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Posted By: JCLover Slow Mac - How Can I Improve Performance? - 11/01/14 06:29 PM
I've just recently reinstalled OS X 10.6.8 to fix a Finder/catalog problem. Everything is working fine now.

Before that I noticed my machine was noticeably slower than when I first got it. I started using MacKeeper (Version 1.9) to optimize and for anti-virus.

Although, the reinstall did seem to improve performance, it isn't as fast at startup as before. Also, shut down is much slow after app. install or anything requires the Admin password. Did read performance tips on other Slow Mac thread, but was hoping for a tip on a better optimizer/antivirus app. or anything else that I can do to increase speed with the hardware I have (can't afford anything new).
Posted By: tacit Re: Slow Mac - How Can I Improve Performance? - 11/01/14 08:13 PM
Antivirus apps are usually a big cause of system slowdowns, and aren't really that useful on Macs anyway.

What kind of Mac do you have? How much RAM?
The consensus around here is get rid of MacKeeper (it is generally considered to be worse than a virus in and of itself). The other primary speed improvement is max out the RAM memory if you haven't already done so.
Posted By: ryck Re: Slow Mac - How Can I Improve Performance? - 11/02/14 09:46 PM
Originally Posted By: JCLover
I started using MacKeeper (Version 1.9) to optimize and for anti-virus.

I'm with joemike on MacKeeper. Get rid of it as soon as you can....and I'm willing to bet you'll see an improvement in your performance. I made the mistake of installing it a few years ago and found it really crippled performance. Then, when I wanted to get rid of it, I had a real challenge.

Since then I avoid anything like Mackeeper, MacCleaner, or any other of these types of software.

Originally Posted By: JCLover
.....was hoping for a tip on a better optimizer/antivirus app.

So far as an antivirus program is concerned, I've tried a few and found that generally I couldn't let them run continuously because of the diminished performance. Sophos was a good example.

However, I have started using Avast and letting it run continuously. It seems to be just fine. As well, it's free and seems to be well-regarded. You can find reviews here and here.
Thanks all.

Ok, kill MacKeeper. If uninstalling MacKeeper is a problem, could you offer advice on how best to do it?

Ok, will check out Avast.

So then there doesn't exist optimize only apps for Mac? How does one optimize a Mac? Are there no configuration settings to check? Is there nothing to delete other than user files?
Posted By: jchuzi Re: Slow Mac - How Can I Improve Performance? - 11/06/14 06:24 PM
Check these links for ways to uninstall MacKeeper.

There are several ways to optimize a Mac. One (free) way is to run the default tasks in the Automation tab of OnyX 2.4.0. If you opt to repair permissions (and you can uncheck that box), this may take a long time. Probably, repairing permissions is unnecessary.

You can also boot from the Install Disk and run Disk Utility to Repair Disk, but if I recall from another thread, you already did this. If you want a heavy-duty utility (not free), you can rebuild the directory with Disk Warrior, a venerable app that can often repair things that stump Disk Utility.
Hi all.

Warning about Avast: Avast Installs Adware

Don't know how to verify this with an official Apple source, but I offer it for your edification: OS X Has Built In Anti-Malware
Hi jchuzi. Thank you. That is very helpful.
I had two adware apps Ciuvo and AddThis, so deleted.
Wow, what a difference!
MacKeeper gone!
At least some adware gone!

My Mac definitely seems faster. Shut down nearly instantaneous. Boot is noticeably faster. Surfing is way faster.

Thank you all. Have a great day.
Posted By: ryck Re: Slow Mac - How Can I Improve Performance? - 11/06/14 09:00 PM
Originally Posted By: JCLover
Ok, kill MacKeeper.

Good move.

Originally Posted By: JCLover
Warning about Avast: Avast Installs Adware

Good to know....thanks. I note that it affects Chrome & FireFox but not Safari, which is most likely why I was not aware. I use Safari almost exclusively. Periodically I find a site that doesn't like to play with Safari, so I'll load the page in FireFox.

Looks like I'll be going back to ClamXav....

Originally Posted By: JCLover
Don't know how to verify this with an official Apple source, but I offer it for your edification: OS X Has Built In Anti-Malware

....or maybe not.
Posted By: deniro Re: Slow Mac - How Can I Improve Performance? - 11/08/14 03:13 PM
EtreCheck will tell you what items load at startup, among other things.

Check fonts also. Higher number of fonts will make the Mac start up slower and programs start up slower.
I've used Firefox since it first started to became popular (v. 3 circa 2008 & 9). When I switched to Mac (2010), I read some bad press about Safari being a poor reworking of I.E., which seemed to be verified when I couldn't load some popular websites. I've never had trouble with Firefox, so I just stick with it.
Enjoy your holiday.
Ok, great! Thanks for the tips.
Posted By: deniro Re: Slow Mac - How Can I Improve Performance? - 11/11/14 11:20 PM
I use Opera sometimes in addition to Firefox. Seems fast to me.
Posted By: ryck Re: Slow Mac - How Can I Improve Performance? - 11/12/14 12:51 PM
Originally Posted By: JCLover
When I switched to Mac (2010), I read some bad press about Safari being a poor reworking of I.E.,.....

We can't know what the press might have been four years ago, but Safari being anything but built "from the ground up" doesn't sound right to me.
Originally Posted By: ryck
We can't know what the press might have been four years ago, but Safari being anything but built "from the ground up" doesn't sound right to me.

Just as OS X's open source Darwin kernel is a derivative of the XNU open source Unix, Safari's Webkit rendering engine (a fork off of the KHTML rendering engine stream), Nitro javascript interpreter, and other key components are all open source technologies. Apple has, of course, modified and tuned them through various versions of Safari, but the open source code is still there and Apple frequently releases their modifications back into the open source stream. So Safari may have been assembled from the ground up, but the components did not neccesarily originate with Apple.

Originally Posted By: jclover
When I switched to Mac (2010), I read some bad press about Safari being a poor reworking of I.E.

Whoever said that was badly informed. Safari and Internet Explorer have never had any common components. While Apple happily adopts and uses open source material, Microsoft has only recently admitted that open source is a four letter word describing a bodily function.
Originally Posted By: JCLover
Wow, what a difference!
MacKeeper gone!


One of mackeeper's "features" is to install a WINDOWS antivirus software that runs IN EMULATION on your computer, scanning periodically in the background. Nuff said.
Originally Posted By: joemikeb
Just as OS X's open source Darwin kernel...

Good to know.
Originally Posted By: JCLover
Don't know how to verify this with an official Apple source, but I offer it for your edification: OS X Has Built In Anti-Malware

I believe I have confirmed that OS X 10.6.8 has built in anti-virus software. I've discovered the top command. One of the processes is:
PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #WQ #POR #MREG RPRVT RSHRD RSIZE VPRVT VSIZE PGRP PPID STATE UID FAULTS COW MSGSENT
60- AntiVirus 0.0 00:12.03 2 1 31 117 239M 6660K 250M 260M 865M 60 1 sleeping 0 721048 168 965

Sorry I couldn't figure out how to format this correctly.

From what I could discern, it's a process that has only used 12.03 seconds of CPU time in the 108 minutes since power up. I'll try to learn more.
if it says "antivirus" it's probably NOT apple. Apple uses clamav. (has had it for a LONG time... 10.3?)

I'd suspect that "antivirus" is something else you downloaded and installed, possibly without realizing what it was. Could be mackeeper's av engine.
There is an inherent problem with any anti-virus software, it cannot detect an unknown virus. In spite of advertising claims, virus detection depends upon detecting the "signature" of the virus therefore the virus must be known so the AV program can know what its "signature" is. This is dependent on a "signature" file that to be effective must be updated daily if not more often. Since there are no known viruses for OS X the only viruses AV software can detect are Windows viruses and unable to infect OS X. There have been a few trojans that can infect OS X but a trojan depends on the ignorance or cupidity of the user to download and install the trojan. As these trojans are installed just like any application, AV software cannot tell the difference between a desired application and an undesired one. Apple's primary internal virus protection has been directed at immediately releasing updates to OS X to block any identified vulnerabilities.

The ClamX AV mentioned by Virtual1 is, like much of OS X, an open source product. It is generally well thought of because of its low impact on system performance. It does not have any "disinfecting" capabilities, but it can move suspected files to a Quarantine folder. It is available for download from the App Store. However, the last time I heard Apple had withdrawn its recommendation for any anti-virus software because of general ineffectiveness and too often negative effect on system performance. I don't know whether or not that still stands.
Posted By: tacit Re: Slow Mac - How Can I Improve Performance? - 11/14/14 04:45 AM
The "antivirus" process is part of MacKeeper. It's hard to get rid of. The application that corresponds to that process is

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.zeobit.MacKeeper.AntiVirus
Good info, thank you.
Hi Tacit. Thanks for your help.

I know you saw that I deleted MacKeeper and appreciate that it's hard to get rid of. I don't have this file:
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.zeobit.MacKeeper.AntiVirus
but do have this file:
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.zeobit.MacKeeper.AntiVirus.plist
A search for antivirus gets no hits, but a search for system or hidden files with that name yields:
AntiVirus.app and
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.zeobit.MacKeeper.AntiVirus.plist

May I safely move those to Trash?
Are there other files to look for?
Any idea why uninstalling MacKeeper would NOT delete those files?
Thanks again.
Originally Posted By: JCLover
Any idea why uninstalling MacKeeper would NOT delete those files?

The MacKeeper uninstall utility is…
  1. poorly designed and/or implemented
  2. carelessly designed and/or implemented
  3. an afterthought created by someone unfamiliar with the product
  4. either untested or the result of a faulty test design
  5. the product of a sloppy development process
  6. an attitude users are not supposed to uninstall MacKeeper
  7. all of the above

MacKeeper is not the only product that has been guilty of faulty uninstall utility design and/or implementation over the years, but it is on a short list of applications notorious for this. Interestingly anti-virus products account for a major portion of that short list.
Originally Posted By: JCLover
I ... do have this file:
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.zeobit.MacKeeper.AntiVirus.plist
A search for antivirus gets no hits, but a search for system or hidden files with that name yields:
AntiVirus.app and
/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.zeobit.MacKeeper.AntiVirus.plist

May I safely move those to Trash?

Yes. You will have to restart afterwards for the change to take effect.

Originally Posted By: JCLover
Are there other files to look for?

Before deleting /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.zeobit.MacKeeper.AntiVirus.plist, look inside it to see what what program it references. (QuickLook will suffice. Select the file and press the space bar.)

This file is not actually a program. It's a .plist file scanned by Launch Services at startup, and is almost certainly telling Launch Services about a program that it is supposed to launch at startup, and probably to re-launch any time it quits for any reason. When looking at the file, you will probably see one or both of the following:

The program name spelled out explicitly:
Code:
	<key>Program</key>
	<string>...the path to the program here...</string>
The program name implied by the program arguments:
Code:
	<key>ProgramArguments</key>
	<array>
		<string>...the path to the program here...</string>
		...possibly more <string>...</string> pairs here...
	</array>

If you see both Program and ProgramArguments, ignore ProgramArguments. The single <string>...</string> listed under Program, or if there is no Program then the first <string>...</string> listed under ProgramArguments tells you the name of the program Launch Services is being told to run. That program is probably the AntiVirus.app you found. (More precisely, it'll be something like .../AntiVirus.app/Contents/MacOS/AntiVirus.) If it's not nested inside AntiVirus.app, you can delete it too. (If it is nested inside AntiVirus.app, deleting AntiVirus.app will take care of deleting it.)

Originally Posted By: JCLover
Any idea why uninstalling MacKeeper would NOT delete those files?

Because MacKeeper doesn't really want itself to be uninstalled. They probably rationalize this to themselves saying: "We're such mighty virus hunters that the virus writers are scared of us and want to uninstall us as part of taking over one of our customer's computers. We're going to thwart them by making it really hard to uninstall us. That would make it harder for our customers to uninstall us, too, except that will never be a problem because our customers love us and would never want to uninstall us."

Pure and specious self-serving rationalization, of course, but there you have it.
Posted By: tacit Re: Slow Mac - How Can I Improve Performance? - 11/27/14 10:51 PM
Yes, you should move those files to the trash. I can't answer why they get left behind when you uninstall, except to say that Zeobit doesn't seem to have the best reputation as a company.
Wow! Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Thanks for the answerS.
Hi. Thanks for the very clear, specific answers. I was able to confirm that those two files were the only ones left behind, apparently intentionally. As a matter of pure curiosity, you may want to see how my .plist was written.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Disabled</key>
<false/>
<key>Label</key>
<string>com.zeobit.MacKeeper.AntiVirus</string>
<key>Program</key>
<string>/Library/Application Support/MacKeeper/AntiVirus.app/Contents/MacOS/AntiVirus</string>
<key>OnDemand</key>
<false/>
</dict>
</plist>
Thanks.
Posted By: jchuzi Re: Slow Mac - How Can I Improve Performance? - 05/19/15 03:58 PM
For those who have been unfortunate enough to be afflicted, read How to manually remove MacKeeper from your Mac.
fyi that is a windows av software, running emulation in wine, scanning your mac, using a windows virus definitions file...
Posted By: jchuzi Re: Slow Mac - How Can I Improve Performance? - 06/01/15 08:58 AM
MacKeeper refund ads will run on Facebook as part of class-action lawsuit settlement
Posted By: tacit Re: Slow Mac - How Can I Improve Performance? - 06/04/15 03:56 PM
I wish I had an ethical system that allowed me to do what the folks who created MacKeeper did. Make $20 million from sales of fraudulent software, get smacked by a lawsuit, be forced to pay $2 million in settlement, pocket the remaining $18 million, walk away whistling.
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