MacKeeper is a strange piece of software. There may be no other app as controversial in the Apple world. The application, which performs various janitorial duties on your hard drive, is loathed by a large segment of the Mac community. Check out any blog, site or forum that mentions it, and you’ll find hundreds of furious comments condemning MacKeeper and Zeobit, the company behind it. We discovered this ourselves earlier this month, when we offered a 50%-off deal on MacKeeper. Look at all those furious comments on the post.
The complaints about MacKeeper are all over the shop: It’s a virus. It holds your machine hostage until you pay up. It can’t be completely removed if you decide to delete it. Instead of speeding up your computer, it slows it down. It erases your hard drive, deletes photos, and disappears documents. There are protests about MacKeeper’s annual subscription fees. Zeobit is slammed for seedy marketing tactics. It runs pop-under ads, plants sock-puppet reviews and encourages sleazy affiliate sites, critics say.
But what’s really strange is that MacKeeper has been almost universally praised by professional reviewers. All week I’ve been checking out reviews on the Web and I can’t find a bad one.
Given the comments on our deals post, I started researching Zeobit and MacKeeper. (Our deals, by the way, are determined by our partners, StackSocial.) I was alarmed that Cult of Mac might be promoting malware, but quickly became curious why such well-reviewed software gets such bad reviews from users. I reached out to Zeobit and Symantec, which publishes anti-virus and security software under the Norton brand.
Jeremiah Fowler, Zeobit’s PR Director, said Mac security companies get a bad rap because Apple users generally believe there is no need for anti-virus products. The Mac is immune to malware, according to users, and therefore any company that sells security software is by definition a scam.
“I personally believe it is just the nature of the business in the age of internet trolling and it is so easy for anyone with too much time on their hands to trash businesses or products online anonymously and with no repercussions,” he wrote in an email. “We have 150 employees and really do care about the products we make and the people who use them.”
Symantec’s Mac Product Manager, Mike Romo, said the same thing: the company is criticized for the very idea of selling security products for the Mac. Users think they are utterly unnecessary and ruin the frictionless experience of OS X. “It’s a great community but it’s very vocal,” Romo said in a telephone interview. “It would be a lot easier to make a painting program or something.”
Romo, who describes himself as a hard-core Mac user, said users voice similar complaints to those heard by Zeobit. However, he says the criticisms are like an urban myth — they are based on rumor and hearsay. “I ask them if they have used our product,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, they have not.”
“We’re used to getting the hate,” he added,” but we love and believe in what we are doing.”
Zeobit’s Fowler said the company has become a “forum punching bag” thanks to four things: a negative PR campaign from a rival company; Zeobit’s aggressive advertising tactics; out-of-control affiliates; and confusion among users between MacKeeper (legit software) and MacDefender (a Trojan). (See Fowler’s full note below.)
While looking into Zeobit last week, I came to some of these same conclusions myself. Zeobit has earned a lot of notoriety for its advertising practices. It’s a very active and aggressive marketer. It runs online ads everywhere, including sneaky pop-unders. It parades scantily-clad booth babes at Macworld. The company also runs an affiliate program that appears to be widely abused. According to Fowler, the sleaziest Zeobit marketing comes from third parties that it has no control over.
Some of the wilder accusations — that Zeobit is a hacker outfit that makes an insidious virus — are way off. The company was one of the sponsors of Macworld, which is as mainstream as a trade show gets. Apple sells a lite version of MacKeeper called 911 Bundle through the official Mac App Store, which is carefully vetted for malware.
Likewise, Cult of Mac does not offer malware through our Deals program. As far as I can tell, MacKeeper is a legit piece of software run by a company whose sales and marketing tactics rub many in the Mac community the wrong way. It may not be for everyone, but MacKeeper is not a virus or a scam. And right now, it’s 50% off ;-).
Here’s is MacKeeper’s PR Director Jeremiah Fowler’s full statement to Cult of Mac:
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Hello Leander,
Thanks for your message and I will be happy to contact a 3rd party user about speaking with you. With the bad comments we are all too aware of them and they actually fall under a few different categories of why people are anti-MacKeeper. Just to give you an idea of what we face on a daily basis, here is a short breakdown of the key reasons people complain.
Also, as a general rule look at some of the other companies who are in the business of Mac security and see the search results for example if you search Google for norton+mac+sucks you will get about 18,700,000 results… We know that Norton is not a bad company, right? You may not like them or their products but you know they are not scammers and their software is not malware, but the internet is loaded with thousands of results saying the opposite. The results are the almost the same for nearly every industry leading software that offers Mac Security. I personally believe it is just the nature of the business in the age of “Internet Trolling” and it is so easy for anyone with too much time on their hands to trash businesses or products online anonymously and with no repercussions. We have 150 employees and really do care about the products we make and the people who use them. You can see some of our real customers and industry professionals talking about MacKeeper on our YouTube Channel here.
Reasons:
1) Black PR
We were the victim of a massive black PR campaign by a small competitor who is now cloning our apps one at a time:
The story was featured here: EXCLUSIVE: MacKeeper Says “Unethical Competitor Trying to Tarnish Our Reputation”
These guys were running Google ads saying we were scammers selling malware and anything else bad that they could create, we got those ads suspended for violating Google’s ad terms and the fine folks at Google 100% confirmed exactly who was the competitor running them against us. So, what this did was trigger a kind of “Band Wagon Effect” of others who were like “Yea we hate them”. They actually hired people in their office who used forum spam, link spam, blogs and paid articles to slander us in ways we are still feeling a year later. As mentioned in the article instead of wasting our time and energy doing the same back to them, we have decided to focus only on making our product better and listening to our real users. We think that focusing on our products and service instead of forum trolls, is a far better business model in the long run.
2) Those Who Hate MacKeeper Ads:
Legitimate Mac Users who are annoyed or tired of our advertising campaigns or partner’s campaigns. Do we advertise? Yes! Do we advertise aggressively, I would not like to use that term but we do have a massive advertising presence online! We have had 15,000,000 downloads of MacKeeper and have a less than 3% refund rate. The reality is that many people are truly happy with the product even if they hate the advertising (and unfortunately some do). The bad part is some people take their hatred for advertising to a level where they dedicate hours of their lives to making MacKeeper a “Forum Punching Bag”… In a perfect world there would be no advertisements on radio, TV, billboards or the internet, but this is not a reality. As long as there are ads, there will be people who hate them.
We believe that we have a great product and we want people to know about it and the only way to do this is to explore every medium of advertisement. It is like investing everything in to a great restaurant and hiring the best chefs, buying the best food only to hide the location somewhere in the woods and then tell no one about it. Then wondering why no one comes to your restaurant? We are discussing phasing out our ads and trying to please the vocal minority, but we realize that pleasing everyone is impossible.
3) Affiliates Gone Wild:
We have suspended many affiliate accounts for violating our terms and while these guys were trying to make a fast income they were trashing our image in the process. The problem is that although we suspend their account, the effects of their actions fall on us and cause serious harm to our reputation in the process.
4) Rogue software (with similar name)
In May 2nd 2011, a rogue security program called “MacDefender” (also known as Mac Protector, Mac Security, Mac Guard, and Mac Shield) was identified. This fake antivirus software had nothing to do with nor had any affiliation with MacKeeper or ZeoBit LLC, but used a similar name to MacKeeper. This also caused a lot of confusion and created a huge problem of Mac Users who were not familiar with MacKeeper.
Please let me know if you have any additional questions and I will be happy to help you.
Also please check out some of the real users on our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/MacKeeperTV
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
89 responses to “Is MacKeeper Really A Scam?”
I`ll stick with cleanmymac 100% best cleaning software in the market love it have it for years try MacKeeper it never cleaned my mac totaly sucks and it makes my computer slow
nine one one or do thay mean nine elevin
I’ve used mackeeper on two different iMacs and the product works as advertised. It works really well when you need to clean up your hard drive after an intensive iMovie edit.
My wife took my computer into a tech because it was running hot. The tech deleted MacKeeper without asking me or my wife. When I asked him why he said it is not an Apple program and it was fucking up my computer. My computer still runs hot. I put the software back on and it works fine. What a dick.
This is bullcrap. These scumbags should be sued.
MacKeeper is not so much a scam as just a plain old virus. Once embedded in your computer it’s very difficult to get rid of and you are subjected to all sorts of pop-ups and unwanted ad windows until you feel your computer has been kidnapped. Avoid it like the plague.
I’m still baffled that there’s any confusion about this. Let me be very clear… I have downloaded, installed, and used MacKeeper. I did this for one reason… because I wanted to see for myself what the situation was. Here’s how it breaks down from a Mac professional who DOES use anti-virus / malware software on his machines and is not a blind hater of MacKeeper for no reason. This is not urban legend. This is real world experience…
1. Once installed the software behaves horribly. By that I mean the tools are far too aggressive and can/do literally cause damage to a system. It’s either poorly written, or simply gives too much power to users who don’t understand why they’re running a given tool in the software. Case in point: Binary Cutter & Languages Cutter claim to trim unnecessary data. Problem is they remove system files and actually gut portions of binary packages for installed applications out. You may go months without seeing a negative effect from these tasks. Once you do though, the issues can be serious. These tools might give you a couple gigs in space savings, but at the cost of system issues that are much harder to fix and could require a re-install of the OS. Then there’s Duplicate Finder. Also a space saver? Problem again is that sometimes duplicates may look pointless and have actual value to your system. Put this power in the hands of an inexperienced user and you get new issues here too. And again you’re saving maybe a few hundred megabytes. Frankly, if you’re this desperate to free space on your hard drive, chances are you aren’t managing your data well at all. I’d much rather see a smart analyzation tool that doesn’t remove anything, but helps inform users how they can setup a good strategy to off-load data to an external drive (like they should be doing) instead of gutting their system.
Most of the rest of the tools are easily done with free utilities that make it very clear that you’re messing with system level files and only proceed if you know what you’re doing. Deleting system level caches? On OS X this is almost never necessary unless you’re addressing a very specific issue and that’s always something that should be diagnosed by someone who knows what they’re doing and why. OS X takes very good care of itself. These things should not be run every week/month by some user looking to squeeze the last bit of life out of an ancient machine. There are some utilities that are valuable and function as they claim. If they stripped the app down to those I’d be much happy to give it another look.
2. Their entire business strategy is based on tricking people into installing their software. I can’t tell you how many friends I have who call me asking what MacKeeper is and why It’s on their computer. Sure, some people install everything they find, often without knowing. But in all my experience with helping people with computer issues MacKeeper is always (no exaggeration) on the list. Now look at how they advertise… Windows that pop behind the site you’re visiting? The page worded as such… “Click here to scan your Mac for free” – That’s dishonest. The button they want you to click downloads and tries to install the software and this software has a 14-day trial, after that it’s $90 and sorry, that’s not free. Yes, the Lite version is $40 but that does NOT include a “full system fix” just 16 tools. They don’t all work as advertised in the Lite version. And clicking that button isn’t scanning anything. Now why operate this way if you have a great product? It’s a horrible way to begin a customer relationship and it preys on the ignorance of the average user. A majority of the sites (tons of different domain names) that try to get you to download this never mention a price or trial. They just say “download for free” – Even 2 of the 3 official sites for MacKeeper do this. Oh, also during the free trial they offer 24/7 support via phone. When you call it, guess what they do? Tell you the paid version will fix your issue for you, then try to get you to buy it. Sound like tech support or sales? Now look at their home page. They say MacUpdate reviews have them at 4 stars. Click the link, it’s barely 3 stars.
3. When you go to uninstall the software, it’s not easy. Granted I haven’t tried the brand new version, but it wasn’t long ago when I tested this. When you do this, you’re prompted and asked why you’re uninstalling. I’ve never seen a legitimate app do this. When I uninstalled my copy I was taken to their website to further verify I wanted to uninstall while they pitched me on a discounted price to keep it. Are you kidding me? They also say on their support pages that uninstalling does a complete removal and there’s no need for manual uninstall. False. After uninstalling I did a system scan and removed and additional 10+ files left behind at various locations on my system. A few of them required my computer password to delete.
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If all of that isn’t enough, take a look at the lawsuit filed May 2014 (just recently) that claims the software fakes issues & malware to maintain fear and thus a reason to keep it. I can’t verify this from personal experience but the suit claims that no other anti-virus/malware software found any threats on the system. Even when the files were uploaded to online scanners at Symantec & McCafee. Are you telling me MacKeeper is so good, that the industry leaders in security are always behind them on detection? Nonsense. Now look at their “reviews” — The good ones are all on sites that allow review moderation by publishers and/or their reviews are compensated (meaning they can be paid for). I have never seen a reputable, independent source give MacKeeper a good review. Do you find yourself writing articles regarding the horrible reputation and shady practices of BitDefender, Symantec, Sophos, ClamXav or Avast? People might claim they’re unnecessary (they’re not), but I’ve never seen a mass movement of hatred towards them. By the way, 3 of the 5 I listed above are actually FREE on Mac and run brilliantly.
So to address the publisher’s claims about a smear campaign and blind haters… sorry, I gave this app its shot. It disappointed and scared me every step of the way. I’d never recommend it, I’ll never install it again and I’ll always be opposed to this kind of software and those behind it. That said, I’m always open to the possibility they’ll do a complete 180 and write a solid, honest app one day. Until I see some evidence of that, this is an honest and thorough review of where the software stands today.
Shane:
Hear… Hear!
I am an Information security professional and network consultant, and while I don’t run an AV software as a background process on my Mac I do run one (or 2 on occasion) as a stand alone. Both Avira and ClamXav are free and do an excellent job.
As to MacKeeper, I have also tested it and will say outright that, IMHO, it is malware, if for no other reason it tricks people into installing it. This is what phishing scams are all about. That aside your comment about how the software behaves could not be more correct!
The last thing I want to add to your wonderful post is my own experience with regards to my clients who have installed MacKeeper. I can not tell you how many times once I remove ALL of MacKeeper the machine begins to work correctly!
Again, thanks for writing such a complete and detailed post about your test of MacKeeper
Thanks for weighing in, broom! I have noticed articles similar to this one popping up on CNet and other semi-reputable sites lately. They all seems to have the same tone too… Not that MacKeeper is “good” but that it “might” be okay, and then they give way too much of a voice to the software maker while not citing any source for a counter-point. It’s certainly not journalistic. I can only hope readers see it as such.
And I agree with you about it being Malware. Hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re right. It tricks you or at best misleads you into installing it, then won’t fully function until you pay. And if you try and remove it, you’re giving the hard sell. It may not be stealing your bank information or logins, but it’s definitely heavy handed sales and walks a very fine line of digital extortion.
Cheers!
Cultofmac.com is straight-up being paid by MacKeeper. There is no way any mac reviewer could ever write something good about MacKeeper without being endorsed or paid. MacKeeper is a mass-marketed trojan that essentially installs tons of little files far and wide across your hard drive, popping up later to tell you that your computer is slow. It’s pretty much malware and its useless as a piece of software.
“it is so easy for anyone with too much time on their hands to trash businesses or products online”. Seems like Zeobit is the victim here.
Well..let me raise my hand too, and contribute the following simple facts:
1. Having the software installed brought my high end, souped up Mac Pro to a grinding hault.
2. They market more aggressively than any other brand of any product out there. It’s the most annoying, invasive thing on the internet, by far.
I’ve never seen anything like it in the 25 years I’ve used Macs professionally.
It works fine for me. And I am a real person, too.
Hey Rich. Glad to hear it hasn’t caused any issues for you yet. I hope that continues. Can I ask you what you initially got the software for? What problem were you trying to address and which tools that it offers have you used and why? Also, which version did you end up buying? I don’t mean to pry, but I’m curious to know more about your usage situation.
I bought and installed an SSD which gave me less room and wanted a virus protection. I previously used Norton. The app helped in cleaning up my drive. And, for my PC friends I always want to be sure I don’t have viruses in my emails. I have version 3.10 on 2 machines. With my creative work I can’t afford extra stuff on the drive and sluggishness.
I see. I was more curious about which version of MacKeeper you paid for to get those full features. I know there are two paid levels, I think $80 and $120? Also why did you end up choosing MacKeeper which costs so much money for functions that are available for free via Sophos, Avast & ClamXav (virus scanning) then Onyx / Maintenance and others for all the cache cleaning etc..? It sounds like you’re primarily using it for anti-virus? Given that there are so many incredibly well respected anti virus companies offering their products for free on Mac, what is it that drew you to MacKeeper? Thanks for taking the time to respond!
$39 is all i paid and for lifetime updates of virus data and versions. It works and that says something.
Oh okay. I haven’t seen any listing for that product at that price. Did you find it at a discount somewhere? Their site lists $79 as their standard functional release, then another one that’s more than that. I’m not certain the difference though. Did you try out the free alternatives and find they didn’t work? Again, I’m just asking these things to get a sense of what motivated your choice as a lot of my work crosses paths with this kind of software. Thanks again!
Mac just works and one button mouse is either freeing or liberating. It is un-Mac like to have to forage for several free apps. Just make it work. Macs cost more. They work. I have three cars to keep repaired. I don’t want too much geeky tasking and research to service my laptop. The super-geeky will write their own code and I care more about my user experience than how refined the code is. :)
Not sure I’m completely following you here. Macs have had 2 button mice for years. Also, true Mac fashion is to not use system level alteration & file removal utilities. This is one of the reasons MacKeeper gets such flack. Also, all-in-one solutions are typically un-Mac like. Developers tend to make very focused apps that do one thing very well rather than trying to combine a lot of tools into one. MacKeeper offers utilities that might offer some benefit on Windows (depending who you ask), but can actually interfere with OS X’s automated maintenance instead of helping.
You mentioned you use MacKeeper for anti-virus, so I was just curious what compelled you to choose it over the bigger name free solutions for Mac. Did you compare those with MK or did you go with MK because it felt it would work for you and you wouldn’t need to look any further? ‘t terms of not wanting multiple apps, I can certainly understand that but the rest of the maintenance stuff that MacKeeper offers is extremely advanced system level stuff and some of it actually alters system files that shouldn’t be altered without some guidance. That’s why I was asking what issues you were having that motivated you to buy it over the free solutions. Did you find yourself with a hard drive so completely full that you needed to use MacKeeper’s removal of system files to free up 5GB? Was that a big factor or was it primarily the antivirus angle?
Thanks again. If I’m taking up too much of your time, let me know. I appreciate the input. It’s very helpful.
Leander, I hope you got paid well for being Mac Keeper’s shill. If you think its so great why don’t you install your free shill copy on your Mac? Any company who advertises as they do is a sure sign that they care little for the consumer other than taking as much money from him as possible.
Interesting ya at one time only rich clueless yuppies could afford a mac and so they had very small install base vs Apple ][ and IBM PC. few decades later iPhone comes out but you have to have a mac to develop for it. Fortunately two things have happened Apple goes Intel and the Mac Mini is affordable and so Mac starts get a lot more market share. Now the people whom write virus got you on their radar were before their were very few virus.
Next based on the article since he mentions the product in the same context of Norton. Long time ago Norton Utilites, PC Tools, xtree Gold were awsome. The current Norton is BLOAT WARE. Even symantec admits it in their manuals for EndPoint. want real antivirus that has small foot print pay the extra money and get a corporate version or small business Ed.
Haha, well I can’t say I agree with your assessment completely unless you’re talking about the very very early days and maybe some time under Mac OS 9, but I understand what you’re saying. Just a small correction, you don’t need to have a Mac to develop for the iPhone. Although yes, using Xcode (free on any Mac) is incredibly useful and helpful and if you want to release your iPhone app via the official App Store then you will definitely need a Mac when it comes time to publish the code to the store. All the best.
This program is total rubbish. Not the foggiest what it is supposed to do. The advertising is stupid….if anything can put me off Apple it is stupid tripe like this…get it sorted and stop trying to squeeze every last dime out of your customers ! Advertising is driving me nuts
Hi Albert. Just want to help clear something up. This product has nothing to do with Apple. They don’t make it. They don’t even resell it. Sadly there are just shady software companies out there and this is one of them.
MACKEPPER TOTALLY FUCKED UP MY iMac