Is there any reason to keep copies there?
That's the way it is set up. You can set it to not copy files into the Library and just reference them.
This is not an answer to the question. There is no reason though.
Programs you remove leave your data intact, for the most part. There are some that ask if you want to remove your data, but most do not.
Well... that's the matter. 🙂
.cups should have some defaults stored in there.
This arrow was bad designed. It was intended for dropbox (uninstalled)
I'm not sure why the bash stuff bothers you. Do you not use that shell?
Obviously I use bash. It bothers me because there were some sessions opened (and closed) some months ago!
The rest appear to have been installed by software you installed and left behind. All seem to be inconsequential, though.
Yes, but it remains not true the initial statement that ALL is always clean and tidy.
If an app uses an installer (setup package), then you need to use its uninstaller which should remove that stuff. That's pretty much how the Mac has worked forever. I never install anything unless I know how to uninstall it. If the app does not provide an uninstaller or instructions to uninstall, then I don't install it--its crapware.
Well... I always use uninstall procedures. They work for most part of things... but not for all. Sometimes files were created by app at runtime (for example config files) and these are intentionally left in the disk so to be available in case you decide to reinstall the software. Even if you do not care.
Other things remains, if you want or not, even you uninstall it with their common removal tools.
Should I consider MySQL server (and other SQL-like servers), Eclipse, MonoDevelop, DropBox, Adobe suites,... crap software?
Should I consider to not install them because they leave some unuseful file on my disk?
On the other hand, did you ever try Trend Micro DrCleaner?
Try it. It's available on Apple Store (so it's should be considered safe) and it's made by Trend Micro, a respectable software company that has always worked in the field of security. (We're not talking about idiots)
Well, this little tool analyzes your install/remove process, even using Apple Store, and after the removing process, also dragging a normal app into the recycle bin, it is able to look for residual files and delete them.
In theory it should not find anything, but this is what happens.
I was the first to be skeptical, but I assure you that it does his duty without compromising anything.
From Apple Store:
--- 2,500,000 USERS in 18 MONTHS. 110,000 RATINGS, AVERAGE RATING 4.8 ---
2.5M of stupid people (in 18 months)?
It was the ONLY tool I installed on my Mac and only yesterday I decided to look for something to use "one shoot" as CCleaner (because I well know it because I use on my Windows machine).
To be clear: CCleaner does what you can do by yourself and it's not magic, for example it cleans cache files of application like Thunderbird, Chrome, Safari, etc... but it does it with one single operation. Easy, functional.
It works! That's all.
So the questions are: Why not? Why a Mac user has to close his eyes and have faith in the perfection of his machine without questioning anything and say that there is not need to use any tool that is not thought and developed by Apple?
There is not need to answer, they are only rhetorical because there is not a real answer...
It's only a way of thinking things.
