Is MacKeeper a legitimate program?

I was viewing a legitimate car page to see new models, and a "Flash media" download appeared to view new car videos from an American car page. After I did so, the videos so play, but a MacKeeper and other scan your computer popups appeared. I've deleted them from from the Finder icon on my MacBook. But the MacKeeper stays on and continually pops up wanting to scan my MacBook, and even put a "eye" icon on top of screen tool bar. How do I unistall the MacKeeper? I always use the iTunes updates and security downloads. Thank you!

It is a legitimate program available in the Mac App store. It gets a bad press fro a number of reasons;

-it got confused with MacDefender, a trojan malware,

-because fanboys are reistant to anything that suggest Macs are susceptible to malware.

-herd mentality, ie repeat something often enough and people will think there is something to it, like 'repair permissions' used to be an often recommended cure for everything, though you don't hear that so much anymore.

-unsophisticated marketing by the developers made it smell suspicious.

The following link offers some balanced information about it.

http://www.cultofmac.com/170522/is-mackeeper-really-a-scam/

-herd mentality

There's nothing to herd mentality about why you should avoid MacKeeper. (Sounds like you've been listening to etresoft too much!)

Although I have not actually tested MacKeeper myself (yet!), I have spoken to someone who has run extensive tests on it and who found that its "cleaning" tool completely trashed his test system. That is in addition to the numerous user reports that Phil Stokes has collected to the same effect. It's dangerous, and should not be used!

-unsophisticated marketing by the developers made it smell suspicious.

Again, it's more than "unsophisticated" marketing. On the contrary, it's highly sophisticated, but completely unethical, marketing! Let me give some examples. First, the developers bought the clamxav.org domain, which is similar to a competing product's site (clamxav.com). On that site, they put a "review" of ClamXav with a download button that redirected to the MacKeeper site. They eventually changed it after getting really bad press, and obfuscated their ownership of the clamxav.org domain. They have done similar things with other domains.

Second, they have been known to offer financial rewards to people who were willing to go post good reviews online. This is not hearsay, I've seen the actual e-mail that they sent to their customers. After they made this offer, both MacUpdate and C|Net were flooded, within a 48 hour period, with glowing reviews for MacKeeper, taking it from one or two stars on both sites to near 5 stars within that 2 day interval. (The owner of MacUpdate, who also receives a lot of advertising money from MacKeeper ads, would not listen to multiple people's concerns that these reviews were fraudulent, despite the obviously fishy clustering of hundreds of 5-star reviews in such a short time period.)

Third, they pay reviewers for positive reviews. After I posted an article on my own site explaining much of this and warning people away from MacKeeper, they approached me and offered me a job as a consultant, telling me to name my fee, and also asked me to write a new review.

All these behaviors, and more, go together to paint a picture of completely unscrupulous developers who probably should not be trusted with your credit card number.

First, note that I actually have tested MacKeeper, and have had a number of interactions with the company. You can see the link that I posted earlier in this topic (Beware MacKeeper) for some of that information. You should also ask yourself this question: why, on a brand-new Mac OS X system, does MacKeeper report a "critical" issue with "junk files?"

I mean, every one of those files was put there by Apple. How can they be junk? Looking through the list of "junk" files it gave me, none were actually junk. Of course, cleaning up all those "junk" files required payment... surprise, surprise.

Before you start criticizing people's opinions of MacKeeper, you should read all the information that has been posted as to why they have those opinions.

I dont think that there has been over 30 viruses, trojans or malwares to ever effect the operation of a mac. and none of them stopped the mac from working AT ALL.

Well, you're wrong. By my current count, there are 39, and that's not yet counting the new Clapzok proof-of-concept virus that appeared two days ago. See:

http://www.thesafemac.com/mmg-catalog/

As to the operation, stopping the Mac from working has not been a goal of malware since the early days of malware. The really nasty stuff can infect your machine and you'll never even know it's there. We still see Flashback infections now and then, despite the fact that the malware hasn't been in distribution for more than a year at this point.

Finally...

Lagitamate? Ha

Word of advice... don't make fun of someone else's spelling when you yourself repeatedly misspell the same word, and have even misspelled your own username.

Preditor wrote:

MacKeeper was on the 500gb drive for years before that.

OK, but it couldn't have been much more than one year since unless you were a beta tester.

You attempted to quote Wiki as if it was fact but that screen shot shows you that the wiki was wrong.

I never quoted Wiki, that was Andy.

I have no idea who was the 1st developer but It was on my G5 which is still being used by my son.

ZeoBIT spent the first couple of years of their existance developing PCKeeper and did not begin any real work on MacKeeper until the following year, according to what their CEO told me. Their Anti-Virus code at that time was exactly the same as they were using with PCKeeper, using Unix wine to port it to OS X. As I mentioned, I still have version 1.0 here and it was released on 25 Oct 2010. I suppose there could have been beta tests before that, but in all probability I would have heard something about it before then.

Here's the "About MacKeeper..." from version 1.0

Note the Copyright dates. I suspect if you check your current version, you will find the same start date.

I first downloaded it on 18 Jan 2011 to check out what first appeared to be a conflict with ClamXav, which is when I visited their tech support people. I later evaluated it for myself and decided I didn't need it. I think it was when version 2.0 came out as Intel only, that I uninstalled it completely.

On 8 Mar 2011 users were asked to help the developer of ClamXav resolve a problem regarding what reportedly was a ZeoBIT pardner who was using clamxav.org domain to trick users into downloading MacKeeper (reference). They did the same thing to CleanMyMac around the same time.

Here is the announcement in April that Kromtech Alliance Corp Acquires MacKeeper. Note that it also establishes the ZeoBIT, LLC establish date as 2009.

With that I'm planning on ending any further discussion on the matter by me.

What?

Are you guys saying that MacKeeper is a bad app coupled with dubious marketing, borderline scamming targeted towrads gullible Mac users?

Oh Come on! No, it cannot be!

Let's see...

Sourced from: http://themacschool.blogspot.com/2012/09/mackeeper-is-scam.html

According to their own marketing, MacKeeper is "worth" $510.

Internet Security $79 Sophos Antivirus Home Edition $0 Savings: $79

Antitheft $39 Prey Project $0 Savings $39

Backup $25 Time Machine $0 Savings $25

Geek on Demand $40 Apple Store $0 Savings $40

(Warning, we are entering the "Muahahahahaha" section)

File finder $59 Finder $0 Savings $59

Default App $5 System Pref $0 Savings $5

Disk Usage $9 Disk Inventory X / Finder $0 Savings $9

Shredder $10 Secure Delete $0 Savings $10

Login items $5 System Pref $0 Savings $5

Data Encryptor $39 Disk Utility/True Crypt,PGP $0 Savings $39

Now, do you understand what you are paying for? Things such as Logins Items, Default App? Shredder? Seriously? Almost all is pure wind. The only thing you are really paying for is a slick GUI, and the referral fees paid to web sites, blogs and third parties that sell you this monster.

**

Data Encryptor:

Quoted: "Data Encryptor makes your personal data invisible on the hard drive.."

Warning nothing is "hided", the name of the file is simply reversed, (Hello >> olleH) hence easily findable by anyone that can use Terminal at the beguiner level.

maharitho wrote:

Thanks for sharing, have you tried this app?

I tested it on a brand new Mac OS X system, just installed and with no other software on it other than MacKeeper. It told me that I had more than 1,400 "junk files," trying to scare me into purchasing it. (Of course, it wouldn't fix the "problem" if I didn't buy it.)

Remember, this was on a fresh Mac OS X system. Every single file - other than those associated with MacKeeper - was put there by Apple's own installer, and the system probably had probably had a total uptime of under an hour. There were no junk files on it. (Well, except for those associated with MacKeeper.)

Since I didn't buy it, I didn't "fix" the "problem," and thus didn't see any of the problems often reported by people who do. Any kind of "cleaning" software like this can damage the system and actually cause performance to lag, since this kind of cleaning is not necessary. See The myth of the dirty Mac.

This doesn't even begin to address the numerous unethical behaviors of the developer behind MacKeeper. They've done some truly scummy things.

Many users will see references to an application called MacKeeper on various web sites and via pop-ups on their browser. Not only is it expensive for what it purports to do (freeware applications that do the same or more are readily available), it can sometimes install itself without the user realising it, and it can be very tricky to get rid of.

Most positive reviews of it have been found to have been paid for by Zeobit (developers of MacKeeper) in the form of ‘free upgrades’ etc. For example (posted by fellow contributor Softwater), on their Facebook page and on their webpage they have this apparent endorsement from UNC Charlotte:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/125157040

Softwater contacted the Director of IT at the College of Arts and Architecture UNC Charlotte, about whether they endorse MacKeeper and his response, quoted here, was:

No, please do not download and install MacKeeper. We have seen problems with this software in the past.

MacKeeper has been described by various sources as highly invasive malware* that can de-stablize your operating system, adding that it is unethically marketed, with a history of making false advertising claims, by a company called Zeobit and a rip-off.

For more details about Zeobit’s alledgedly fraudulent advertising and paid-for ‘reviews’, and their dubious marketing practises, read this:

http://stemmings.com/the-truth-about-mackeeper-scam/

Further opinion on it and how to uninstall MacKeeper malware can be read here:

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

MacKeeper have recently said that the uninstaller from here:

http://applehelpwriter.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/how-to-uninstall-mackeeper-malwa re/

now works.

This is also worth reading:

http://www.reedcorner.net/news.php/?p=245

Equally phoney was iAntivirus:

http://www.reedcorner.net/news.php/?p=341

until it was purchased recently (May 2012) by Symantic (makers of Norton anti-virus which does not work well with Apple OS X). Even after having tinkered with it, iAntivirus still fails to do the job properly and cannot be recommended.

There are no viruses that can affect Apple OS X and there is therefore no reason to run anti-virus software on a Mac, but a Mac, like all computers, can transmit viruses and malware to other users particularly those running Windows. Note, however, that Trojans are another matter and can represent a genuine threat, an example of which was the recent 'Flashback Trojan' which you can read more about here:

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3261

For further information 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

The User Tip (which you are welcome to print out and retain for future reference) seeks to offer some guidance on the main security threats and how to avoid them.

* The expression ‘malware’ is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software.

orbor wrote:

"…they even have a page on the Apple app store…" Really? Where? I can't find it.

Yes, it was called 911-Bundle and has been removed for whatever reason (here's the link that no longer works). ZeoBIT is transitioning development of MacKeeper along with two other software products to Kromtech and apparently going into the cloud business with ZeoNet.

I got really burned by a "Language Cutter" once when they first came out. It disabled at least half a dozen applications causing some of them not to run at all and others to refuse to update until I removed them and replaced them from source.

-- NEVER remove English. As for the other languages, it's mainly your call. I don't need Klingon or Swahili.

-- After 5 years of intensive use, my trusted MBP had almost no fragmentation, hence I can concur with the previously mentioned "Do not attempt to defrag your Mac (running OS X)

As mentioned previously, here is a list of "replacement", most of them are freeware or donationware. I highly recommend Prey Project. (Because I really like my MBP)

I have omitted Onyx because it has already been mentioned already a 1000 times.

Anti-Theft / Recovery (Free)

Prey Project

AntiVirus (Free)

Sophos Free Mac Edition

Languages (Free)

Monolingual

Encryption

Disk Utility, FileVault (OS X)

FileVault2 (10.7, 10.8)

TrueCrypt (Free) (For Advanced Users)

Backup

Time Machine (OS X)

Carbon Copy Cloner

SuperDuper

DropBox

Shredder

Secure Delete (OS X)

Drive Genius 3

Permanent Eraser

Wise / Smart Uninstaller

AppCleaner (Free)

File Finder

Finder OS X (Use the options, you silly!)

File Finder

Duplicate

Finder

DupeGuru (Fairware)

Drive Genius 3

Geek On Demand (With Premium)

Apple Store 😉 (No Premium)

Google (No Premium)

ZeoDisk

iCloud

DropBox

(hey, pss, did you know that you can install more than one instance of Dropbox? yes!, that's 20GB each for free)

Login Items & Default Apps

Really? OS X by default ...

http://themacschool.blogspot.com/2012/09/mackeeper-is-scam.html

Lets take care of the easy part first. Install, update, and uninstall apps obtained from the AppStore. That's because such applications are required to be self-contained, so they don't scatter support files all over the place. Hopefully that will become more and more common as time goes on.

But there will likely always be some applications that cannot abide by Apple's AppStore rules and will use the traditional method with Installers or "First Run" code that installs multiple support files. It will never approach what it is on a PC, but that's generally what is at the root of the issues you seem to be concerned about.

If you decide that you no longer want to use a non-AppStore app then you should ALWAYS check first with the developer for instructions on doing so. I have found that a huge majority of developers have such information and often will provide some automated way of doing this. And the majority of these developers keep this information up-to-date and it's the most reliable way of removing all of the files that could cause you issues after removal as well as all of the files that use a significant amount of disk space. You will find some (many?) that will leave a preference file, but I find that to be useful when I just want to refresh the application with a clean install and not have to remember all the preferences I set or find the serial number. They take up such an insignificant amount of space, don't use any CPU cycles and have never been known to do any harm.

There are some (MacKeeper has already been mentioned and there's some adware called Genieo is another) that for whatever reason are incomplete. These are few and far between, but just know that they aren't all perfect in this respect.

Next are the uninstall helper apps such as AppDelete, AppZapper, AppCleaner and others who's names I have forgotten. These all work in basically the same way and none are perfect. They simply search your drive for files that contain the same name as the application and/or developer and offer to gather them up when you Trash the Application. Since this also happens each time you update an application, I find myself declining the opportunity to trash support files an order of magnitude more often than approving such offers. I can do exactly the same thing that these apps do when I need to by using the free utility EasyFind (which I believe is what Steve was referring to above as File Finder) or my favorite Find Any FIle (now $8 at the AppStore). These utilities will often miss files that have been installed that do not contain the app or developer name, for a variety of reasons.

The last catagory seems to be the one you are most interested in. There are only a couple of utilities that I know of that will observe the installation and/or operation of an application and record the files that are associated with it, CleanMyMac2 ($40) and CleanApp ($15). They both have other features in addition to their uninstaller. CleanApp also claims to receive incorporate feedback from other users on files missed or taken by mistake. I have to admit that even though I have installed both of these temporarily to browse through, I have not used either to do anything except remove themselves. I believe that they should do a much more thorough job of cleaning up after a sloppy application, but have no way of knowing for myself, nor have I seen any detailed, independent reviews comparing all these apps. The disadvantage is that they are somewhat more expensive than the ones mentioned above and must have a helper app running at all times and before any other installations take place.

A couple of other people have published works on alternative utilities which you would probably benefit from reading:

Randy Singer's Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance.

Thomas Reed's Beware MacKeeper!.

I should have mentioned previously, that last week I upgraded to OS X El Capitan, don't know if that has a bearing on anything or not...Everything was fine until this morning. I'm running a 12 month old MacBook Pro Retina Fall of 2014...

Previously I had an early 2012 MacBook Pro, never had any problems with speed or anything, while using MacKeeper. I'm merely letting you all know what my previous experience has been. Not say anything good nor bad about MacKeeper...Here is the results of that scan:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EtreCheck version: 2.6.1 (221)

Report generated 10/27/15, 8:17 AM

Runtime 1:24

Download EtreCheck from http://etresoft.com/etrecheck

Click the [Click for support] links for help with non-Apple products.

Click the [Click for details] links for more information about that line.

Hardware Information: (What does this mean?)

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Mid 2014)

[Click for Technical Specifications]

[Click for User Guide]

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro11,1

1 2.6 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 2-core

8 GB RAM Not upgradeable

BANK 0/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

BANK 1/DIMM0

4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz ok

Bluetooth: Good - Handoff/Airdrop2 supported

Wireless: en0: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

Battery: Health = Normal - Cycle count = 428 - SN = D864362T1KPFT5YAK

Video Information: (What does this mean?)

Intel Iris

Color LCD 2560 x 1600

System Software: (What does this mean?)

OS X El Capitan 10.11.1 (15B42) - Time since boot: less than an hour

Disk Information: (What does this mean?)

APPLE SSD SD0128F disk0 : (121.33 GB) (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted> : 210 MB

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted> [Recovery]: 650 MB

Macintosh HD (disk1) / : 120.11 GB (98.97 GB free)

Encrypted AES-XTS Unlocked

Core Storage: disk0s2 120.47 GB Online

USB Information: (What does this mean?)

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Thunderbolt Information: (What does this mean?)

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Gatekeeper: (What does this mean?)

Mac App Store and identified developers

Launch Daemons: (What does this mean?)

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist [Click for support]

[loaded] com.malwarebytes.MBAMHelperTool.plist [Click for support]

User Launch Agents: (What does this mean?)

[loaded] com.bittorrent.uTorrent.plist [Click for support]

[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist [Click for support]

User Login Items: (What does this mean?)

iTunesHelper Application (/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app)

uTorrent Application (/Applications/uTorrent.app)

Other Apps: (What does this mean?)

[running] com.apple.xpc.launchd.oneshot.0x10000006.EtreCheck

[running] com.google.Chrome.61152

Internet Plug-ins: (What does this mean?)

FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 19.0.0.226 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]

QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

Flash Player: Version: 19.0.0.226 - SDK 10.6 [Click for support]

Default Browser: Version: 601 - SDK 10.11

3rd Party Preference Panes: (What does this mean?)

Flash Player [Click for support]

Time Machine: (What does this mean?)

Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU: (What does this mean?)

4% WindowServer

2% fontd

0% cloudpaird

Top Processes by Memory: (What does this mean?)

629 MB kernel_task

229 MB Google Chrome Helper(4)

156 MB mdworker(9)

139 MB Google Chrome

131 MB Pages

Virtual Memory Information: (What does this mean?)

4.33 GB Free RAM

3.67 GB Used RAM (1.40 GB Cached)

0 B Swap Used

Diagnostics Information: (What does this mean?)

Oct 27, 2015, 07:54:57 AM Self test - passed

Let me see if I can add a few words about this to hopefully help you make up your mind.

I've been using Macs exclusively at home since 1986 and have never found a need to run any utility in a "routine maintenance" mode. I have tried many over the years and own a few, but have only found them to be useful when I know there is a specific problem.

richard583a wrote:

.. "defragmentation". ?

Now done effectively by the OS. It's not perfect, it won't optimize the placement of your files, but as long as you keep enough free space for it do it's work, fragmentation should never be an issue. If you feel you need to polish the apple, so to speak, then you might find iDefrag to be worthwhile. Personally, I've never found a need.

"Junk files" ? ( .. as referred to by this program.)

I see that consists of:

• Binaries Cutter
• Cache Cleaner
• Languages Cutter
• Logs Cleaner

I got really burned by a "Language Cutter" once when they first came out. It disabled at least half a dozen applications causing some of them not to run at all and others to refuse to update until I removed them and replaced them from source. The latter also had me on the phone to the customer support to explain why I needed them to allow me to re-use serial number. All told, it was the better part of a month before I recovered from that and I you won't find me doing that or removing unused code to save such a small amount of space. Now in those days, hard drives were relatively expensive, so saving a bit of space was much more important than it is today. It's true that many of those utilities have become smarter about what applications don't like to be touched, but if I need more space I'd far prefer to replace the hard drive or off-load some little used files to an external than take a chance on corrupting an application.

The OS looks after all of it's logs periodically and most don't even require that the old Unix maintenance scripts be run any more. There are probably some applications out there capable of crating large logs, but I haven't found any of them to be an issue. If I did I'd probably contact the developer to either find out why or have them use the built in tools to rotate them periodically.

Cache cleaning can be a good thing. In fact, just yesterday I found that I had to clear my Safari cache in order for the new Flash Player to update. First time that's happened. All caches are there to speed up your computing experience, whether it be starting up, logging in, browsing or whatever. They save you significant amounts of time in having to lookup or re-download the same information time after time. So if you routinely remove them, everything will slow down for you until they can be rebuilt over varying amounts of time. But caches can become corrupt and that's when they need to be rebuilt. There is no red flag waving when this happens, you just have to get a feel for when things suddenly don't seem to be the same. Of course that could be caused by an Internet problem or Wi-Fi interference, so I won't tell you it's easy to tell when cache pruning is necessary. I would also suggest you target the caches you empty and not take a meat axe to all of them at once. OnyX is the free utility that gets recommended most of the time here, but there are others that are equally good.

I have to run take care of something, but I'll be back to talk about uninstalling apps, which you didn't mention.