OS 10.5.8 4GB ram D/W, TTP4.

I have just been looking at "Mackeeper"...$39.00 Supposedly does everything.

I downloaded Sophos some weeks back (free) and I,m wondering which is the

better of the 2. Anyone have experience with "Mackeeper"?

jaybass

Jay,

Take a look at This Discussion over on the Apple Support communities. (edit to add and This one too)

The MacKeeper issue has been discussed before as a malware threat that is delivered as an offer to prevent malware.....also seen under the names, MacShield, MacDefender and MacProtector.

The malware topic for the Macintosh remains predominantly on the side of running without additional software beyond the internal protections provided by having an up-to-date Operating System with all security updates current.....for now. As the Macintosh OS becomes more of a specific target by the malware producers we will see the potential for increased security (anti-malware software), but for now, with less than 30 actual threats identified, I haven't found it worthwhile to put up with the additional intrusion that comes with running anti-malware software on my personal machines.

While you are still on 10.5.8, you may have some vectors for intrusion that have been closed in 10.6 and 10.7, but for now you would most likely be asking for more challenges by installing a virus checker than you would be facing otherwise.

If you are currently running Sophos free and it doesn't intrude on your normal workflow it won't hurt to keep running it (but it probably won't provide the help you are expecting from it). Just remember that since anti-malware software needs to follow a list of definitions to recognize the threat, and currently there is no viral threat in the wild (only trojans which require your permission to be installed), then there is currently no protection for the as-yet-unidentified threat lurking on the far distant horizon.

I largely agree with MM. MacKeeper is a Mac utility suite sold by MacWare. It is not a version of the malware known under a variety of names usually starting with 'Mac'. For a regular utility, however, it left a boatload of worried user comments in its wake. While there is still a lot of confusion around MacKeeper, it seems clear that many user complaints are based on an aggressive marketing campaign using popup ads and redirects, a decidedly less than perfect quality assurance around the product (or an odd view of 'features' needed), and possibly the fact that MacKeeper Support servers may have suffered from malware themselves.

The take home message, for now, is to be wary of this software. There are various alternatives for its functionality (assuming it's even needed), several of them freeware.

Thanks for the heads up. I read MM's 'This discussion' and your 'Boatload of worried user comments". Both informative and alarming. I don't usually download anything without checking them out but your info will keep me even more wary.
Thanks again,
jaybass

I've seen mackeeper being linked to from apple.com, so it appears to at least be somewhat apple-sanctioned?

I can't find them now, perhaps I'm mis-remembering it or it was removed. You can search for all mention of "mackeeper" on apple.com like this.

Apple has an article on mac malware though, mainly referring to macdefender and its variants.