- Joined
- Jun 16, 2010
- Messages
- 168
- Reaction score
- 5
- Points
- 18
- Your Mac's Specs
- 2010 MBP 15" i7, 2.66 GHz, 4GB RAM, 250GB SSD, OS-X 10.7.2; iPhone4 iOS 5.0
Last evening I did a silly thing. I d/loaded & installed an App without really doing any research on it. Why? Predominantly because I saw it advertised here, prominently on this site, where I have had so much good advice, and pointers to so many valuable Apps.
The App is of course MacKeeper... which I still see advertised here today.
I d/loaded & installed the Trial version (very glad I didn't pay for it!!!) and pretty much got very loud and persistent warning bells clanging in my head from the moment I 1st ran the app. This is an app that touts itself as sort of a "Swiss Army Knife" of all things Mac maintenance... drive cleaner, av, stolen-mac finder... you name it. Yeah, right. I should have known better.
The 1st glance at this app running bought back all the bad memories of old Windoze apps... "buy-me-now" pop-ups, nag-screens, dire warnings of supposed "problems" on the Mac... the whole shooting box all rolled-up into one neat little Mac app.
Within 5 minutes of the installation I was looking for ways to shut the whole **** thing (including all the add-in's) down and get it off my system. A simple drag to the Trash didn't work, despite reboots. I had to manually hunt-out all the add-ins and processes, shut them all down, then
nuke the whole thing with AppZapper before MacKeeper's own uninstall routine kicked-in and I could get it all into the trash for a Secure delete! An internet search revealed several other places I needed to go in root & user libraries to finally rid myself of this pestilential installation.
The uninstall has taken several hours.
Now, this post is not to "blame" MacForums for something I should not have done... it's very much a mea culpa. Rather this post I hope will serve as a warning to other users, particularly in regard this shonky software. I would however be rather grateful if perhaps MacForums administrators were a little more aware of exactly what was being advertised on their site.
Once I had realised the error I had made, it didn't take very long at all to find out just how bad this App is. As I said previously, given that the App was advertised here -a site I trust- my usual caution was somewhat lowered. Others may fall into the same trap. Surely there is some level of filtering/control possible with what Apps are presented to users here, with the intent of providing users with recommendations for solid, reputable Apps rather than these random -possibly malicious- apps?
The App is of course MacKeeper... which I still see advertised here today.
I d/loaded & installed the Trial version (very glad I didn't pay for it!!!) and pretty much got very loud and persistent warning bells clanging in my head from the moment I 1st ran the app. This is an app that touts itself as sort of a "Swiss Army Knife" of all things Mac maintenance... drive cleaner, av, stolen-mac finder... you name it. Yeah, right. I should have known better.
The 1st glance at this app running bought back all the bad memories of old Windoze apps... "buy-me-now" pop-ups, nag-screens, dire warnings of supposed "problems" on the Mac... the whole shooting box all rolled-up into one neat little Mac app.
Within 5 minutes of the installation I was looking for ways to shut the whole **** thing (including all the add-in's) down and get it off my system. A simple drag to the Trash didn't work, despite reboots. I had to manually hunt-out all the add-ins and processes, shut them all down, then
nuke the whole thing with AppZapper before MacKeeper's own uninstall routine kicked-in and I could get it all into the trash for a Secure delete! An internet search revealed several other places I needed to go in root & user libraries to finally rid myself of this pestilential installation.
The uninstall has taken several hours.
Now, this post is not to "blame" MacForums for something I should not have done... it's very much a mea culpa. Rather this post I hope will serve as a warning to other users, particularly in regard this shonky software. I would however be rather grateful if perhaps MacForums administrators were a little more aware of exactly what was being advertised on their site.
Once I had realised the error I had made, it didn't take very long at all to find out just how bad this App is. As I said previously, given that the App was advertised here -a site I trust- my usual caution was somewhat lowered. Others may fall into the same trap. Surely there is some level of filtering/control possible with what Apps are presented to users here, with the intent of providing users with recommendations for solid, reputable Apps rather than these random -possibly malicious- apps?