Q: Installer process eating up application memory.
I am hoping someone can help me, I have a 2013 MacBook Air running OS X El Capitan (10.11.6) and following a system update a few days ago my laptop has significantly slowed down (moving the cursor would trigger the spinning rainbow).
I have identified the what I think is the issue using Activity Monitor; I have two Installer processes running and each of them are using about a gig of memory. When I quit the process my laptop goes back to functioning normally, but after a restart the Installer processes reappear and slow it back down. 
After doing some research I saw that a lot of people had a similiar issue around 2014 and it was an adware named Genieo, sadly that doesn't seem to be the same issue I am having as I can find no trace of Genieo on my laptop.
Not sure if the Installers are left over from the system update I just did or from something else I downloaded. I traced them in finder and tried to eject them but they returned after a restart and they cannot be sent to the trash, so other then doing a force quit every time I want to use my laptop, I am not sure what to do next.
Does anyone know what is going on or have any suggestions on how I can resolve this?
MacBook Air, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)
Posted on Sep 16, 2016 5:22 AM
reboot into safe mode
Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up - Apple Support
set your gatekeeper to a higher level of security than it currently is set if it is set to "anywhere"
OS X: About Gatekeeper - Apple Support
check your user account for launch items and remove them
>System Preferences>Users & Groups
go to your account
unlock the pannel
go to Login Items
remove anything you dont' want in there by highlighting it and clicking the "-" icon
go to
Macintosh HD/Library/StatupItems
remove anything you don't want in there by dragging it out.
you can download etrecheck for further analysis of your system and post the results here
www.etrecheck.com
this will allow the volunteers here to get a better idea of what is installed on your computer, if you have detectable malware and what it detects it can remove, if not you can check for and remove most known malware with this tool.
While no single method can ever be100% effective both of these tools are free for mac and the volunteers often suggest using them for these types of issues and many others.
Posted on Sep 16, 2016 5:33 AM

