Our MacKeeper review has gathered countless stories in its comments section, nearly all of which speak of how “terrible,” “bad,” and “awful” the software, as well as the company behind it, ZeoBIT, really is. Having read all the comments and speaking to a few people familiar with the matter, I have decided to shed some light on MacKeeper.
The first area I would like to address is the “fake” websites and misleading advertisements that are floating around the internet promoting MacKeeper and attacking its competitors (Example 1, 2). If one were to Google “MacKeeper review,” the results which appear are vastly “fake” websites setup solely to promote MacKeeper and discredit its competitors including CleanMyMac, MacCleanse, and Cocktail. To anyone unfamiliar with Macs, these websites appear to be trustworthy and legit which, in the end, leads many to pull the trigger on software without really considering all the options –this alone is a bit troubling. Further, the keywords these sites use include “MacCleanse,” “Clean My Mac,” “Cocktail,” and many of its other competitors names.
According to ZeoBIT’s CEO Slava Kolomiychuk, “no sites other than the ones hosted on the zeobit.com domain are operated or have been established by ZeoBIT.” Kolomiychuk says that these “fake” websites are solely done by its affiliates (Plimus, Affiliate.com, ClickBank, AffiliateBot and others) and that there are currently “more than 500 affiliates participating.” Many of these “fake” websites do offer a disclosure somewhere, whether it be a small link on the bottom of the page, or hidden in the about page. Kolomiychuk said that these sites floating around “have nothing to do with fake; the affiliates did everything right, except a couple of moments.” Apparently, some affiliates are not following the guidelines made by ZeoBit:
Some affiliate networks do a poor job of policing their affiliates and the duty is put onto merchant’s shoulders (which happened in our case). We’re still a developing company and only have 1 person dedicated to recruiting, policing and coordinating affiliates. As our affiliate program gets picked up by more and more affiliates, it’s becoming ever more difficult to control all affiliates.
We are on the constant lookout for nonconforming advertisements – we find a lot of them through search engines, some are submitted to our support team. We take proactive action on these affiliate accounts: they are first asked to get their affiliate website to comply with the T&C – and if they fail to do so within 48 hours, their account is terminated immediately.
MacKeeper itself is one of, if not the largest advertiser in its genre. It has ads on a large number of Apple-related websites including Mac App Storm and TotalApps. The word usage on its ads is something to take note of; On Mac App Storm, its ads state “Clean Your Mac,” which is oddly very similar to one of its largest competitors CleanMyMac. On TotalApps, a completely different looking ad too states “Clean Your Mac.” Coincidence? Unlikely. One more rather interesting bit is that when one Googles “CleanMyMac,” ZeoBIT’s MacKeeper is the second link. Accident? No.
Moving on from its questionable advertising techniques, I’d like to quickly address MacKeeper itself. MacKeeper advertises many features that the Mac already has including backups (Time Machine?), Shredder (Zero out data?), Antivirus (Really? Many free options available if one actually wanted this), Login items (This already exists on every Mac). MacKeeper does offer some relatively useful features, but that’s not to say its competitors don’t offer them as well at a lower price, if not for free. One of the comments on our review said:
Mostly what they do is take existing features of your operating system and put it in one place, and make you pay for the privilege. Add in their aggressive marketing, the fact it uses wine (classic half-assed windows developers trying to cash in on gullible Mac users), and the reports of horrible system performance after installing this crap, and well, do you really want to deal with it?
ZeoBIT’s method of advertising, in my mind, really needs to change; I’d rather know more about its product, and see less popups, claims, and glitter. If it doesn’t clean up these affiliate sites and make it’s own system of getting MacKeeper out there a cleaner, less scam-filled picture, I do not see it surviving as long is it potentially could. Moreover, the application itself could use an overhaul from its use of Wine to many of its pointless features –not to say they are all pointless. In the end though, this is just me talking with information I have found. The final decision is up to you, the consumer.
Update: It appears I am not the only one who feels this way, Josh Hoggan, the president Koingo Software (the people behind MacCleanse) said:
We hope to see them [ZeoBIT] either clean up their act and participate as a true Mac community citizen, or step out of the market entirely. They are continually taking advantage of uninformed users.
Update 2: And another email comes in. MacPaw, the people behind CleanMyMac, have sent in what they have to say about this:
We completely agree with Josh Hoggan about ZeoBit not truly being part of the Mac community. Aside from ZeoBit, we do not know of any other Mac developer who uses these kinds of techniques to advertise their products. Competition makes us improve our products, but we are used to honest competition. Unfortunately the techniques that ZeoBit uses to promote its product misleads the final user, and he or she is left almost with no choice. There is no place for these kind of practices in the Mac community, and hopefully ZeoBit will realize this soon.
A disclosure: Both MacKeeper and CleanMyMac have advertised on TheMacFeed at one point in time. This article was not in anyway swayed by this.
Don’t believe that’s all true
This crap software from ZeroBit is a way to get Microsoft’s wretchedness onto your Mac. Its surreptitious use of the “wine” process (WINdows Emulator) took over my Mac’s OS and forced me to wipe the drive in order to remove it. It took up to 95% of my CPU, making it so my directory folders wouldn’t reveal file contents for 1-2 minutes, and so applications would take minutes to start, if ever.
There is no upfront and honest description that the application is just Windows pretending to know what’s best for Mac users. They never have. They never will. This is garbage. Everything that it does is available in a terminal window. Unfortunately, these scammers are big advertisers who take the adage of “there’;s a sucker born ever minute” to a new height: “”there can be a new sucker born every minute if we impregnate enough people with our ‘Big Lie’”. Sadly, even Apple is silent….
It’s time for Apple to start better-certifying the legitimacy of software that claims to be written for Apple. Bad porting and emulators should never be certified!
@Chris Gray WINE stands for “Wine is not an emulator”, because it doesn’t run Windows as emulator, but has it’s own windows like libraries. Wine SIMULATES a windows environment, not windows.
Hello Chris,
I would like to inform you the usage of Wine in MacKeeper won’t last for long – the new antivirus engine is already ready and will be released soon. And it doesn’t change the fact our developers are able to create the Antivirus of high quality – you may take a look at the VB100 results, where we are listed in TOP 10 Antiviruses in the world – http://www.virusbtn.com/vb100/latest_comparative/index
MacKeeper offers much more you can do with the terminal indeed. Have you really tried our app? 15-days full-functional trial will let you make sure MacKeeper’s tools are useful indeed.
As for Apple, it doesn’t keep silence – the shorten version of MacKeeper 911 bundle is presented in the Mac App Store. Obviously, our company was checked by Apple.
Best regards,
Sana Paul, Zeobit LLC PR Manager
As a long-time user of CleanMyMac here at Sound Studio 1, I like to tell again – people are to have the real competition – the universal key for theur improvements. Probably, I would choose another program, my wife was younger, my kids were smarter. Real opinions, a great product forms in real fight. My 10c
According to Chris’s description, the software is a virus intended to slow down and block the use of computers. Tons of similar “software” virus is available for PC, i had some, it destroyed many computers and i prey i never infect my MAc’s with them. Thanks for the info.
Ron, MacKeeper is a legit piece of software indeed. You can make sure in it – just visit our official website. There you’ll be able to find out everything about our company and the app as well.
MacKeeper isn’t a virus – just pay attention to the fact it’s lightened version is in the Mac App Store(911 bundle). So do you really think Apple would ever deal with ‘similar to virus software’?
People, are you kiddin’ me? Chris, couldn’t you figure out just to disable real-time protection? I had a similar trouble, but I called their support and a pleasant young girl’s voice told me what to do. and it helped!
and Chris, before saying something like ““wine” process (WINdows Emulator)” please google what is Wine (Wine Is Not Emulator))
For the money I paid I got a great app, marvelous support and no troubles, because I took time to read all the manuals and watch attentively the tutorials.
NerveClasp, thanks for having appreciated MacKeeper.
I would like to say just one more thing – next week MacKeeper will start using new antivirus engine that will increase its speed and reduce the CPU usage significantly. So you will have no need to disable real-time protection as there will be no slowdowns at all =)
I am glad to have read this article, I was using a software called HotSpot shield when a banner ad for MacKeeper popped up. I thought that my MacBook Pro was well protected, but had some junk files on it, so I installed the software. It didn’t say anywhere anything about a price, so I just thought it was free. After discovering all of my junk files, it said that It could only solve some of them, and the rest I couldn’t get without buying the full version. I went to the site and it said that it was a limited time offer for 38$. I was seriously considering it, but then I googled it. Apparently, the regular price is $40, and NOT discounted from $500.
I found the three versions of this article and I am glad that I read it. Thanks Daniel Freeney!
After reading this article I deleted the 15 day free trial from my system and low and behold my system now runs FASTER! Funny thing considering I downloaded the trial to improve my systems performance!!!
@ Sana Paul, you’re opinions don’t really count for much as you are paid to improve ZeroBit’s public relations, and by continually offering them here, you just make ZeroBit look desperate and cheap. If your product (and company) was as good as you claim it would not be affected by a blog such as this. Also your “15 day free trial” is not a free trial at all, as it does absolutely nothing for your system until you PAY! (except slow it down and cause your mac to crash like a pc!)
ZeroBit- Thanks for nothing
Daniel Feeney- KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK! Thank you!
It appears that ZeroBit are using every trick in the book to get more victims! I had an email this morning with the text, “14% Discount for Apple’s 14 Years with Steve Jobs!?…To celebrate this crucial date, ZeoBIT LLC has decided to issue a special 14% discount on MacKeeper.
This is a limited-time offer, so hurry up and apply the coupon code “STEVEJOBS” to get a -14% discount before 11 July!”
Fortunately, I googled “ZeoBit” before I went further!
We can be grateful that Macs are as virus free as they are, and don’t need predators like ZeroBit to slow down our work
I had downloaded the trial version and was just about to install it when I decided to look at reviews – and I am so glad I checked in here. ZeroBits unethical marketing strategy and the generally accepted fact that the software is crap will, I hope, ensure it’s demise. San Paul’s pathetic attempts at justifying this scam on this blog just makes them look guiltier than ever. I wonder if Apple ever reviewed this product themselves before allowing it to be bundled with their own products?
I downloaded what I thought was a FREE TRIAL only to find that MacKeeper would do nothing until I paid a large sum of money! I can test drive a new automobile FREE before deciding to buy!! I read the comments on-line then thought CAVEAT EMPTOR and promptly ditched MacKeeper from my system. Pity, because it looked good.
@Nobody’s Fool – MacKeeper does really offer 15-day full-functional trial and it allows to solve the unlimited amount of issued during this period. It’s a pity you don’t want to count my opinion while it’s so easy for you to believe in baseless accusations and obvious preconceived negative attitude.
@Mr. Kim Gyr- we considered the 14-years anniversary of Steve Jobs’ returning to Apple is a holiday indeed and just wanted to congratulate those who were going to buy the app. We don’t force anyone, it’s totally up to you.
@jamesinfrance- of course Apple has reviewed MacKeeper. This is a long and thorough process so every tools is checked and the quality is proven unlike the majority of ‘facts’ from this article. And mentioning our competitors leads to some conclusions.
@Brian Miller – the aim of 15-days full-functional trial is to give you n opportunity to test all the features. So we offer an ability to ix the unlimited amount of issues – and if it’s not so – our support will fix it.
@Brian i swear thats not true i got the free trial and it didnt fix anything, it said if i wanted to fix these problems i would have to buy the software and this is the supposed “15 day FREE TRIAL” i think this program is load of stink poo
I didn’t get a 15 day trial, more like 15 minutes and then it asked for money before it would fix all of the faults it discovered. Today it drove my Mac up the wall when I clicked the fix button. I had to take my battery out to turn my computer off. I have uninstalled it and I g=have no intention of re-installing. I have wasted $50, but that’s life.
@Pat O’Hare – with the problem described you should have applied to our support, as for the wasted money, you can ask for a refund
Thank you so much for this information on mackeeper. I was gona purchase this software but based on what you all have to say i am going to look elsewhere for a less spammy application for my new mac. thank you!!!!!!!!!
I once downloaded the free trial, but it doesn’t do ANYTHING until you pay. So I deleted it. Now it keeps trying to get in, and I’m sure it has jammed up my memory with .asl files, when I open them with Console they keep reading Mackeeper ??? Aqua ??? MacKeeper ??? Aqua … and I don’t even have MacKeeper anywhere on my hard drive. It takes up huge blocks of space (I found it using Disk Inventory X (fabulous little gadget!) and makes you think you have a virus … then when you google antivirus MacKeeper comes up to “save the day” what a load of crap! ZeoBit should be dismantled and Sana Paul publicly flogged.
I am perfectly happy with Mackeeper and it does not take up allot of space or memory, you guys are blowing smoke. How much were you paid for this advertisement?
Hahahahah
WOW,, wish I had come here first,,, I have a macbook pro under a year old, and also have 5 other mac from imac matchbooks and have never had an issue with virus, thats not to say that they don’t exist ! I downloaded the software and ran it,,, and of course it found something, what are they going to say “your machine is good to go”
Related or not 24 hours after I ran the MacKeeper and I did not take advantage of their offer, my hard drive dumped, just saying,,, virus, kill package i don’t fellows but for me get it the hell off your Mac (Intruder alert ) and by the way after I recovered my harddrive (thanks to time machine) MacKeeper pops up again 90% discount ! Really, stay away !!!
SEAN PAUL, i love mac keeper i used up the 15 day trial and it is infacea FULL 15 Day trial All features it is like it is now it just still works because i paid for it, GREAT Software, i agree you may be able to do MOST things in a terminal session but WHO would want to do that and ANYTHING on the mac interface can be done through a terminal session.
that said I DO NOT RECOGNIZE THE SOFTWARE YOU FOOLS HAVE DOWNLOADED ONLY TO HAVE IT TO ASK YOU FOR MONEY
also there is no system slowdown, i dont se WINE in any of my processes i dont use MKeeper as much as i would have thought, but its there when i NEED it and i do need it a bit..
YOU OTHERS HAVE OBVIOUSLY FALLEN INTO SCAM ARTISTS TRAPS WITH THAT POOR SOFTWARE YOU HAVE INJECTED INTO A BEAUTIFUL MACHINE!
Im not sure why all these people are complaining. I got 15 days or even 30 days of trial to check it out and it did WONDERS for my mac. Made it run so much faster. i paid for it after the trial and I still dont have any issues. The support is fast and easy to deal with. And NO I dont work for them.
Actually some fo the complaints here seem silly…
I’ve had no trouble at all with MacKeeper; no slowing of the system, no problems with CS5 applications. I like getting rid of unneeded junk files on a regular basis. My only caveat is the duplicates finder finds too many things with similar names that are not in fact duplicates.
Don’t install this. It is slimeware. It installs just like a Trojan – the “installer” loads other packages from zeobit’s servers so that you have no idea what is being loaded on your system. The services offered by this program are supplied cheaper and in some cases FREE by others.
Best Wishes.
I have done some rather extensive research to find MacKeeper to be one fantastic “Anti-anti-Virus” program. Based in Ukraine I have complete faith that any of my detailes would not find their way into the identity theft scene… not.
I have been working with Macs since before OS Classic and at the enquirey of any customers in regards to Anti-Virus software for Macs I have simply said there is no serious need. The main selling point for any Mac antivirus is the protection it provides Windows users. The Mac antivirus software typically prevents the Mac acting as a carrier despite never being affected. In other words the Mac users have been taking one for the team and protecting the Windows users is some ways. Might I add, I am in no way anti Windows I own both systems.
I do not see how it is worth while outlaying any more money to uses the exact same features that come bundled with your Mac. But wait a minute anti-theft isn’t built into a Mac, well no it comes firstly in the form of a physical desktop lock found on the side/back of your Mac. But what about your files? Well that is what file vault is for, believe it or not thats another feature that is built in. Say your Mac was stolen, you simply recall the serial number found on your receipt from when it was purchased, report it to Apple and the Police and it will be tracked for you.
In my opinion I personally would not touch this software with a ten foot pole, it is way too suspicious for me. I’m sure there are plenty of their staff surfing the most recent posts about MacKeeper to counter any feedback of a negative nature. Or the other half of their staff are working hard to establish websites never heard of before to post only raving reports.
On the plus side it is only 255kb to download, so all the other data required to perform the tasks will be loaded from a remote server from who knows where? full of who knows what?
The best thing you can do is use a free and effective cache cleaner like ONIX to speed up your mac, besides repairing permissions and running a reputable defrag app there is nothing more you need. Often a defrag is not even required, if you are using MacOSX it routinely when writing data writes it is a streamlined way that prevents any major defragmentation that causes hdd drive performance loss commonly found in older operating systems of both Mac and Windows forms.
Lets just hope MacKeeper isn’t the “911 for your mac”, just like they say it is…
I Bet Sana Paul goes around googling for “MacKeeper Fake?” or “MacKeeper Scam ?”
Go Keryn !
@pat Should be called ZeroBit
Yes. Apple just sometimes look at the advertisement or website or whatever and they just say “Yeah Ok, put that software in the App Store”
Your company is like a swarm of ants they keep on coming, your company making more viruses for our computers to get infected. Like Facebook on a PC again, it’s a virus prone website harmful to your computer
I Agree
@Nerd11 Huh?
This company has very dodgy tactics. For a start, they claim you have a “limited time offer” just for you where you can save a couple of pounds off the normal price (which isn’t £410 as advertised!!). I saw this two days ago, giving me 2 days, 10 hours and 39 minutes.
I deleted the Zeobit cookie and visited the website again.. wow.. I’ve still got 2 days 10 hours and 39 minutes to get this ‘limited time offer’.
They also shouldn’t be claiming it’s 90% off, as it ISN’T 90% off the price of that package, or a combined bundle of apps normally retailing at over £400. These adverts wouldn’t be allowed in the UK I’m sure.. they’re deliberately misleading.
…It’s also NOT a fully functional trial version.. try to use anything useful and it says you need to activate it (by purchasing!) in order to carry out the task. Utter con.
Fell for it a few years ago and did the “free version” install, which, naturally wasn’t free at all. It helped me learn a lot about my mac osX system by doing the lengthy un-install process. Wow what a PITA that was.
I cannot say enough negative things about mackeeper. Read everyone else’s comments and spread the word.
Ha. First off, nice astroturfing. Secondly, nice bit of nasty cruelty with your hilarious and meaningful “fat girl got what she deserved” analogy. A nice, rude, defensive, slightly deluded fake post for a slippery company.
I Love this software! What’s to hate? The sleazy are extremely obnoxious marketing, found on in some very questionable places? When you get it, the trial that doesn’t do anything? Or that the fact that it modifies some system critical files-not to mention that it deleted my friend’s reports, pictures, and other antivirus apps?(like the very good clamXav antivirus?) I absolutely hate this software, and if you value your files, you should not approach this software. Seriously, on my windows, I got a virus that does the EXACT same thing does-delete all the files you like, and some that you need, like system critical files. If you would like a good antivirus, look at clam Xav. Mackeeper uses SOME clamXav engine, but the pure engine is much more effective. As for the system cleanups, I would never touch them, and for secure delete, there are other(free) apps. Or, you could secure empty the trash on your mac? What pitiful people.
I Love this software! What’s to hate? The sleazy and extremely obnoxious marketing, found on in some very questionable places? When you get it, the trial that doesn’t do anything? Or that the fact that it modifies some system critical files-not to mention that it deleted my friend’s reports, pictures, and other antivirus apps?(like the very good clamXav antivirus?) I absolutely hate this software, and if you value your files, you should not approach this software. Seriously, on my windows, I got a virus that does the EXACT same thing does-delete all the files you like, and some that you need, like system critical files. If you would like a good antivirus, look at clam Xav. Mackeeper uses SOME of the clamXav engine, but the pure engine is much more effective. As for the system cleanups, I would never touch them, and for secure delete, there are other(free) apps. Or, you could secure empty the trash on your mac? What pitiful developers.
@thejoneswizards Nice try, ZeoBIT marketing department.
@sfsom@thejoneswizards I tried out the software (Im a beta tester in my sparetime for various programs) – I have not been able to dublicate all the bad stuff that people are talking about here. However my machine does only contain my OS as everything else is on a server, but still. I tried working the program with as many tasks as possible and have yet to make it use more than 33% processing power on peaks (specs says it will actually use up to 40%). I also tried uninstalling the program – and yes the uninstaller leaves files on your computer, but almost EVERY program out there does that, including Google Chrome, Adobe (very hard to fully uninstall) and many others, so thats not really very surprising to me. I think this is only something people worrie about, because they have read bad reviews and actually start looking for scrap files. Anyway – installed it yesterday, uninstalled and reinstalled today – many restarts, test on all my programs… no problems (yet). Tomorrow Ill bring my iMac to a friend and report it stolen and see if the antitheft thing works, just for fun. In the end – can native programs do most things Mackeeper offer – yes. Do normal Mac Users (total non tech people) know how to do this… many actually dont. So why not market a program that make theese tasks easy for you – obviusly this program is useless to programmers and geeks… but again if you really are a geek you will never be looking for a program like this. And come on – uninstalling it is really not that hard…!? Try to total uninstall Adobe, now there is a challenge!
@uggikaldan@sfsom@thejoneswizards It really does screw up your Mac! I learned the hard way.
@AntiKeeper@uggikaldan@sfsom@thejoneswizards What happened – I still have it running on my machine and nothing. It´s a dualcore iMac with 16gigs of ram – nothing fancy, couple of years old in fact, just a standard configuration machine with some no name extra ram installed.Im yet to experience any problems – Im also yet to see any improvements on my system…So Im kinda curious, what did the program do to your machine – cause honestly I have not been able to recreate any of the problems people are talking about. I also scanned traffic going in and out of my iMac through an external machine, and I get nothing but regular pings from Mackeeper, nothing that looks too suspicious (not more suspicious than what apple itself, Facebook and google is transferring). Anyway – program could be all bogus – since Im not qualified to actually test if what it promises it does, actually is performed… Id love some serious fact though, anyone out here actually know what they are doing who can test some of the processes of the program, and give some hard fact as to why it´s malware? I´m yet to be convinced if the program is legit or crap. (However with all the bad press Im beginning to suspect it´s a marketing scheme… I just like to know the reason for things, not just why people “think” something).
Thanks for the warnings…. it’s been uninstalled.
Seen several ads for this MacKeeper recently, one of which made it look like a direct offering from Speedtest.net, a company many people trust. I actually began checking it out but upon researching it read of the many problems users have had with it and stayed as far away as possible. I’m rather disappointed Ookla would advertise this in such a way where it looks like one of their products, and encourages users to download it before performing a Speed Test. It just feels very deceptive for ads, meshing perfectly with the speediest page.
What do you expect? This is how many businesses and all political parties market themselves these days – with ‘truthiness’.
I have lost or corrupted some of my photo files by moving my all image folder into the trash and back out by mistake thinking they were duplicates. I’m looking for a program to recover them. Any suggestions?
DiskWarrior
Disk Drill… and try recover the data immediately to prevent the deleted file from being overwritten
I find it ironic that I’m reading this on the left and I se an ad on the right titled “MacKeeper – Clean your mac”.
I find it ironic that I’m reading this on the left and I see an ad on the right titled “MacKeeper – Clean your mac”.
@creattica.design Yes, it advertises through Google Adsense (which is what we use in our sidebar).
Google Adsense > Allow & block ads > Advertisers URL > block zeobit.com
. Yes you’ll loose money, as I do…
@creattica.design This is not irony. It’s a coincidence.
@creattica.design I just click on those. It makes money go from a company I dislike (ZeoBit) to a company I like (Google and TheMacFeed)
@ncbarnard@creattica.design Come on – thats really poor!!Ads are not just about clicks – people might actually see the adds here and decide to buy a product you say is bad. So yea – you make money from the clicks – but only cause you helped people buy a product you dont like. Petty greed is a better word for it than ironic…
Scam, no. It’s an outright swindle. They take your money and give you nothing. The software does nothing but prevent itself from being deleted and extract your personal data. How have these felons not been locked up by now?
Don’t buy it! your money is spent better elsewhere. I really don’t care what they say, it is still crap your MAC will turn into MacZombie controlled from Ukraine. I really hate this software it made so many problem you can’t imagine. Try to go the apple.com forums and type mackeeper or 911 bundle and see all the “good” reviews.
> According to ZeoBIT’s CEO **Slava Kolomiychuk**
Do we really need to know more than this?
That wasn’t really necessary, was it? The CEO’s name and nationality have nothing to do with the honesty of this company. You’d be amazed at how many Eastern European and Russian developers across the globe form key parts of the Mac community. There are dishonest developers and scam artists there, yes, but there are in the US and in Western Europe, too. Let’s not resort to racial stereotyping.
That said, Zeobit’s activities are really distasteful, especially in an environment where so many other developers offer better products for less, without the questionable practices. Well done, The Mac Feed, for writing this article following up the more glowing one you wrote earlier.
@milylasouris Eastern Europe developers FTW
@uggikaldan@milylasouris Euro Developers FTW
@sfsom CleanMyMac, a Russian outfit I believe, are kosher. Russian does not mean dodgy – MacKeeper IS dodgy, but there are many other ggod ones.
@sfsom I do not own MacKeeper. I do not know anyone who owns MacKeeper. However, this page worries me. It doth protest too much, methinks. Crowds tend to behave differently from the way the individuals in the crowd imagine that they would behave, and this page looks like it displays crowd behavior.
Let me play the Devil’s advocate. Many people on this page claim that others are paid to post by MacKeeper. How many of those people are paid to post by competitors to MacKeeper?
@lexogram Fair comment. However, I have paid to MacKeeper, and been sorely disappointed, hence my activity to warn others. This, in combination with the very high presence of MacKeeper everywhere you go on the net, and the fact that most of what they purport to deliver is actually not necessary as it is covered by OSX itself, and the rest, which ought to be the value add, slows your OSX so much down that it renders anything useless.
In my mind, MacKeeper is a fluke, an inflated marketing gimmick that promises a lot and delivers virtually nothing, and gives you loads of frustration as part of it. Their reseller policy means that the web is swamped with people with neither conscience nor knowledge trying to make a fast buck out of easy marketing return, for example by hosting a button on their pages. In many cases, see for example MacUpdate, the MacKeeper button is such designed that you think you are doing something on MacUpdate, and heyho, MacKeeper installs and you’re stuffed.
We want to keep access to the web without restrictions or government health&safety constraints – MacKeeper is one of those companies that profit on scare tactics (oooohhhh viruses, trojans, slow computers), promises to fix and protect, but actually does not do much that OSX doesn’t do already – apart from installing some stuff that slows the computer down and is virtually impossible to get rid of.
To top that, you get hate mail from (I assume) resellers if you are vaguely critical of the company and products – obviously, people are aggressively trying to protect their income streams, where it is the job of conscientious web users such as myself to make my point known, so that others can take my experience into account along with others before they make a decision to part with their hard earned cash.
The beauty of the web is that it provides a free, unregulated forum for all – which, as a downside, also gives access for predators like MacKeeper, but hopefully threads like this can prevent too many people from falling into the trap.
This is pure bullshit. I actually paid for this crap, and used it for years. Then I found out what Zeobit is doing (fake reviews, spam++) plus my mac actually runs faster without this software installed. When you uninstall, be sure to remove all “zeobit” and “mackeeper” files on your computer. There is a guide on how to completely remove this software, just google it. Again; don’t trust zeobit.
The CEO of Zeobit has a Russian name: that screams ripoff/scam/virus immediately. Mac OSX does NOT need the kind of maintenance this product ‘provides’ ie. hijacks from your os and puts it in one place. The functionality is either in the OS already, or not required at all. MacKeeper is for gullible ex-Windows paranoids.
@muffrider Cold war dies hard, son, Rather dead than red!
@muffrider Co-founder of Google Sergey Brin is from Russia. Beware of Google… Oh those Russians…
@muffrider Finally somebody who knows what they’re talking about
I wouldn’t even say that Macs don’t need maintenance, I’d say they benefit very little from it, if at all.
As far as I’m concerned, MacKeeper IS a virus. When one of their ads “pops up” on my screen, I cannot close it, and it forces me to shut down my browser AND my computer just to get rid of the MacKeeper ad. Someone needs to place a very large bomb on their doorstep.
Anyone who thinks any of this, stop. NOW.
I used to think that MacKeeper was a spam virus too. I mean, who wouldn’t in their right mind? The way they show up EVERYWHERE…it was a bit odd.
But I had my go and went ahead and gambled, clicking on it. Boy was I surprised.
It does help guys. I mean, there’s basically no viruses out there for the Mac, so the Anti-Virus is kinda pointless. But if one does leak out, being protected is nice. The Anti-Theft is more crucial. SO many sights on Mac roamers like me contain some bad stuff, and this totally counters all of that.
Probably the best thing this program does is clean up your Mac. It gets rid of lots of unnecessary binaries and languages, caches and cookies, etc. and helps relieve your RAM and ROM. With just a click of a button, my computer went instantly faster.
To add on to this, it allows you to access your files and clean them out one by one. Including hidden files like render files from Final Cut and After Effects. These, believe it or not, take up a least 2 Gig a piece, and will never be removed by simply deleting the project. So this is a great way to help clean your memory.
In conclusion, this isn’t for you if you don’t use your memory that much and your Mac runs fine.
But for those of you like me whoa re constantly editing and clearing memory that can really slow down a computer, this is a great application. I highly recommend it to you guys.
This isn’t a scam. So stop claiming it is.
Just because the CEO is Russian doesn’t mean anything. Hey as far as I know the Russians actually are as smart than us in the US these days. We have great colleges, but so do they. Don’t judge them for their Communist past.
Also if your computer slows when you use this, THAT’S BECAUSE YOU SHOULDN’T USE IT. I mean if you don’t want protection (not like the Mac really needs it…yet), then the only point of this is memory cleavage which it is BEST at, far superior to other programs. It has many helpful bits and pieces, but you won’t find a faster way to speed up a computer than this. That is, IF you use a lot of memory.
If you can’t click out of their pop-up adds, that’s your computer’s problem. I’ve never struggled with this.
My computer has been positively, I repeat, POSITIVELY affected by MacKeeper.
@colonalcat
Pure BS. Wanna know how i know? Because the product does not exist. You download the trial, it pretends to scan your computer, and finds problems that aren’t really there. So you buy it. You pay and download the “full version” then when you try to use it it says you have to register. When you do that you find that they have no record of your purchase, and none of their customer support numbers are real.
ANYONE who claims to have used mackeeper is lying or has been had. Pure and simple. I don’t care about their advertising or any of that, but the product is a mockup. It’s not real.
@ChrisGibbons
I’m the one with BS?
http://gyazo.com/bfcfd902577eccb48236b79610d3f327
http://gyazo.com/aeb2851d2fa9aae982d6d2e2211ddee8
http://gyazo.com/7b4155d1959ae96a7144ac7c0f4f3382
http://gyazo.com/3e4072d605595f675313a766ea94ff5d
http://gyazo.com/8a4a75f434311fedee29ea0f3d460f26
That proof enough?This post has been caught red-handed
@colonalcat @ChrisGibbons
Yep that’s proof enough all right. Look at the one of the status page:
http://gyazo.com/aeb2851d2fa9aae982d6d2e2211ddee8
It clearly shows that you have not installed the full version, and do not have a subscription. You have indeed been caught red-handed. ZeoBit is the part that’s the scam you pay for the subscription but it doesn’t exist.
@ChrisGibbons @colonalcat @ChrisGibbons
http://gyazo.com/8b68402b304f5ae353f8649572eabc35
there. Owned.
@colonalcat Don’t worry, I use MacKeeper, too. I have it installed on 3 Mac computers in my house, all of them are used for business purposes and not a single one of them has had a single issue since the product was installed (and, in case anyone else has read my comment on the review, yes I wrote the same thing there).
Ignore all the people slamming MacKeeper – there’s no such thing as an incorrect opinion & that’s all most of these comments are. Some people are just too afraid to find for themselves, that’s all.
After removing the languages and PowerPC binaries, my Macs run much faster – can’t argue with that, really.
Oh, and my MacKeeper says I’m logged in, too. And finally, every time I’ve asked MacKeeper support a question, they’ve helped me within minutes in a friendly & helpful way. I doubt a scam company would do that.
@digitalformula @colonalcat Guys, I used macKeeper for quite a while too with no issues………until one day my MacPro started throwing up the spinning beachball of death every time I tried to open anything or get on the internet. (This is a FAST machine, 8 core processor and 8GB RAM)
After much investigation I found MacKeeper Helper and a half baked piece of software called wine hijacking 98% of the CPU. Nightmare to get rid of. YOU CANNOT REMOVE OR STOP OR DISABLE IT. It just goes on and on crippling your CPU.
Do not wait for it to happen to you….and it will.
MacKeeper is not spam per se but it is a rotten, lousy and completely unnecessary piece of crapware.
If you want a decent maintenance utility, get Onyx or Cocktail.
To remove MacKeeper is not easy but one good guy has figured it out and is prepared to share with the Mac community.
His method works and removes all the various bits of this nefarious software that are scattered all over your computers. Go to http://applehelpwriter.com/2011/09/21/how-to-uninstall-mackeeper-malware/ and read about this garbage from a Mac guru and learn from some of the experiences of the poor bastards who bought this time bomb.
@colonalcat Forgot to mention … I’ve never seen a single popup ad from MacKeeper that I haven’t been able to close so not sure what that’s about.
@digitalformula There are thousands of pages on the internet that mackeeper ads pop up on (I’ve had many dozens, and the internet is a damn big place). You get a little box that jams your access to the page you were attempting to view and gives a lovely message asking you to use MacKeeper. Your only option is to click OK, there are no close buttons on these boxes, and you cannot close the tab that your stupid little box invaded. If MacKeeper ads are malware themselves, how useless and misleading must the software be!
Why do you call affiliate sites “fake?”
This isn’t to say that MacKeeper is good. But affiliate sites, whether high quality or not, are actually real. If an affiliate site is breaking rules or guidelines set up by ZeoBIT, then that’s a different story and the site should be shutdown. And that should be the end of that.
As for MacKeeper software – NO. There are more Apple friendly options. Two great free ones are Sophos and Clam. The gold standard antivirus is definitely Intego (for Macs), which isn’t free but is very good software.
You do not need antivirus software for Mac.
If you want a good maintenance utility get Onyx or Cocktail.
MacKeeper may not be a spam virus but it is a rotten, lousy, badly designed piece of crapware.
It often behaves itself for a while before starting to cause trouble.I don’t know why.
It gums up the CPU and refuses to quit and tenaciously resists removal.
Just try getting rid of it without help and see how you get on.
The ‘uninstaller’ does not uninstall all of it and the remnants continue to hijack the CPU.
It is a nightmare to get rid of.
Go to Phil Stokes site, get educated and then remove this malware from your Macs before it’s too late.
Go to: http://applehelpwriter.com
I bought Mackeeper about a month ago for $39.95. I made the purchase in hopes of getting my computer to run faster. The very opposite happened. MacKeeper was usefull in deleting cookies, but it used an extrordinary amount of CPU, to the point that my computer was very slow or simply would not function well. Two days ago, I was able to get rid of it. It took following many of various instructions, because MacKeeper does not have an uninstall feature. I applied a simple business technique “Don’t use the “Cure” if it’s worse than the Disease”.
Check out the macupdate listing: you will notice that Mackeeper is a 5-star rating App here http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/33710/mackeeper
But the interesting fact is that MacKeeper received 20 pages of 5-4 star reviews in 2 days… Doesn’t it seem strange? Frankly, i think they posted them all themselves. Not a fair business, ladies and gentlemen!
@MagMac I’m fine with people being perfectly entitled to voice their opinion, but I also think it’s a far better world when statements aren’t voiced unless there is proof … there is no way for anyone here to know if those reviews are false or not.
Plus, given the reputation of macupdate, I’m going to assume they’re real, until I hear otherwise (yes I use MacKeeper and yes, it works perfectly well for me).
Yup and they’re still continuing to spam MacUpdate with false reviews…
Yep, There’s a ton of pro Mackeeper propaganda out there all written by MacKeeper affiliates who want you to buy their crapware.
@AntiKeeper If Mac Keeper were a decent piece of software, I would have some sympathy.
Unfortunately, it is a nasty, invidious and invasive lump of crap.
At least CleanMyMac is harmless.
I know some of the guys at MacKeeper, they’re good guys but I can somewhat understand the sentiment towards the company’s aggressive advertising tactics. However, that being said, it is a business and if CleanMyMac, etc aren’t looking to compete as fiercely, well, in the end that’s their problem.
The ads are RIGHT there on your page! LOL two on the right hand side!
i hope everything is still okay, if I deleted it… damn i should have read reviews first. : ( hope my mac doesn’t crash
@Blueberri What model of macbook you have? in my opinion before i install application i allways read the comments and specially reviews.so i have some many optional way.hope your mac runs well. my way to clean my mac im go to utilities,disk utilities.
May as well ad my poor customer service experience to the mix:
I consider myself an easy-to-please customer, but MacKeeper has some of the worst tech support I’ve ever experienced. It’s like they try to avoid helping because they don’t know how to help?.. or don’t want to. If they respond to you, tell me your secret
I ran the basic MacKeeper Scan and then Fix on my iMac OS 10.5.8 and immediately afterward had some weird issues:
- Finder was acting funny, very slow to copy small pdf files, not recognizing dvd’s it always had before, slow to preview things with the spacebar quick-view function
- Final Cut Pro was quitting after a few minutes (some simple trashing preferences solutions didn’t work, and it suspiciously started doing that right after running MacKeeper).
I tried all routes of tech support: “Live Chat” with a MacKeeper tech guy who ended by asking for the MacKeeper logs from the fix. A few days later I got an automated response thanking me for the logs and asking for further explanation of my issues (had already explained to the chat guy). After emailing them I waited two months of no replies before asking for help again, saying, “I don’t mean to be pushy, but if you don’t have some sort of answer for me I think I’d prefer a refund than keep the program.”
Their response a few weeks later was a refund without explanation! I responded that I really did appreciate the refund but am still stuck with the problems brought on by MacKeeper, ANY possible ideas or tech advice?? Nothing again for about two months so I called them last week and the guy seemed to want to end the call as soon as possible (his only advice was to back everything up and do a total re-install.. no thanks) and kept referring me to the “Geek on Demand” service. So I tried that service which says, “You will receive a guaranteed answer within 48 hours!” and it’s been 2.5 business days now.. Thanks guys.
Conclusion: MacKeeper is not a scam in the typical sense (they refunded me when I was unsatisfied!) but they will not help you if anything goes wrong. So if it works for you, congratulations!
May as well add my poor customer service experience to the mix:
I consider myself an easy-to-please customer, but MacKeeper has some of the worst tech support I’ve ever experienced. It’s like they try to avoid helping because they don’t know how to help?.. or don’t want to. If they help you please tell me your secret!
I ran the basic MacKeeper Scan and then Fix on my iMac OS 10.5.8 and immediately afterward had some weird issues:
- Finder was acting funny, very slow to copy small pdf files, not recognizing dvd’s it always had before, slow to preview things with the spacebar quick-view function
- Final Cut Pro was quitting after a few minutes (some simple trashing preferences solutions didn’t work, and it suspiciously started doing that right after running MacKeeper).
I tried all routes of tech support: “Live Chat” with a MacKeeper tech guy who ended by asking for the MacKeeper logs from the fix. A few days later I got an automated response thanking me for the logs and asking for further explanation of my issues (had already explained to the chat guy). After emailing them I waited two months of no replies before asking for help again, saying, “I don’t mean to be pushy, but if you don’t have some sort of answer for me I think I’d prefer a refund than keep the program.”
Their response a few weeks later was a refund without explanation! I responded that I really did appreciate the refund but am still stuck with the problems brought on by MacKeeper, ANY possible ideas or tech advice?? Nothing again for about two months so I called them last week and the guy seemed to want to end the call as soon as possible (his only advice was to back everything up and do a total re-install.. no thanks) and kept referring me to the “Geek on Demand” service. So I tried that service which says, “You will receive a guaranteed answer within 48 hours!” and it’s been 2.5 business days now.. Thanks guys.
Conclusion: MacKeeper is not a scam in the typical sense (they refunded me when I was unsatisfied!) but they will not help you if anything goes wrong. So if it works for you, congratulations!
You have found out the hard way that MacKeeper is not malware but crapware……unnecessary on a Mac and certain, sooner or later , to terminally screw up your Mac.
Now go to http://www.applehelpwriter.com and find out how to clear up the mess in your operating system properly, effectively and permanently.
Do not be tempted to use the MacKeeper uninstall – it does not remove all elements of the app and what is left behind will continue to plague you.
Good Luck.
thanks so much for this advice! i was in the midst of purchasing mackeeper when i saw this, and realised that you guys are totally 100% right. this is really really helpful!
I own a LOT of mac software. I bought my first mac in 1984 and have used them ever since. Of all the software I have ever used on my mac the absolutely WORST company I have had to deal with has been the makers of MacKeeper. I tried to work with their program for well over a year and have finally given up. Their program WAS (I have deleted it) a nightmare of licensing issues. I constantly got “Your trial period is over, Buy Now” popups WHEN I had already bought it off of their website. With most software you register it once and all is well but NOT with Zeobits. I would waste so much time dealing with this issue and then the program would work OK for a short time then again claim that I was not licensed to use this program. Also, often the program would just not work, not list my apps, not list apps that were clearly in need of updates. I would not recommend this program!!!
I am so glad I read this before purchasing this program. Thank you, Daniel.
You know this is the last time I will comment on this here. If you actually are having problems with this program, either your computer is faulty, or your just plain and technologically stupid.
I’ve used this for well over a year, and it combines every luxury you need in a basic performance-boosting, protection, and clean-up app out there. Sure the update function is slightly faulty, but hell, at least they’re trying.
I give up trying to persuade the bunch of brick walls you all are.
If it’s not a program for you, it’s not a program for you. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad one.
@colonalcat Fair enough, you are entitled to your opinion. However I think that the language you use is inappropriate and invalidates your input – various people do have real experiences of problems after installing MK, and have problems uninstalling it. This points to the fact that there is indeed some issues with the product – slagging people off for being stupid when they are unhappy with a product they are experiencing problems with is, I am afraid, typical of the MK fanboy community’s attitude to users. It does give me the impression that you are either an affiliate or employee of MK where your rather sordid comments gives the impression that you area worried about your income stream rather that supporting an open and frank discussion that may lead to MK improving their product so it actually provides value for all those users that do not feel happy about it. I am interested in what you have to say, but without the expletives, please.
Er, no, Colonalcat, the only ‘stupid’ people are those who, like me, who bought this horrid little app thinking it might be useful.
It is not useful, it screws up the CPU good and proper and is a bugger to remove.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with my computer – a Mac Pro – at least not now I have removed MacKeeper.
Also I am pretty experienced with Mac, have a degree and am definitely far from stupid.
Trying to persuade a bunch of people that a bad product is in fact brilliant will not work when the overwhelming evidence is to the contrary.
A bad product is a bad product.
MacKeeper is a bad product.
It creates problems out of all proprtion to its usefulness.
Stay away from it.
the mafia-style marketing method of MacKeeper is my problem. can somebody tell me how to block the over-aggressive pop-ups that is simply an intrusion into my private space of this “profit-by-any-means” outfit? thanks.
@marcopolo Second that ! How can you block these pirates ?
@hugothomsen third that, i searched it because it pops up on my mac every 20 minutes…. HELP!
@SandroEmm Sandro, the best way I know of is to use CleanMyMac (http://macpaw.com/) – to me, having used it over the last two years, CMM has proven itself by being light and efficient – it has some real good app uninstall and garbage cleanup features that I use frequently. I have tried and successfully removed MacKeeper completely using CMM. That’s the best I can offer, I am afraid.
@marcopolo I just came across Glimmer Blocker (http://glimmerblocker.org/), a freeware ad blocker. Seems to work in Safari, at least MacKeeper does not push its ugly face out at me any more on the usual sites. Nice one. And it’s free.
The guy presumably responsible for MacKeeper’s sales strategies is apparently, according to http://mackeeper.zeobit.com/company, a misguided individual called Iurii Dvoinos . You can contact him on Iurii@zeobit.com if you think that will help, I myself cannot be bothered as I have found an ad blocker that effectively obscures MacKeeper from my radar. I am happy, case closed.
@hugothomsen CleanMyMac is a good little app but it will not completely remove MacKeeper.
You need to go to http://www.applehelpwriter.com.
The instructions for manually removing all MacKeeper components are clearly laid out.
If you don’t remove every last trace, it can continue causing trouble for your Mac even though you think it has gone.
@AntiKeeper Nice one, AntiKeeper – thanks for that ! I will file that one should one of my friends or colleagues ever install MacKeeper against my advice.
I doubt they “won’t survive for long”. They take advantage of new, unaware Mac users. The Mac community grows steadily every day, leading more and more people into this trap. Most Windows users will be used to having these kind of apps and ZeoBit capitalizes on that. Since most new Mac OS X are switchers, this is a win-win. Even though they have a bad reputation in the experienced Mac community, the beginners sector will always be theirs until download sites and the Mac App Store stop distributing it. But since ZeoBit invests around $40k in advertising per month on a single site, I doubt that these site admins would want to cut such an important financial incomestream.
I’m afraid that MacKeeper’s existance will continue…
Currently they have a banner ad claiming “>25%” speed increase…a MINIMUM of over 25%.
Their Facebook ad claims it will increase performance by 100% (i.e double performance.)
I doubt they can deliver. If you live in AZ or another state with stron false/misleading advertising laws, you can probably make some money off this AZ used to have 3x damages….)
Currently they have a banner ad claiming “>25%” speed increase…a MINIMUM of over 25%.
Their Facebook ad claims it will increase performance by 100% (i.e double performance.)
I doubt they can deliver. If you live in AZ or another state with stron false/misleading advertising laws, you can probably make some money off this AZ used to have 3x damages….)
I’ve just seen the promotional video of MacKeeper and wondered about why there are almost only old people sending video reviews to MacKeeper and why they don’t call the app by it’s name (they tell you how great ‘it’ is so they could also talk about the new Battlefield game). After all most of them don’t even use an iSight webcam (because of the poor quality) which implies that they don’t have a mac and probably are the grandparents of the people at ZeoBIT who read out great words.
So I wanted to provocative ask the chat support why this is so to get their reaction but the fact that they’d get my email address let me halt and read their privacy policy. There I stumbeled upon this:
“Sharing Your Personal Information
We respect and protect your private information, and do not disclose it to anyone. We will share your Personal Information only in the following cases:
Affiliates: In some cases we may closely cooperate with some companies and/or businesses, and your Personal Information may be required for various transactions with these partners.Agents: We may employ other companies to act as intermediate parties for us; therefore we may share our customers’ private information with them. These agents won’t use your information for purposes other than assisting us.Business Transfers: Customer information belongs to the Company’s business assets. Therefore when the Company becomes owned by a third party as the result of a merger, acquisition, reorganization, or bankruptcy, customer information is passed to this third party as well.Protection of the Company and Others: If your Personal Information will be required by the government or legal institutions, we have the right to reveal it in order to comply with the law or protect our rights, property, employees, users etc.With Your Consent: You will be informed about other possible cases of sharing your Personal Information, and will have the right to prevent this.”
As the CEO of ZeoBIT tells himself, they don’t have their affilates under control (Quoted above in the article) because of only one person “dedicated to recruiting, policing and coordinating affiliates”. So if you gave them your email address it’ll probably find it’s way to many spam-machines. Did anyone do this without any increase of spam in his spam-inbox? I wonder.
Thanks for your review. I am one of the “stupid people” that purchased MacKeeper (don’t be haten). The system itself was pretty helpful at first and then all hell broke loose and then to try to contact someone …a had a better effort with Facebook. Just got CleanMyMac…thank you.
Thanks for your review. I am one of the “stupid people” that purchased MacKeeper (don’t be haten). The system itself was pretty helpful at first and then all hell broke loose and then to try to contact someone …a had a better effort with Facebook. Just got CleanMyMac…thank you.
@mike101 LOL nice comparison. “fat girl who was not invited to school dance”. wow. U obviously work for ZeroBitt and the rest of them liars. Explain why nearly ALL of us here have complained about ur system (takes up space, no spectacular features, etc.). If the majority of us here have problems with it, then chances are what they say is true: that MacKeeper is nothing more than a money-grubbing scheme for u bastards. I tried it out too, and I agree with what everybody says. If we are all demoralized trolls with too much time on our hands, then what are you, huh? We tried it, we hated, just give up already. Go tell ur boss this: u guys need mackeeper to clean out ur ears, not our computers. LOL.
@Anna Charles @ReidDesigns Yes Anna, But you are also selling this crap on your website!
Hardly an unbiased or independent endorsement.
@Anna Charles Pwuahaha. Another one looking for a fast buck regardless of unhappy punters. Shame on you Anna – your credibility just went through the floor.