Zeobit LLC (stylized as ZeoBIT) was a technology and

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

company formed in 2009 by CEO Slava Kolomiychuk and located in

Sunnyvale, California Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwest Santa Clara County in the U.S. state of California. Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real and Highway 101 and is bordered by portions of San Jose to the nort ...

. The company specialized in computer security software and internet security. As of December 2016, it is no longer in business. Zeobit is best known for the bundled utility software

MacKeeper MacKeeper is a cleanup utility for macOS. MacKeeper was developed by ZeoBIT, later acquired by Kromtech, and is currently owned by Clario Tech. MacKeeper has a troubled and litigious history. Zeobit settled a class action lawsuit accusing them ...

. The software has received mixed reviews with reviewers being very divided as to the effectiveness of the product.

History

Zeobit LLC was incorporated in September 2009 in the US State of

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

by Slava Kolomiychuk. Zeobit has a management headquarters in

and partnership offices in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

that house developers and the customer support. In March 2010 their first product,

(for

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

) was released and in September 2010 PCKeeper (for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

) was released. On May 13, 2010, the first beta version of MacKeeper, version 0.8, was released. On October 4, 2010, PCKeeper (MacKeeper's equivalent for Windows PCs) (version 1.1.48) was released. On October 26, 2010, Zeobit released MacKeeper 1.0. On January 30, 2012, MacKeeper 2.0 was released with updates in security, data control, cleaning and optimization. In 2014, a Pennsylvania woman filed a class action lawsuit against Zeobit LLC, claiming that the company's computer security program identifies problems that don't exist and generates false error messages to scare users into purchasing an upgrade. (see Holly Yencha, et al. v. Zeobit LLC, Case No. 2:13-cv-00578, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.) According to the complaint filed in US District court, "Once installed, MacKeeper prompts the user to conduct a diagnostic scan", the MacKeeper class action lawsuit says. "This scan purportedly detects errors that lead to the problems identified in Zeobit's marketing materials (i.e., performance issues, security and privacy threats)—problems that MacKeeper is supposedly designed to fix." However, the Zeobit class action lawsuit alleges that after the diagnostic scan is completed, MacKeeper reports that it identified thousands of issues that cause the computer to be in "critical" condition. While the trial version of MacKeeper purports to "fix" a limited number of the issues, customers are encouraged to purchase a full, registered version of the security software to fully repair the computer. Yencha alleges that neither the free trial nor the full versions of MacKeeper perform reliable diagnostic testing of the computer. "Instead, Zeobit intentionally designed MacKeeper to invariably and ominously report that a user's Mac needs repair and is at-risk due to harmful (but fabricated) errors, privacy threats, and other computer problems, regardless of the computer's actual condition", the class action lawsuit alleges. The Class Action was settled in 2015 with no admission of wrongdoing and customers were given refunds.

Products

MacKeeper

is utility software for macOS that claims to provide tools for security, cleaning, optimization and data control. MacKeeper and Zeobit were the official sponsors of the MacWorld / iWorld expo in San Francisco, California in 2011 & 2012. It was acquired by Kromtech Alliance Corp in May 2013. MacKeeper is often criticized for unethical marketing tactics, including

pop-up advertising Pop-up ads or pop-ups are forms of online advertising on the World Wide Web. A pop-up is a graphical user interface (GUI) display area, usually a small window, that suddenly appears ("pops up") in the foreground of the visual interface. The pop-u ...

and buying domain names similar to the names of other antivirus programs. Zeobit claims their affiliates were responsible for the advertising accused as unethical. MacKeeper is sometimes referred to as a

potentially unwanted program A potentially unwanted program (PUP) or potentially unwanted application (PUA) is software that a user may perceive as unwanted or unnecessary. It is used as a subjective tagging criterion by security and parental control products. Such software ma ...

and is detected by some antivirus programs.

PCKeeper

PCKeeper is a bundle of most important system utilities for performing different tasks on the PС, such as antivirus, data control and optimization tools, drive clean-up utilities and much more. According to Virus Bulletin, PCKeeper has scored 91.9% in RAP test and was listed as number 6 antivirus in the world.Virus Bulletin
/ref> It was acquired by Kromtech Alliance Corp in May 2013.

ZeoDisk

The ZeoDisk project is a cloud storage solution that will also be integrated in to the existing Zeobit products.

Ratings and reviews

Zeobit was a member of the Better Business Bureau. It had an F rating, due to complaints about its advertising and the quality of its products.ZeoBIT, LLC Business Review in Sunnyvale, California

References

{{Reflist

External links

Zeobit website (archived)MacKeeper websitePCKeeper website
Software companies based in California Computer security software companies Companies based in Sunnyvale, California Defunct software companies of the United States American companies established in 2009