Q: Is MacKeeper a legitimate program?

I'd be curious how they reply, too.

Eric Nelson2 wrote:

 

We'll see how they reply to that.

I imagine they will blame it on the advertising aggregator service they contract with, like most other sites have told us in the past. They have very little control over the actual content of of what is served to them in rotation. I suppose if they get enough complaints they will push back on that service, but in most cases these sites don't have any contact with the companies that are being advertised.

The mac school, quoted (2012)

"I am surprised that MacKeeper has not been hit by a class action law suit yet."

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

There is also a piece quoted from Reed where you can REALLY see the level of disgustingness of MacKeeper.

I sent Speedtest [dot] net a similar e-mail, probably more than a year ago at this point. They were similarly unwilling to hear what I said. I have since stopped using them entirely, and no longer recommend them to anyone else.

All my speed testing now is done with:

http://speedof.me

This site has no ads, and also has the advantage of not being Flash- or Java-based. It's pure HTML, so it works on anything, and requires no plugins.

EXCELLENT! It's high time that someone did this. Good for them.

Thomas, just a FYI about speeddofme. I tried it a few times and it consistently returned what I thought were inflated results (not saying that is deliberate, just may be in the nature of the program.)

If you don't want to use speedtest.net, there are any number of other Flash based options that don't appear to have the MacKeeper ads--at least I haven't heard of there being any on these.  It's impossible  for me to know just what advertsing there may be, since I use a AdBlockPlus, which is very effective at keeping out all ads. I've never seen an MK ad on speedtest.net.

I'm sure you know about all of these, but as a just in case and for anyone else reading this thread.

http://my.verizon.com/services/speedtest/

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?flash=1

I'll keep using them as I never see the ads unless I turn off adblock or use their iphone app, but I understand.  I've not been burned by the MK app so I've no grudge per se, but as I told them in my first note to them:

"As a legitimate and respected site, you might want to reconsider having MacKeeper as a prominent advertiser."

So they will have to rethink their relationship assuming it's within their abilty to change as MadMacs0 mentioned the aggregator possibilty.

Ok so, ...

With my having read through much of the discussion—both here within this particular thread, and also elsewhere here—regarding this resource, or "resource alleged" ...

And with the over-all consensus evidently being that its highly suspect of being mal-aligned with a more correct approach where considering both the spirit of "Macintosh", or either what it purports to "do"—where considering its different main elements, ...

{.. And / And If with, my in fact having purchased the program about a year ago, my having noted only one problem that it may have contributed to / generated, more application related for me over that time; .. this, with where otherwise looked at its not appearing to have slown down my broader general operations .. speed wise, ...}

.. As opposed to the main scan and "fix" that it does more generally (Which I had, trusted more certainly, before having read through what I have here—again both above and elsewhere here.), ...

What's the main application of choice being put forward at this point (i.e. more "these days", whether here or elsewhere), usable toward doing / running this kind of more routine type maintenance check of things on my machine. ?

— i.e. Some kind of "scan and fix", general clean-up, general health check, of my 2009 dual core "iMac", still running "Snow Leopard" / 10.6.8 more specifically. ... ?

Appreciate your time.

What's the main application of choice being put forward at this point (i.e. more "these days", whether here or elsewhere), usable toward doing / running this kind of more routine type maintenance check of things on my machine. ?

 

— i.e. Some kind of "scan and fix", general clean-up, general health check, of my 2009 dual core "iMac", still running "Snow Leopard" / 10.6.8 more specifically. ... ?

None are required.

Lanny wrote:

 

None are required.

.. "defragmentation". ?

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

— I've in fact had trouble with these things / ideas in the past, on and with older systems.

Has "'Apple" addressed these issues more general perhaps at some point along the line since: .. perhaps with the main transition to OS X, or with that from one of its earlier main versions to the next previous to "Snow Leopard". ?

.. I've recently read about, "Clean App" (was it. ?), suitable for different odd elements of different Apps, left behind with and after their respective (more general) "uninstallation". So this idea, I'm not too concerned with here.

I repeat, none are required.

I've referred to "Clean App" here above.

.. Beyond what you've said more succinctly (?) here.

Are you (Or is anyone else here.) aware of any main "Apple" based literature online, addressing the transition that I've suggested here above.

This idea, or either (Either whether "Apple" based, or otherwise.) that of "Junk files"—beyond those "left behind" - my words, if also as pointed to by the main resource in question here—post an "uninstallion" of an unwanted application previously of interest.

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.

.. Appreciate the perspectives, both general and more specific.

There are 3 apps that are helpful on a Mac.

Disk Utility, already on your machine.

Onyx, free

DiskWarrior, kinda pricey but when you need it you REALLY need it .

These all do different things although Onyx will repair permissions as does Disk Utility.

Defragging looks cool as it's happening, all your files getting in order in the GUI of the app and all that, but I've never noticed a performace diff afterwards and nowadays with SSD drives and hybrids, you DO NOT want to defrag them. 

So the defrag process will become passé soon.