Is MacKeeper a legitimate program?

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:

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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

That is why I am complaining to the FBI

They won't be able to to anything about it. Kromtech is located in Germany.

They acquired ZeoBIT, where MacKeeper spawned, and was officially located in California.

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.

MacKeeper 911 is the App Store version of MacKeeper. It is not a rip-off of MacKeeper, it's a version that has been limited to allow its inclusion in the App Store. Both are made by the same unethical developer, and both have the potential to do damage (though the App Store version actually has less potential, due to the sandboxing imposed on all apps in the App Store).

You may have chosen to believe that roam's story is the truth, but that does not make it so.

Regardless, why would you pay for something that has the potential to cause damage? Sure, there are some reports from "neutral" users claiming that it hasn't harmed their system -- and, I've seen reports from some who initially had no problems, but which did later develop. It's a real crapshoot.

And even if does no harm, which is highy questionable, almost all its functions can be found in free programs, which are known to be fully compatible with Macs and at least, if not more (mostly more), as effective.

Even if it is completely harmless, I wouldn't want to legitimize or support its unusually aggressive and unethical marketing by purchasing it.

See T. Reed's list of those programs.

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

I installed MacKeeper and it did not do what it was supposed to do (restoring deleted files). What it did to was bringing my Mac to a halt. Fortunately, there is good information on the net on how to get rid of it.

And no, you cannot buy it in the AppStore - go and try to find it. (Not in my country version, anyway)

I've had MacKeeper on my iMac and my MacBook Air (and before that my white MacBook) for over 3 years and I've found it to be brilliant. I have never understood the negative comments about it. It has never caused anything amiss to happen to my computers, in fact all the features have helped me to maintain them in a user-friendly way. YES - the light version IS sold in the App Store as 911 for Mac, though I have the full version with anti-virus included. I can only guess that people who have had trouble after installing it would have had issues anyway, and I know for a fact that many people don't know how to uninstall applications properly.

I can honestly recommend it, and if I had a way of getting up on a soap-box and banging a drum for macKeeper I would!

It's SO useful.

I do agree that some people slag it off for no other reason than it seems to be the "in" thing to do.

You really ought to test it yourself before making sweeping statements.

I've used the full version of macKeeper on my beloved macs (iMac, MacBook Air, and before that white mac) and have found it to be a really useful and well designed piece of software.

It has done everything that it claimed to. I think it's sad that it has gained so many negative comments from those who haven't used it, but just quote others.

Oh - and I don't work for Zeobit, and they haven't offered me a job to write this.

I'm English.

I'm sure we're all glad that you haven't had any problems with MacKeeper. However, you should not criticize those who seek to prevent others from having some of the well-documented problems with MacKeeper. (I personally have had a number of people tell me how using MacKeeper to "clean" their Macs ended up causing them to have to reinstall the system. And the same reports are all over.)

I'm sorry if it seemed that I was criticising anyone - I didn't mean it to appear that way. All I'm trying to do is give an honest account of how I and 2 of my friends find MacKeeper - we all like it. I don't actually KNOW anyone who has had trouble with it. And I'm inclined to think (though I have no proof) that satisfied customers don't tend to come on forums to big it up. It can be quite scary going against an angry tide! I only got on here by accident really whilst looking for something else, and decided to finally put my side of the MacKeeper case.

Hello - I just want to put your mind at rest re: MacKeeper. I totally agree with roam, and I have done a lot of research on the internet which backs up the fact that many professional critics like it, but the often savage criticism comes from some of the mac community who may or may not have tried it.

I have used MacKeeper on an iMac and a MacBook Air for the last 2 years and I had it on a white macbook before that. One of my friends has it on an iMac, the other on a white MacBook (both for 2 years, and another friend has just started up with it, (so we can't count her!)

However, NONE of us has ever had any issus with it, but just found it to be a useful and well-designed app.

I have never regretted buying it,and I'm hoping and trusting that I never will.

There are tutorials included in the app, which if followed, make it quite easy to use.

I like MacKeeper - I have used it for quite a long time, along with friends - and no-one is either paying me, bribing me or offering me jobs to say nice things about it. I'm just telling it as I see it - and if MacKeeper wrecks my sysem in the future I will be the first to change my mind about it.....I'll come on here and own up to my mistake!