only one anti-virus product and promoting another, that raises a red flag for me. The clamxav.org site is a good example. The site is still up. The big green "free download" button is still there. Buit now it directs the user to AVG instead of MacKeeper or ClamXav. Apparently nobody has any problem with that.

etresoft wrote:

The site is still up. The big green "free download" button is still there. Buit now it directs the user to AVG instead of MacKeeper or ClamXav. Apparently nobody has any problem with that.

I haven't visited the site since they took the big green button off and you are the first to mention the AVG connection.

I visited the site with three different browsers and am not seeing a big green button anywhere???

Unfortunately, you're at the end of any productive help you might have gotten. Based on some of the posts (and posters) that have showed up, this topic will simply degenerate into pointless arguments.

The problem you're going to have getting decent information here is threefold. First, any mention of MacKeeper usually triggers extremely negative responses. There's good reason for that, but it gets in the way of someone who is trying to gather information to assist with testing and review.

Second, none of the experts here, to my knowledge, have actually installed MacKeeper (except for etresoft, who installed a trial version once, very briefly). So none of us are likely to be of any help to you in describing first-hand experiences with MacKeeper.

Third, MacKeeper is a moving target. When people start complaining about something too much (like the stuff its uninstaller used to leave behind), it changes. One could argue that this is good customer service, but knowing other things about the company's behavior, it feels like something else.

If you are able to successfully run some decent tests of MacKeeper, I would love to read the review that you write! (Hopefully, even if you don't find any problems with the software, you'll keep in mind the unethical marketing practices of Zeobit, including falsified "reviews" on sites with domain names similar to their competition.) Where would we find it when it's ready?

Hi Thomas,

Second, none of the experts here, to my knowledge, have actually installed MacKeeper (except for etresoft, who installed a trial version once, very briefly). So none of us are likely to be of any help to you in describing first-hand experiences with MacKeeper.

In this thread Linc and Etresoft said to have installed Mackeeper, and tried it, they found that it was impossible to delete everything by uninstalling.

I have (knowing it was scam software) tried it three times (SL, Lion) in a non-production mac: uninstalling completely was impossible (even in KeychainAccess it left remnants), some files found were different everytime, two of the installations did not generate issues as far as I could see, one caused errors and other issues (in this case I had to do a clean install of the OS, as Linc did). In all situations Mk did nothing that is not already in OS or is free from other programmers.

I missed here that Mk is selling the installed user base to earn money, I could not verify that, but Linc and you might know.

Thanks for your post.

MadMacs0 wrote:

I haven't visited the site since they took the big green button off and you are the first to mention the AVG connection.

I visited the site with three different browsers and am not seeing a big green button anywhere???

It seems to be a rotating ad. Right now it is going to "Instant FTP site" and if I refresh, then I get the AVG ad which then never changes.

Thomas A Reed wrote:

Third, MacKeeper is a moving target. When people start complaining about something too much (like the stuff its uninstaller used to leave behind), it changes. One could argue that this is good customer service, but knowing other things about the company's behavior, it feels like something else.

Even if MacKeeper really is the world's #1 scam software, why wouldn't Zeobit want to improve it? Wouldn't it be better scam software then? Is the idea that Zeobit is so evil that they want to actually damage someone's system if they try to remove it? I see no evidence of that. All I see is a company better at selling software than writing it. Zeobit is actively updating the program and trying to imrpove it - something you can't say about all Mac software.

etresoft wrote:

It seems to be a rotating ad. Right now it is going to "Instant FTP site" and if I refresh, then I get the AVG ad which then never changes.

Ah, most of my browsers block the ads and the one that didn't was showing me something else at the time.

Originally there was always a big green button for MacKeeper and after a few months of protest a smaller link to ClamXav finally appeared and then some months later the big green button was totally gone. I guess they (the agressive advertiser) has changed tactics and customers.

I believe the other site they faked was for MacPaws' CleanMyMac.

Pr0digy V. wrote:

Is there a way to get a message to you?

Use http://www.reedcorner.net/contact/.

LexSchellings wrote:

In this thread Linc and Etresoft said to have installed Mackeeper, and tried it, they found that it was impossible to delete everything by uninstalling. I have (knowing it was scam software) tried it three times (SL, Lion) in a non-production mac: uninstalling completely was impossible (even in KeychainAccess it left remnants), some files found were different everytime, two of the installations did not generate issues as far as I could see, one caused errors and other issues (in this case I had to do a clean install of the OS, as Linc did).

The state of installers and uninstallers on MacOS X has always been very poor. If you want to blame someone for a bad uninstaller, blame Apple. This is where Apple really is ten years, or more, behind Windows. Only App Store apps have a decent, system-supported uninstall process. Although I missed MacKeeper's original uninstall process, from what I understand most of the continuing complaints about it stem from it not removing log, cache, and preference files. I didn't even bother to check for those because I don't know of any apps that remove those files.

Writing installers and uninstallers is just a painful, thankless task. There is nothing fun about it. One of the best things about the Mac App Store is that you don't have to deal with putting together an installer or uninstaller. You don't have to worry about PackageMaker. You don't have to deal with the funky, undocumented DMG files. I'm sorry, but when I saw MacKeeper's new uninstaller, I thought that was one of the slickest things I had seen in a long time. If I ever write any software that has a launch agent for background tasks, I will follow MacKeeper's example for an uninstaller.

In all situations Mk did nothing that is not already in OS or is free from other programmers.

All situations? I don't know of a free undelete tool. There is a lot that Apple puts into the OS that is practically impossible for end users to figure out. You want encryption, Apple gives you FileVault and that's all. You can encrypt just one file or folder too, but Apple won't help with that. I see no problem in any application making built-in tasks easier to perform. My complaints are with the antivirus and "clean up" portions. Those are free from other programmers but that doesn't make them a good idea regardless of where they come from.

Pr0digy V. wrote:

I appreciate the feedback and agree with everything said, i have, and will, advise people to stay away from MacKeeper but objectively so far in the current version i ran i can not find confirmation of most horror stories out there (including my own experiences maybe 5-6 months ago when i tested it). Wish i would have documented in detail back then what was happening on my system so i could have saved me this fishing expedition 🙂

There's several hundred comments on my site, which has been mentioned already in this thread, detailing problems with MK. Since you're unlikely to want to wade through the dozens of pages, I'll sum them up for you.

From the feedback I've received, problems with MacKeeper seem to fall into a few broad categories. These are in order of frequency, starting with the most frequent:

1. Slows down the system

Early versions of MK were a premature port of a similar prodcut called PCKeeper. Since Zeobit obviously knew little about OS X programming at that time, they used a windows emulator (WINE) process which really ground a lot of machines to a halt. I'm not sure when Zeobit dumped WINE but I believe it was before MK2012. However, widespread complaints of severe system slow downs keep coming in. Having tested the demo on my own machine over a dozen times, I couldn't reproduce any slowness, so I would be inclined to put those claims down to conflicts with other 3rd party s/w. However, that being said, I've never used a lot of MK's functions, nor have I ever used the full version, so its hard to say for sure what the program might do that causes slow downs.

2. Intrusive pop-ups / aggressive marketing

This seems to be the second most common complaint: annoying pop-ups that won't leave people alone, impacting their workflow and productivity. People complain that they get the feeling that MK is taking over their machine. Since Zeobit went out of their way to make it difficult to dismiss, avoid, or remove both the pop-ups and the app itself (at least until MK2012), this has understandably generated a lot of ill-will towards the company and the program.

3. Loss of system files, complete system crashes

These complaints are not as frequent as 1 & 2, but common enough to be of concern. I can only guess at the causes. At least one is likely to be use of MK's 'FastClean' function, which cuts binaries, removes language packs and disects s/w programs AND system files in other ways at the click a button with no warning. Many of these binaries and system files simply cannot be removed in the way that MK's programmer's thought, and using the FastClean option is likely to render some apps and possibly the whole OS inoperable.

That's not the only dangerous feature of MK. Aside from my own site, I don't think anywhere - not even on Zeobit's own site - warns users that if they uninstall MK after using MK's built-in encryption feature they'll lose access to all that encrypted data. This is one of the reasons its essential not just to junk MK in the trash, but to undo anything that you've done with it beforehand.

4. Misleading advertising claims

Some people who have experienced 1, 2 or 3 start to look into Zeobit's advertising. I've compiled a number of reports from users stating that Zeobit have made false testimonials. These range from claiming a 5-star review on MacUpdate to claiming a System Administrator at a major university recommends MK to all new students. I've checked those two out myself and found them false. I've heard of a couple of others that I haven't checked out (Thomas Reed's got some examples on his site I think), but the effect here is the same as 2: it enhances the ill-will and distrust of MK and Zeobit.

While 4. is in itself not a problem with running the app on your computer, MK requires that you give it full root access to your machine and it requires internet access and the ability to invisibly "call home" to function properly. You would have to be careless in the extreme to trust any app from a developer that engages is such unsavoury practices. Does anyone need MK so much it's worth the risk of causing system slow downs, complete crashes or exposing your personal data?

As others have already mentioned in this thread, the suite of utilities comprising MK are mostly functions that already exist in the system (like encryption, for example), or can be obtained by other, less-dangerous utilities like OnyX, or do things that you should never do to your system anyway.

I'd be interested to read your review when it's done. If it's online, it'd be great if you could post a link to it, or contact me personally through Applehelpwriter.