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MacKeeper: the Swiss army knife of Mac utilities
[September 26, 2011]

MacKeeper: the Swiss army knife of Mac utilities


Sep 26, 2011 (The Pueblo Chieftain - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Zeobits' MacKeeper is a collection of Macintosh system utilities that work in harmony to keep Macs secure, virus free and optimized for peak performance.



The application is broken down into five major categories: security, data control, cleaning, optimization and "geek on demand." The security module includes full Zeobit Antivirus software to protect your Mac from all known virus and phishing attacks. It also includes anti-theft software that helps you recover your Mac by providing a location report and an iSight photo of the thief in the event the computer is stolen.

The data control module includes several utilities to help you back up your data, keep your personal data private and help you recover accidentally deleted files. There also is an online storage component called ZeoDisk that is labeled as coming soon. ZeoDisk promises to allow you to back up and store data to a secure online-storage facility. Share files with your friends and sync data between multiple devices using the service.


Although all of the details have not been finalized, the basic version of the ZeoDisk service will be included for existing customers.

The cleaning module includes a collection of utilities to help optimize your system, including a fast cleanup utility that finds and removes junk files on your hard drive with just a couple of clicks. There are also specialized utilities to help you recover even more of your precious storage space. The initial run of quick cleanup yielded 1.7GB of space on my work Mac and 1.5GB of space on my laptop.

The optimization module includes three utilities, update tracker, log-in items and default apps manager.

The update tracker allows you to scan your system to see what applications are installed and will check online for available updates. All installed apps are marked as up to date (green) or out of date (red). When there is a beta update available, it is indicated in yellow.

We did run into a problem using the update tracker feature of the optimization module. The program correctly identified which programs were up to date and which applications needed to be updated. However, we received an "image data corrupted error" any time we started the download from within the optimization module.

Running the same utility on my Lion-based Mac laptop worked without any problems; the applications were correctly updated without incident. I wasn't able to determine the exact cause of the problem using the module on my work network.

Login Items enables you to select which applications will start up during your Mac's login. Default apps presents an editable list of associations between file extensions and the applications that open them.

"Geek on demand" lets you ask questions to any technical issue, surprisingly even technical issues or buying advice totally unrelated to MacKeeper. Zeobits promises an answer within 48 hours, but limits assistance requests (called demands) to one at a time.

MacKeeper's clean user interface makes using the integrated utilities simple and elegant.

Even a novice user should have no problems using all of the features offered in this robust utility. In the event you do have a problem, help is readily available. There are several layers of support, including: - An online manual.

- A video tutorial on the feature you are having trouble with.

- Email support with a 24-hour response time.

- Live chat or toll-free customer support.

MacKeeper can help protect Mac computers from viruses and malware, as well as resolve minor problems before they turn into major headaches.

MacKeeper offers three versions starting at $38.95 for a basic Mac license with email support. Zeobit also offers a free 15-day trial version, which can be downloaded at http://mackeeper.zeobit.com/download.

The one feature not part of the MacKeeper bundle that would be on my wish list is a firewall utility.

-- Zeobit provided a complimentary copy of MacKeeper for this review.

___ (c)2011 The Pueblo Chieftain (Pueblo, Colo.) Visit The Pueblo Chieftain (Pueblo, Colo.) at www.chieftain.com Distributed by MCT Information Services

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