My experience after doing a clean reinstall after working with a malware infected Mac for at least three years.
I got a new Mac more than 4 years back. It is a mid 2011 MBP which came with Snow leopard and an option to upgrade to lion for free. It was my first laptop ever and I didn't have much experience with computers before. I have heard the 'no virus in mac' talk and was happy to have it. However I just downloaded and installed every random software many of them pirated ones. 5-6 months in I started seeing the wheel of death regularly and then trying to solve the problem I compounded it by installing mackeeper and other softwares like it. For last three years I had kind of shitty laptop which was always hanging. I even did a clean reinstall but restored all the softwares just back in. I did everything possible in last 2-3 years to get my laptop working as a mac is supposed to work. Update to latest version religiously, creating hard disk space, using cleaning software, PRAM reset and what not. I had grudgingly given up on Mac even though I was a big fan of Steve Jobs and owned an iPad and loved the look and feel of Mac. It was just not good.
As a last resort last week I did a clean reinstall without restoring the old softwares and I can't believe what I see now. I just regret having not done this before. It feels like I have lived in hell for three years. My Mac is working so smooth I have fallen in love with it and it is a four year old laptop. I was thinking of buying a new windows laptop but now it feels like I wont have to for another 2-3 years at least.
I am sharing this because I am so damn happy. Mods, if this is not the right post feel free to delete it.
Edit: For people like me who don't really know what is the difference
The point of clean reinstall is that verything is just gone and your mac is as good as new. Only drawback is that you have to reinstall your softwares again.
For instance I had deleted logmein and team viewer and some genieo software 2 years back and still everytime I looked in the list of the processes something related was running. Mackeeper process was in my launchagents and launchdameons even though I have deleted it long ago. I tried manually deleting every file with these names including system file which is actually very risky. But I couldn't find everything because I didn't remember the name of every software I have installed in past. Most of which were downloaded from non app store places. Clean install just kind of cleans all this junk related to these softwares and extensions many of which might be malwares masquerading as mac maintenance softwares.
submitted by
lalu4pm to
apple
Mackeeper app beware!
Recently deleted an app, and got a notification that Mackeeper could clean up leftover files. Thinking it was a native app, I clicked it. Quickly discovered it was definitely not Native.
When I went to uninstall it, it popped up with windows trying to persuade me not to, and I forced a delete. A window popped up asking for the system password to make changes, and it struck me as odd because it was not TouchID integrated. That was when I realized that Mackeeper was attempting to collect my password. I clicked "cancel" and the app finished deletion. It seems like a really cheap method to collect a user password.
I emailed App Store support and explained the situation, but they seem to be under the impression that I need technical assistance, and have not been helpful.
submitted by
henryharp to
apple