Okay, they’ve got to be joking on this one. Ultimately, a single update manager like this one isn’t a winner, even if it were produced by a respectable company, so that other developers would be interested in informing them of updates. And any software obtained through the Mac App Store in Mac OS X 10.6 or 10.7 (aka Snow Leopard and Lion) will be kept updated for you by the App Store at no cost. Most software these days has an option to allow it to check for updates periodically. However, if you really want such an uninstaller, try AppZapper ($12.95). If you want to remove an app and aren’t sure how, just Google “Mac uninstall appname” and you should get some answers. In any event, “universal” uninstallers that claim to be able to remove all traces of an app seldom work as advertised. Those that require installers will usually also provide their own uninstallers. Many apps are simply dragged into the Applications folder to install them, and only need to be dragged to the trash to delete them. Seriously? Between the built-in Spotlight and the free EasyFind, why do you need another search tool?įor the most part, uninstallers are not needed on a Mac. (But consider giving a donation, as a means of supporting further development of the software, if it works well for you.) Just go get a free duplicate finder, like dupeGuru. And if you want a simpler view and happen to be using Mac OS X 10.7 (aka Lion), just go to Apple -> About This Mac, click More Info and then click the Storage tab. OmniDiskSweeper and GrandPerspective are two of them. There are several good, free programs that can show you in much greater detail what’s taking up space on your hard drive. (Caches are there to keep things running fast!)If you do need to do some cache troubleshooting, you can clear your caches with free software rather than paying for it. If you are not, it actually harms your system’s performance. Clearing your caches can be beneficial only ifyou are having cache-related problems. I can only guess they’d pay for it because they’re not aware they’ve already got it as a built-in feature of Mac OS X.Īhh, the old cache cleaning scam… Some people just want to sell “cleaning” software to people who have switched from Windows, where such things actually have a use. Seriously? I’m not sure why anyone would pay for this feature when they could just use Secure Empty Trash in the Finder. See the online appendices for Joe Kissell’s Take Control of Mac OS X Backups. If none of these suit you, there are many other options. If Time Machine is not something you want to use, or if you want to create secondary backups with another program (a very good idea), you can use a free tool like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper. There are many other excellent, and free, backup programs! Every Mac since Mac OS X 10.5 (aka Leopard) has included built-in backup software, called Time Machine. Three such options are Data Rescue, File Salvage and Stellar Phoenix. And if you ever do need such functionality, you’d be better off using a product from someone who specialized in data recovery. With good backups, you will never need to try to recover deleted files using MacKeeper’s Undelete feature. Undelete functionality is better avoided whenever possible by ensuring that you have a good set of backups. There are many other possibilities outlined in Joe Kissell’s An Introduction to File Encryption in Mac OS X. (That’s the solution I use.) Or you could zip up files in encrypted. You could create an encrypted disk image with Disk Utility and store only your sensitive data in there. You could use the Mac’s built-in FileVault technology. There are a variety of ways to encrypt documents without spending any money. In addition, when Apple makes iCloud public this fall, it will, in conjunction with Mac OS X 10.7 (aka Lion), offer similar features. A better option would be to use the free, open-source and well-reviewed Prey. This provides features to help you track your Mac in the event it is stolen. (See my Mac Virus Guide.) However, if you do want AV software, MacKeeper really stinks at that job. You probably don’t really need anti-virus software on your Mac. Consider each feature provided by MacKeeper: You don’t need much of what MacKeeper provides, and what features it has that you might need can be better achieved by other free or inexpensive software. While I don’t ordinarily put much stock in complaints like these posted in online forums, in this case, there’s little reason to take the risk. People claim that it slows their machines down, makes them unstable and causes a lot of strange pop-up ads to start appearing. There is a lot of talk online about problems caused by MacKeeper. If being unable to trust the company isn’t enough reason to avoid its software, consider my second reason to steer clear.
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