Unless you’ve been spending the past few years on Jupiter you’ve likely seen a few MacKeeper advertisements floating on various websites. While the claim is that MacKeeper is good for your Mac’s performance, many call it a version of Mac malware that you pay to use and can’t get rid of.
MacKeeper’s reputation in the Mac community has become so bad that websites publish articles on how to uninstall it from your Mac. The most detailed explanation comes from Christopher Breen and MacKeeper is such a beast to remove that he needed two parts to explain the removal process properly.
MacKeeper’s menu in the Menubar doesn’t come with a Quit command and even using the Force Quit option in Activity Monitor utility doesn’t always work. But, there is a way to uninstall MacKeeper and Breen’s articles walk through the steps. The only problem is that the uninstall process does not get rid of all the MacKeeper files, so there’s a manual step-by-step process to go through, too.
MacKeeper’s reputation is so bad that there’s now a free Mac utility to find and help you delete all the rest of MacKeeper’s notoriously difficult to remove files. It’s called DetectX and not only does it look for leftover MacKeeper files, it can find other malware-like files on your Mac.
Install DetectX and click the Search button. Depending upon the cleanliness of your Mac DetectX will list files and apps that it thinks are malware-like or should be removed and they can be plucked from the Finder and discarded in the Trash.
On an old iMac I use to install apps for reviews DetectX found MacKeeper files, adware utilities SaveKeep, GoPhoto, ChatZum, a couple of adware extensions for Firefox, as well as a couple of mostly legitimate apps including MacCleanse and CleanMyMac (both of which launch background processes which could be identified as malware).
Your mileage may vary, of course, but it should be obvious that MacKeeper’s reputation is well deserved and the developer does not make it easy to remove it without jumping through hoops. If you still have trouble with MacKeeper then AppleHelpWriter also has a step-by-step method to rid your Mac of what has become the Mac community’s worst nightmare with a price tag.
Even MacKeeper’s advertising is difficult to remove from websites, including mine. The ad network we use requires specific URL’s which can be banned, but MacKeeper changes those regularly in their landing page ads so even removing advertising is a game of digital whack-a-mole.
Caveat emptor, indeed.
What happens when it comes out that DetectX is malware? Do you have to install something remove that was supposed to remove problem files caused by the thing that’s supposed to remove problem files? Here’s a tip. Stop going to Russian websites and downloading applications that are supposed to fix your Mac. They don’t need it.
Uh huh. And what happens when the malware detector needs to be detected by another malware detector after you’ve detected malware with the first malware detector.
Yeesh.
MacKeeper is a U.S. website, not Russian. The ads are U.S. based (Google, for example). It’s run by Russians, though, who seem to have a different understanding of customer satisfaction. Is it any wonder the Russian economy is near collapse? Again!