![]() Second, they have been known to offer financial rewards to people who were willing to go post good reviews online. * The expression ‘malware’ is a general term used by computer professionals to mean a variety of forms of hostile, intrusive, or annoying software. The User Tip (which you are welcome to print out and retain for future reference) seeks to offer some guidance on the main security threats and how to avoid them. Note, however, that Trojans are another matter and can represent a genuine threat, an example of which was the recent 'Flashback Trojan' which you can read more about here:įor further information you may find this User Tip on Viruses, Trojan Detection and Removal, as well as general Internet Security and Privacy, useful: There are no viruses that can affect Apple OS X and there is therefore no reason to run anti-virus software on a Mac, but a Mac, like all computers, can transmit viruses and malware to other users particularly those running Windows. Even after having tinkered with it, iAntivirus still fails to do the job properly and cannot be recommended. Until it was purchased recently (May 2012) by Symantic (makers of Norton anti-virus which does not work well with Apple OS X). ![]() MacKeeper have recently said that the uninstaller from here: MacKeeper has been described by various sources as highly invasive malware* that can de-stablize your operating system, adding that it is unethically marketed, with a history of making false advertising claims, by a company called Zeobit and a rip-off.įor more details about Zeobit’s alledgedly fraudulent advertising and paid-for ‘reviews’, and their dubious marketing practises, read this:įurther opinion on it and how to uninstall MacKeeper malware can be read here: We have seen problems with this software in the past. ![]() No, please do not download and install MacKeeper. Softwater contacted the Director of IT at the College of Arts and Architecture UNC Charlotte, about whether they endorse MacKeeper and his response, quoted here, was: For example (posted by fellow contributor Softwater), on their Facebook page and on their webpage they have this apparent endorsement from UNC Charlotte: Most positive reviews of it have been found to have been paid for by Zeobit (developers of MacKeeper) in the form of ‘free upgrades’ etc. Not only is it expensive for what it purports to do (freeware applications that do the same or more are readily available), it can sometimes install itself without the user realising it, and it can be very tricky to get rid of. Many users will see references to an application called MacKeeper on various web sites and via pop-ups on their browser. After I posted an article on my own site explaining much of this and warning people away from MacKeeper, they approached me and offered me a job as a consultant, telling me to name my fee, and also asked me to write a new review.Īll these behaviors, and more, go together to paint a picture of completely unscrupulous developers who probably should not be trusted with your credit card number. Third, they pay reviewers for positive reviews. (The owner of MacUpdate, who also receives a lot of advertising money from MacKeeper ads, would not listen to multiple people's concerns that these reviews were fraudulent, despite the obviously fishy clustering of hundreds of 5-star reviews in such a short time period.) After they made this offer, both MacUpdate and C|Net were flooded, within a 48 hour period, with glowing reviews for MacKeeper, taking it from one or two stars on both sites to near 5 stars within that 2 day interval. This is not hearsay, I've seen the actual e-mail that they sent to their customers. They have done similar things with other domains. They eventually changed it after getting really bad press, and obfuscated their ownership of the domain. On that site, they put a "review" of ClamXav with a download button that redirected to the MacKeeper site. First, the developers bought the domain, which is similar to a competing product's site (). On the contrary, it's highly sophisticated, but completely unethical, marketing! Let me give some examples. unsophisticated marketing by the developers made it smell suspicious.Īgain, it's more than "unsophisticated" marketing. That is in addition to the numerous user reports that Phil Stokes has collected to the same effect. (Sounds like you've been listening to etresoft too much!)Īlthough I have not actually tested MacKeeper myself (yet!), I have spoken to someone who has run extensive tests on it and who found that its "cleaning" tool completely trashed his test system. There's nothing to herd mentality about why you should avoid MacKeeper.
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