Some 13 million customers of MacKeeper, an anti-virus program for OS X, had their personal data exposed recently due to a major security oversight in the configuration of MacKeeper’s internal customer database. The customer data included full names, usernames, email addresses, hashes of passwords, phone numbers, IP addresses, system info, and other personal information.

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The breach contained a massive 21 gigabytes of customer data and the news was shared publicly in a Reddit post by security researcher, Chris Vickery, after a failed attempt to contact Kromtech, the company behind MacKeeper, as reported over at Forbes.

As many in the original Reddit thread have noted, MacKeeper’s reputation among Apple fans isn’t exactly golden. The company has long been accused of underhanded marketing tactics.

• Likewise, in response to Vickery's Dec. 14 Reddit post, another user claimed: 'MacKeeper has been known for a while to be a complete sham. I work in tech support. I work in tech support.
• Many users will see references to an application called MacKeeper on various web sites and via pop-ups on their browser. Not only is it expensive for what it purports to do (freeware applications that do the same or more are readily available), it can sometimes install itself without the user realising it, and it can be very tricky to get rid of.
• MacKeeper Promo Code 25% Off 😍 Keep Your Mac Fast Safe and Clean From Malware Antiviruses protect you from malware. VPNs hide what you do online. MacKeeper does both, plus optimizes your Mac performance with a 24/7 personal tech expert by your side. From malware to hacking, we have your back. You never know where a cyberthreat will come from.
• Before you uninstall MacKeeper. Make sure you have admin rights to your device, and you know your Mac admin password; Check your MacKeeper version: open the app, click MacKeeper in the top-left corner, and select About MacKeeper; Keep your files safe! Before removing MacKeeper 3.x, remember that.

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It’s believed that Vickery was unaware of what he’d stumbled upon and didn’t know who or what Kromtech, Zeobit, or MacKeeper were. No exploit was used to hack the servers – they were simply left unsecured without a username or password protecting the data.

Once contact was made with Kromtech, the company responded promptly by closing off the server from public access and posting an advisory on their blog as a notice to their customers. While the passwords in the database were hashed, the MD5 standard used to protect them has long been known to have issues making it easy to crack and expose passwords contained in the database.

If you use this software, you should change your password on MacKeeper’s site as well as on any other sites where you might have used the same password. As was reported in the Forbes article:

“The company admitted to FORBES it was using MD5 but was in the process of upgrading to SHA512 . It will be resetting passwords too, but said the decision wasn’t connected to the leak, though it has spurred the company on to make changes.”

In this digital age with more and more information being stored online, it’s important to select a unique password that is not easily guessable for each and every site that you have an account on. Password managers like 1Password and others reviewed here on SecureMac provide an easy and effective way to do this without the need to memorize multiple passwords.

MacKeeper is an application that is designed to help you uninstall apps, get rid of junk files, and carry out other tasks that keep your Mac running smoothly and free of clutter. It includes tools that securely erase files and perform backups, among many other features.

However, in the past, it has been heavily promoted on the web using methods which MacRumors calls “unrealistic claims.”

Once installed, MacKeeper has a range of tools to help you keep your Mac running smoothly. But Sophos and Malwarebytes even viewed it as a potentially unwanted program, a form of malware.

Whatever the reason, many Mac users who have installed MacKeeper decide that they want to remove it. However, its removal is a process that may involve a lot of steps. MacKeeper places files in several folders on your Mac, making it even more difficult to remove the app from your device. However, we’ll show you how to uninstall it for good.

How to delete MacKeeper from your Mac

There are several different steps needed to completely remove MacKeeper from your Mac. These are:

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• Delete MacKeeper from the menu bar
• Uninstall the application
• Delete the files left behind
• Remove browser extensions and cookies

Now we will address each of the steps in detail to make it clearer how to free your Mac of MacKeeper.

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Delete MacKeeper from your Mac’s menu bar

Clicking on the menu bar illustrates one of the ways in which MacKeeper makes itself difficult to remove or even stop running. There’s no Quit command. And it doesn’t want you to Force Quit either. So, to delete MacKeeper from your Mac’s menu bar you need to:

1. Go to your Applications folder and double-click MacKeeper to launch it.
2. Click on the MacKeeper menu on the left of the menu bar and choose Preferences.
3. Choose the General tab.
4. Uncheck the box labeled Show MacKeeper icon in the menu bar.
5. Quit MacKeeper. Ignore any prompts to activate it or sign up for any services.

Uninstall MacKeeper

1. Go back to the Applications folder.
2. Locate the MacKeeper app and drag it to the Trash.
3. If you’re prompted for your administrator password, type it in and click Ok.
4. You might then see another pop-up (it’s very persistent) asking whether you are sure you want to uninstall MacKeeper. Type in your username and password again and press Ok.
5. Once it’s deleted, a window may launch in Safari asking you to complete a survey on mackeeper.com to explain why you uninstalled it. You can either share your opinion or safely ignore it.

How to get rid of the rest of MacKeeper files

1. In the Finder, click on the Go menu and type the following into the box: ~/Library
2. Locate the following files in the Library folder and drag them to the Trash.

/Application Support/MacKeeper Helper (this one is a folder, delete the whole folder)

/Caches/com.mackeeper.MacKeeper

/Caches/com.mackeeper.MacKeeper.Helper

/LaunchAgents/com.mackeeper.MacKeeper.Helper.plist

/Application Support/MacKeeper Helper

/LaunchDaemons/com.mackeeper.MacKeeper.plugin.AntiTheft.daemon.plist

3. Empty the Trash.

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How to uninstall MacKeeper the easy way

If all that seems like quite a lot of effort to get rid of MacKeeper, there is an easier way. CleanMyMac X has an Uninstaller tool that can remove MacKeeper and pretty much any other app in a few clicks. The benefit of using CleanMyMac X instead of uninstalling the app manually is that you can be sure that you will get rid of all the files MacKeeper installed on your Mac. CleanMyMac X scans your Mac to make sure that none of the associated files will be left cluttering up your startup drive. Here’s how it works.

1. Download and launch CleanMyMac X — get a free version here
2. Choose Uninstaller in the left-hand sidebar.
3. Locate MacKeeper in the main window and check the box next to it.
4. Press Uninstall.

That’s all there is to it! As you can see on the screenshot, MacKeeper creates lots of additional files but CleanMyMac X will remove them for you.

Go to the Optimization tab in CleanMyMac X and find Launch Agents.
Now, tick 'MacKeeper agent' and delete it from the list.

But why delete one Mac cleaning app with another? Well...many people indeed put all Mac cleaning apps in the same box. But in this particular case, the devil is in the details. CleanMyMac X is a different software that is notarized by Apple. “Notarized” means it’s been verified as a safe cleaning utility.

Seeing pop-ups? Here’s how to get rid of them

Depending on how you downloaded MacKeeper and where you downloaded it from, you might see a bunch of pop-ups in Safari after you download it. Fortunately, it’s not too difficult to get rid of them. Here’s what you need to do.

1. Quit Safari. If the pop-ups are preventing it from quitting, press Command-Option-Escape and choose Safari from the list of apps in the window that opens to force quit it.
2. Launch Safari again, but this time hold down the Shift key to stop the windows from the last session re-opening.
3. Click on the Safari menu and choose Preferences, then select the Extensions tab.
4. Look for any extensions you didn’t intend to install and select on. Press Uninstall.
5. Repeat step 4 for any other extensions you didn't need.
6. Now, choose the Privacy tab.
7. Press Manage Website Data.
8. In the Search box, type MacKeeper to search for any cache files or cookies. If you find any, select them and press Remove.

How to remove Mackeeper pop-ups in Chrome

1. Launch Chrome.
2. In the address bar, type: chrome://extensions
3. Check for any extensions you didn’t install and click on the Remove button next to them.
4. Now type: chrome://settings.
5. Click on Advanced at the bottom of the page.
6. In the Privacy and Security section, look for Clear browsing data and click on it.
7. Click on the Time Range menu and choose All Time.
8. Make sure Cookies and other site data is checked and click Clear Data.

That’s quite a long process, but there is an easier way. CleanMyMac X can remove Extensions and clear website data like cache files and cookies in just a couple of clicks. Here’s how to do it.

1. Download and install CleanMyMac X if you haven't already done it.
2. Launch CleanMyMac X.
3. Choose Extensions in the sidebar.
4. Click View All Extensions.
5. Select the extensions you want to get rid of and press Remove.
6. Now, click on the Privacy section in the sidebar and then press Scan.
7. When it’s finished scanning, click on Safari, or whichever browser you use, to see the items available for removal.
8. Check the box next to the items, eg Browser History, you want to delete.
9. Press Remove.

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Still having problems with pop-ups?

It’s possible that even after clearing out cache files and cookies you will still see MacKeeper pop-up ads. To prevent that, the best idea is to use an ad-blocker. There are several ad-blockers for Safari on the Mac App Store. Not all ad-blockers are the same, though. Some work better than others, and some block content that doesn’t advertise anything. So do your research before choosing the best ad-blocker to install.

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MacKeeper is an application that is designed to clean up your Mac and improve its performance by clearing out junk files, uninstalling apps, scanning for malware, and performing optimization routines. Thanks to its extensive advertising campaign, which uses a number of different techniques that may be found intrusive, it has found its way on to many Mac machines over the years. And when those users come to uninstall it, they often find it’s not as easy as it should be.

The good news is that if you follow the steps above, you can delete MacKeeper and remove all of the files this app puts on your Mac. If you want to optimize the deletion process and make sure your Mac isn’t cluttered by associated files, CleanMyMac X can help.