I ran the Mackeeper software that advertised all over the place on the web. It seems to be very thorough in finding things that are slowing down your machine — the junk files left behind because program coders are lazy, other tweaks to aid the machine. It’s getting good reviews on line..problem: it will find the stuff and not do anything about it until you shell out $40. I wouldn’t mind that if it had at least given me one free cleaning — most of the Mac applications that have a free trial will do this, at the very least. (This is the big scam for most Mac “freeware” — you download and can use the program, but when you go to update virus definition or the like, they hit you for money at that point. I’d rather they simply charged for the product up front.)

So I deleted it. On Macs, it’s supposed to be easy…drop it in the trash and empty. Save, thanks to lazy code monkeys, there’s always crap left behind. In this case, Mackeeper — which is not woven itself through everything — won’t shut down services when you quit the program. So it won’t delete. It’s frustrating and the tech support people treat you like an idiot.

I’m not a Mac savant; I just started using the OS, but I’ve managed to keep the computer pretty clean and running well. Here’s what you have to do to get Mackeeper off your machine if it’s being recalcitrant: You have to okay through all the services still up and running, and then restart the computer. It should remove the program.

It looks like it might run well, but there’s really no way to tell unless you pony up the $40.