What is ksfetch process on Mac?

Solution 1:

Keystone Fetch / ksfetch

The ksfetch process on OS X is part of Google Chrome's update mechanism. The ks prefix is an abbreviation of Keystone. The process appears to be responsible for fetching updates to Google's products. It is this role that uses your bandwidth.

Using slick's answer you can disable the corresponding process that uses ksfetch.

Alternatively, it appears possible to adjust the frequency of update checks:

Entering the following code into your terminal will make it check once a week rather than every few hours:
defaults write com.google.Keystone.Agent checkInterval 604800

To learn more about, follow the links below:

Little Snitch + Google Chrome = ksfetch issues
ksfetch, little-snitch, the escalation of mutually fooling …

Solution 2:

Yes, you can disable it.

To do this just for you in Terminal type:

~/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/install.py --uninstall

for all users:

/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/install.py --uninstall

On some machines it's ksinstall instead of install.py.

Solution 3:

You can uninstall it, type /Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/ksinstall --help to see available options.

--nuke can uninstall everything related to it, just like this: /Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/ksinstall --nuke

Solution 4:

They have changed this command to --nuke instead of --uninstall and the path is now different as well. So the new command for all users would be:

/Library/Google/GoogleSoftwareUpdate/GoogleSoftwareUpdate.bundle/Contents/Resources/GoogleSoftwareUpdateAgent.app/Contents/Resources/ksinstall --nuke