How do I get rid of Adobe Download Akamai software on a Mac?

I installed Adobe's Download Manager Software when I was downloading a CS4 trial. It was called Akamai. I can not seem to get rid of this pesky thing.

I have Little Snitch installed so I was annoyed that it showed that this app would phone home for updates every login. I felt this was an unnecessary process I wanted rid of.

I've uninstalled it using App Cleaner. Now on login the Akamai app does not produce any Little Snitch prompts. "SoftwareUpdateCheck" does.

SoftwareUpdateCheck wants to connect to a950.gi3.akamai.net on TCP 80.

SoftwareUpdateCheck is /System/Library/CoreServices/

How do I rid myself of this?

Mac OS X 10.6

3 Answers

Akamai is a Content Delivery Network (CDN) company that large companies use to distribute their content.

In your case, Adobe's software was being distributed via that network, and it appears that you may have removed the offending software. Akamai is not directly related to Adobe, rather Adobe was using Akamai's services.

SoftwareUpdateCheck is Apple's software updater, and Apple as well uses Akamai as one CDN to distribute their updates. You do not want to remove this software as it is necessary for Apple OS and software updates.

So how do I stop Apple's software updater to stop checking for Akamai?

Turn off Software Update.

If that doesn't work, add a950.gi3.akamai.net to your hosts file as 127.0.0.1 at /private/etc/

Your Mileage May Vary as to what breaks.

On Mac OS X, Java applets are also cached. To clear the cache and remove the Akamai Download Manager, do the following:

1. Go to /Applications/Utilities/Java and double-click Java Preferences.
2. Click Security.
3. Click Delete Files to delete all Cached applets, or click View Cache Files and Select Application(s) named *dlm-java-*************.jar*
4. Click Remove.