Clean Caches 1.3 — The Review

Every letter of the alphabet: that's how this gem finds the straightest path from A to B - from A through C, then D, then E, then F, then G...

Why didn't the 'install' work? Two reasons. Maybe three.

1. There was nothing inside the package. Nothing. [A quick perusal with Pacifist verifies this.]

2. All this contraption wanted to do was exploit Apple's installer to run a simple drool-proof Unix shell script. But to do this it needed your admin password. Which, if you were smart, you didn't give it.

3. The Apple installer might also burp because it's not exactly expecting to be asked to install nothing at all.

Whatever. It's time to find out who these geniuses are.

SISU Works - 'Simplicity Breeds Elegance'

Registrant:
   Jeremy Matthews
   566 Saddell Bay Loop
   Ocoee, Florida 34761
   United States

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Five — The Aftermath

At time of writing, 502 people succumbed to the temptation to try this 'software' out. An unknown number of systems were damaged as a result.

• There are no instructions to users what this process entails.
• There are no cautions about open programs, need to reboot, anything. Zip.
• The potential for system damage here is more than palatable - it's reeking.

'Sisu' is a Finnish word approximately equating to 'moxie'. Finns are noted for getting notoriously inebriated and behaving in a real 'sisu' way.

The connotation seems to fit this gem of a software company nicely.

And food for thought: what chance do Apple and their OS X platform have in the international Unix community with things like this getting around?

Six — Comments

You've. Got. To. Be. Kidding. I can think of an existing app that's already in OS X that does the same thing - Finder. If you can't find your way to ~/Library/Caches or /Library/Caches and delete the problematic files then you need your head checked. And deleting system caches will cause more headaches than it's worth - it is not 'routine maintenance'.
 - alphasubzero949

Where are these people coming from? How did so many of our fellow humans get to be this way? I'm at the point where I sincerely believe there must be some sort of global virus or type of disease (perhaps environmentally mediated via our pollutants) that is in some way affecting our cognitive abilities. There seems to be no spatial or temporal pattern as to who is affected or where these afflictions occur.
 - René Borghese, PhD

Seven — Credits

Alphasubzero949 did the reconnaissance on this one.

Eight — The Version Bump Retreat

SISU have responded to criticism of Clean Caches by bumping the version number to 3.0 - but otherwise basically continuing with a bad thing. They have also contacted a US professor who they assumed was behind one of the quotes in this article. Said professor contacted us. We corrected the typo - and sent a strong warning to SISU. Threats don't wash easy with some people.

Nine — Do NOT Leave It To Beaver

Is it another utility? Yes
 - Jerry Mathers

Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
 - Hugh Beaumont, Barbara Billingsley, Tony Dow

Clean Caches is not another utility. Utilities are authored by programmers. Jerry Mathers is not a programmer. Jerry Mathers doesn't even have an ordinary brain.

Jerry Mathers got himself an ace diploma from Apple, which in the bigger world outside means nothing except that real administrators laugh themselves silly over him - and Apple.

Clean Caches is a dangerous thing. It is dangerous because it can harm your computer. It is dangerous because it is so stupid and because anyone capable of coming up with such a stupid idea is by definition extremely dangerous.

It is dangerous because Jerry Mathers is clueless to these dangers and consequently can't warn people about them. It is dangerous because it asks for your admin password without telling you why. It is dangerous because it uses Apple code in a way that code is never supposed to be used.

Finally, it is dangerous because leading researchers in abnormal psychology will be fighting tooth and claw to get first dibs on Jerry Mathers' brain.

There are a surprising number of OS X 'utilities' that go beyond comprehension and vie for the title 'THE STUPIDEST POS EVER WRITTEN' and Clean Caches qualifies except for the fact that it's not really software.

But it's up there in the running for the stupidest idea ever concocted by a bipedal primate and it has few competitors. Very few.

Of that Jerry Mathers can be proud.