MacBook became slow after upgrading to Mavericks

Question

Since upgrading to Mavericks my MacBook Pro has become very slow. I did several things so far: Repairing permissions and Disk with Disk Utility and running OnyX. Both helped temporarily, but after a while everything becomes very slow again. Do I have junk software on my machine that's draining resources? Is there not enough RAM? Activity Monitor shows 0 bytes Swap Used in Memory. Etrecheck shows some Page-outs in red, don't know how to interpret that.
Here's the Etrecheck report:
Hardware Information:
          MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2.53GHz, Mid 2009)
          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,4
          1 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2 cores
          4 GB RAM
Video Information:
          NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - VRAM: 256 MB
System Software:
          OS X 10.9.2 (13C64) - Uptime: 10 days 23:29:53
Disk Information:
          Hitachi HTS545025B9SA02 disk0 : (250.06 GB)
                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 249.2 GB (157.07 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
          MATSHITADVD-R   UJ-868 
USB Information:
          Apple Internal Memory Card Reader
          Apple Inc. Built-in iSight
          Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
          Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
FireWire Information:
Thunderbolt Information:
Launch Daemons:
          [System] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist 3rd-Party support link
Launch Agents:
          [System] com.google.keystone.agent.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [System] com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist 3rd-Party support link
User Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.citrixonline.GoToMeeting.G2MUpdate.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [not loaded] com.connexio.sync.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [not loaded] com.divx.agent.postinstall.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [not loaded] com.google.GoogleContactSyncAgent.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [not loaded] com.spotify.webhelper.plist 3rd-Party support link
          [not loaded]          UCM
User Login Items:
          Clipboard History
          Google Chrome
          Google Drive
          Dropbox
          Skype
Internet Plug-ins:
          o1dbrowserplugin: Version: 5.2.4.18058 3rd-Party support link
          Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: 7.1 3rd-Party support link
          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
          Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 3.2.0.16   - SDK 10.8 3rd-Party support link
          RealPlayer Plugin: Version: (null) 3rd-Party support link
          Silverlight: Version: 5.1.10411.0 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 12.0.0.77 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          Flash Player: Version: 12.0.0.77 - SDK 10.6 3rd-Party support link
          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
          googletalkbrowserplugin: Version: 5.2.4.18058 3rd-Party support link
          iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0
          JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 7 Update 51 3rd-Party support link
Safari Extensions:
          Ghostery: Version: 5.1.0
          ClickToFlash: Version: 2.9.2
          DivX Plus Web Player HTML5 <video>: Version: 2.1.2.172
          Licorize: Version: 1.1
          Zootool: Version: 0.7
Audio Plug-ins:
          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9
          AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9
          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9
          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
iTunes Plug-ins:
          Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9
User Internet Plug-ins:
          CitrixOnlineWebDeploymentPlugin: Version: 1.0.105 3rd-Party support link
          WebEx: Version: 1.0 3rd-Party support link
3rd Party Preference Panes:
          Flash Player  3rd-Party support link
          Flip4Mac WMV  3rd-Party support link
          FUSE for OS X (OSXFUSE)  3rd-Party support link
          Java  3rd-Party support link
Old Applications:
          Microsoft AutoUpdate:          Version: 2.3.6 - SDK 10.4 3rd-Party support link
                    /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/MAU2.0/Microsoft AutoUpdate.app
          SLLauncher:          Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
                    /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Silverlight/OutOfBrowser/SLLauncher.app
          mysms:          Version: 1.0.2 - SDK 10.5 3rd-Party support link
          Cloud:          Version: 1.5.1 - SDK 10.0 3rd-Party support link
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Auto backup: YES
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 232.09 GB Disk used: 85.80 GB
          Destinations:
                    Data [Network] (Last used)
                    Total size: 463.76 GB
                    Total number of backups: 176
                    Oldest backup: 2011-01-24 13:34:42 +0000
                    Last backup: 2014-04-03 14:28:26 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Adequate
                              Backup size 463.76 GB > (Disk used 85.80 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
Top Processes by CPU:
              13%          mds
               3%          WindowServer
               1%          Google Drive
               1%          EtreCheck
               0%          Google Chrome
Top Processes by Memory:
          135 MB          Sparrow Lite
          123 MB          Google Chrome
          66 MB          Finder
          66 MB          Safari
          61 MB          Preview
Virtual Memory Information:
          73 MB          Free RAM
          962 MB          Active RAM
          901 MB          Inactive RAM
          630 MB          Wired RAM
          47.94 GB          Page-ins
          2.11 GB          Page-outs
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Frank

Answer 1

frank314 wrote:
How do I uninstall Google keystone daemon and Google keystone agent?
They are part of Google software update, so if you uninstall Google software update, they should be removed. You can restart afterwards and run Etrecheck again to confirm that they're gone.
There seems to be some improvement when I use Safari instead of Chrome. I usually have >10 tabs open.
I should have mentioned, another problem might be one or more of your internet plugins. If the slowness is mostly when you are using a browser, then there are a few ways to investigate this:
find your internet plugins folder (/Library/Internet plugins), move it to the desktop, and restart, and see if your browser is faster. (There may also be plugins in ~/Library/Internet Plugins, which is not the same as /Library/Internet plugins. ~/Library is your user Library folder, which is hidden by default). or:
restart in safe mode (hold down shift at restart until you see the apple logo) and retest your browser.
in either case, if your browser performance is better, then you can figure out which plugin is the culprit by trial and error.
Are the 2.11 GB Page-outs a sign of trouble?
Yes, that is high. Mavericks uses memory in different ways than before, so some degree of page-outs is normal (Page-outs means that the HD is being used for RAM, i.e., virtual memory). Activity Monitor has several tabs that can give you a better idea of how memory is being used on your Mac. Memory Pressure is one new concept, as is Swap Used. There is a good article here by Topher: Activity Monitor in OS X Mavericks brings significant changes - CNET
By comparison, my MBP (8,2, with 8GB of RAM, and a SSD) currently shows (while using safari, but I have 11 apps open) 137 MB of page-outs in Etrecheck, but 0 bytes of swap used, the memory pressure is all in the green, and 0 writes out/sec.