OnyX (Snow Leopard) for Mac User Reviews
Very good
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"Useful for quick system tweaking."
Version: OnyX (Snow Leopard) 2.3.5
Pros
A useful system tweaking utility in all ways
Cons
Auto-download update is entirely too SLLLLOOOOOW!!!
Summary
The link gives you Onyx for Lion and not Snow Leopard.
The "Download Now" link gives you Onyx for OS Lion and not Snow Leopard.
Updated on Jan 1, 2012 -
"Does what it says and does it for FREE without frills."
Version: OnyX (Snow Leopard) 2.3.4
Pros
Automates and relieves the user of many tedious command-line interactions and makes otherwise unobtainable or "obscure" maintenance chores and quick-fixes accessible to all users through the familiar for all normal GUI windowed-environment.
Cons
Leaves people fewer reasons to learn how to use Terminal by removing the necessity to use Terminal for these most common procedures by making them GUI'd and putting them all into one app.
One real gripe would be that there generally aren't "progress" indicators for many things to let you know if it has stalled or failed... The log is only good with what information it contains after the fact and you can't read it real-time. On most tasks, lack of status would be because it is relying on actual Terminal commands themselves that don't generally give progress reports except a failed or possible success (lack of failure) so its logs can only be as good as their behavior would be in Terminal, except in Terminal, you could read the output in real-time and abort if you didn't like what you saw....Lengthy maintenance scripts "periodic weekly" forever to complete, leaves one wondering if it has frozen sometimes... Too bad it doesn't allow use of "periodic WEEKLY" which is more verbose.Summary
Does what's promised for FREE. Great for starting users who want to optimize their systems (if careful as to which things they do) and good for all users who just want to do one particular thing that is normally only done in Terminal or with any other number of guessable programs with one program that seems to do it all or most things that can be anyways. Unfortunately just the nature of the beast, the Terminal command backend that it runs is not itself a very verbose environment unless instructed to be so in many cases and by default therefore OnyX obscures the more useful feedback that could be provided in its logs if it ran more advanced or verbosely specified versions of the commands so it won't appeal to some advanced users more familiar with Terminal who want more control over the process and better feedback.. but it's FREE so you can't complain about it too harshly now... :)
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"Very useful & appreciated maintenance tool."
Version: OnyX (Snow Leopard) 2.3.3
Pros
Seamless, error-free and comprehensive. I use it on a regular basis to maintain my MacBook Pro.
Cons
I have no negative comments.
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"Excellent Once I got the start up cleaned up"
Version: OnyX (Snow Leopard) 2.3.3
Pros
No explanation of what benefits I am getting and what is redundant.
Cons
Needs an explanation of how to use it and get the maximum out of the a great addition to the Mac.
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"Good serviceable maintenance utility"
Version: OnyX (Snow Leopard) 2.3.3
Pros
* Many options
* Easy to use
* FreeCons
Not surprisingly, release-dependant. Not a flaw.
Summary
Hard to beat at the price.
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"Easy to use and does what it says"
Version: OnyX (Snow Leopard) 2.3.3
Pros
Even a beginner can figure it out! I have it running on a G4 PowerBook with 10.4; a MacBook Pro with 10.5 and an iMac with 10.6; It's free!
Cons
Cleaning up Disk Permissions takes a long time!
Summary
Very useful tool for several operating systems. I use it every month.
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"Good App for Maintainence without using command line"
Version: OnyX (Snow Leopard) 2.3.0
Pros
You don't have to launch the Terminal; you get to pick from available commands through a series of categorized menus; free, and does almost the same things that Cocktail, and others, does.
Cons
You must be at least a mid-level geek: you have to know what the default and alternatives mean; you have to know when to choose them; you must also use disk management tools, whether Disk Utility or DiskWarrior, before using this maintenance tool.
Summary
For people who know their Macs and aren't afraid of tweaking and optimizing some settings, this tool consolidates many UNIX and OS X command line tasks in a convenient, easy-to-use, maintenance app. While there are many powerful commands to clear the cruft from your drive, most default commands in Onyx simply clear the basics, or reset logs and caches to try to eliminate problems at a meta-level.
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"Tweaks and tools for those who don't know command line."
Version: OnyX (Snow Leopard) 2.3.0
Pros
Allows you to force the processing of maintenance tasks. Customize some of the quirky sides of OSX Snow Leopard.
Cons
Some of the changes may cause disastrous affects if not implemented properly. Reminds me of the village idiot who sees the red button and is told "Don't press that" and he says "why" as he goes to press it.
Summary
Allows users who aren't fluent in command line to access a lot of features that otherwise would not be available. Use carefully, a number of the options come with warnings (IE: don't do it this one unless you are a real techie). Also gives you the opportunity to force some cleaning functions to run. Some say "But Apple takes care of it automatically" and that may be but I'm been able to get improvement from running Onyx when I see things start to slow down. Some things are just nice options (Hiding Ping in iTunes for example was there when Ping was launched)
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"Works fine if you know its limitations"
Version: OnyX (Snow Leopard) 2.2.9
Pros
I have used Onyx for a few years now and it keeps getting better.
Cons
Will lock up for a long time on permission repairs - to overcome this use Disk Utility first to repair permissions - if that's successful then run Onyx on Automatic and tick all options - seems to run better after that.
Summary
I have found Onyx to be an extremely useful tool for helping bogged down computers. It's part of my arsenal in running 100 plus machines on a school network.
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"Handy tool...or at least it was..."
Version: OnyX (Snow Leopard) 2.2.9
Pros
Lots of options as well as preset scripts to run
Cons
Somewhat confusing options for the inexperienced. No Lion compatibility.
Summary
I have used this app for some time to do regular maintenance, especially on my MacBook Pro that doesn't regularly stay on al night (when normal built-in maintenance is done by the OS).
But it appears that OnyX isn't compatible with OS X Lion yet... please update!
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