The only Google software that I have on my Mac is Chrome browser. The new user interface on Mac OS X El Capitan also optimizes the latest IOS 9 which makes it more user-friendly than the Yosemite.When I trying to find out why my cron job doesn’t work (just to be clear, it has nothing to do with what I described in this article) a couple of days ago, I came across tons of quite verbose logs generated by a background daemon called GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent on my MacBook Pro’s system.log. The disk cache optimization included in the new El Capitan. What is Google Software Update?Launching apps on El Capitan is more than twice faster, likewise switching between apps on the new El Capitan is more than 1.5 times faster than Yosemite. Com Review LiarsGoogle Keystone (Google’s codename for its Google Software Update) has “mutated” since I published this article, be sure you read the “Update on July 2019” below.According to the Omaha github page, Omaha is the open-source version of Google Update. This leads me to Google’s github under a project code name Omaha. Google Software Update is used to support software patching (both background updating, and on-demand update checks) for Google Chrome, Earth, and a variety of other Google products on at least Mac and Windows as far as I know (and it probably on Linux platform as well).According to Google, “in order to provide greater transparency and to make the technology available to other applications, the Google Update technology is open source” (Quoted from “Google Chrome Privacy Whitepaper”). Google Update on some of Google websites) is a program to install requested software and keep it up to date and running in the background without your knowledge on your computer. Some of the popular free ones are Google Chrome (Software Update (a.k.a.But to bad guys, this is an open source software that could be twisted and disguised to be malware or spyware. For a few good guys, this could be a tool provide seamless update with good user experience. Try to imaging that any software can use Omaha to securely install a piece of software on my Mac without my explicit permission and sending information about my usage patterns. This actually make me very uncomfortable.
Chrome S El Capitan Mac OS X El Capitanit can’t be configured via a setting menu it frequently sending data back to Google without your knowledge it install in your computer without explicit asking for your permission, nor giving the options to decline it It also send Google information such as usage frequency and number of active profiles, etc.To be fair, all the information described seems to be harmless, but what I don’t understand is why Google make it behaves like a malware? What will you think if I’m telling you that there is a piece of software that: Best roms for macHow to change Google Software Update interval?To find out the available default settings of Google Software Update, Mac’s command-line command defaults (which is used by Mac OS to manage your Preference Panel) come in handy, launch terminal.app and run this command:Defaults read com.google.Keystone.Agent.plistFor those users who never use terminal.app, it can be find from LaunchPad/Other/Terminal or Finder/Applications/Utilities/TerminalIt will look something like this, depending on the Google apps you have installed and how long it has been installed.LastRollCallPingDate = " 08:00:00 +0000" "ping_freshness" = "185764A0-9BC7-4A8D-AEDC-xxxxxxxxxxxx" "ping_freshness" = "75D4020E-0E22-4BBA-9749-xxxxxxxxxxxx" "firstRun-1.2.2.554" = " 07:08:17 +0000" "firstRun-1.2.3.738" = " 07:09:12 +0000" "firstRun-1.2.4.919" = " 01:38:45 +0000" "firstRun-user-1.2.9.98" = " 10:56:30 +0000" "lastCheck-1.2.3.738" = " 10:08:31 +0000" "lastCheck-1.2.4.919" = " 06:24:37 +0000" "lastCheck-1.2.7.43" = " 09:56:14 +0000" "lastCheck-1.2.8.57" = " 06:51:51 +0000" "lastCheck-1.2.8.82" = " 03:44:58 +0000" "lastCheck-user-1.2.9.98" = " 07:51:29 +0000" Notice that there is a setting as checkInterval = 18000 , this means that Google will check the update every 5 hours (3600 x 5 = 18000 seconds) by default.This is based on the settings from my Mac Mini running OS X El Capitan (10.11.6) with Google Chrome. Here are my methods that work on Mac OS El Capitan (10.11.6) and MacOS High Sierra (10.13.2) on my Mac Mini and MacBook Pro. The methods changed as both the Mac OS and Google Software Update evolving over the years. How to disable Google Software UpdateSince this is a know issue that can traced back to Google Earth in 2009, there are ton of tutorials, stack overflow discussions on how to disable it or uninstall it. But judging from the history dated back to 2009, I don’t have much hope on that. and it will re-install by itself if you delete it.With all the information that I collected so far, I think it make sense that many Google Chrome users would want to remove the automatic software installer until such point as Google change it to behave less like a malware and give its users an ability to control the settings. How to uninstall Google Software Update?The Google Software Update is not visible from the Mac Graphic User Interface (GUI) as it is located in a hidden ~/Library/Google/ directory.Sudo rm -R ~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/This will delete Google Software Update, however, if you run Google Chrome (or other Google Apps) again, it will invite itself in and reinstall the Google Software Update without your knowledge as soon as you launch Google Chrome or other Google App, doesn’t this behave like a malware or virus?To prevent Google apps reinstall the Google Software Update again, we will create a dummy file with the same name but assign the file ownership to root user instead of the username that you are currently using. If however you share my concerns and dislike this malware alike behaviour, and want to remove Google Software Update altogether, then follow the next step. To change the value, run the following command in the terminal:Defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 604800This is sufficient to most of the users. If we change the value to 0, it will basically no longer sending data to Google.
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