What those apps do is what your last link is describing: doing a quick search using Spotlight and then offering the results to the user who can confirm to delete them or not. Your guide is a fine guide but it requires some level of experience with the OS which some people do not have. Those app removal software fills in that blank and offers a much more simplistic approach. It is simply a bit more userfriendly than your guide is.
The problem is that their search is not thorough. Spotlight doesn't show search results from library folders. Finder does.
Not so much experience with the OS as an ability to use Finder and follow a few simple steps.
In that simplicity lies some problems. Some of those apps delete files without asking first. Some delete smaller files and leave much larger ones behind.
What you mean with "Spotlight" is the icon in the menubar, what I mean is the actual system that you manipulate with tools like mdutil and is used by that icon, Finder and has it's own cli tool (=mdfind). It is only the Spotlight icon in the menubar that doesn't search through system files such as the library, everything else (and thus the entire search system known as Spotlight) does. Applications can perfectly use the underlaying system to do their searches.
The same applies to your guide: you always need to have some kind of knowledge because you always run the risk of deleting too much. Files can be shared among other applications from the same software maker. It doesn't matter if the user selects everything and deletes them or some application automatically does this for them. In both cases the files will be deleted and it is this action that can cause problems.
At the cost of leaving all those files like preferences and even data which then need to be deleted by hand. Not so much "simplicity".
No it isn't because freeing up drive space and deleting apps are 2 completely different goals/functions! The Finder instructions are only useful for the first, it is useless for the second as the user needs to know exactly what to look for and what to delete. If you want to free up disk space you first want to know what is taking up the most space and then if you can delete it or not. Software such as OmniDiskSweeper or Grandperspective (both are freeware) are great for mapping what data is the biggest. With this information you can then go look for it and delete it (if you want).
If a user just wants the app deleted and doesn't worry about drive space, simply dragging the app to the trash is all that's required. You don't need to delete plists and other data to have the app uninstalled.
I'm referring only to the disk space consumed by apps you want to delete, not other things that may occupy disk space. The point is this: in most cases you can run any of those uninstall apps and then use the Finder method to find app-related files/folders that those apps failed to identify or delete. I'm referring to files that have the app's name in the file name.
That is false. You obviously haven't read the tests or looked at the screen captures.
Anyone can reproduce the tests for themselves. Clicking on any of the files in the search results will show the location in the status bar, proving they're not copies or backups.
As I suspected, you haven't read all the links, including the test results from March 23, 2012.
So don't assume anything. Run the tests for yourself and you'll find that my posts are accurate.Some people actually think about what they read, not everybody simply assumes something is true
In that case you are the one who hasn't read the tests nor looked at the screen captures or are simply denying it as if your life depends on it.
Anyone who is sensible will see the faults in your 3 links and tell you that your statements are definitely not 100% factual. There is a major difference between thinking they are and actually being factual. Since you wrote it you need to rely on others to tell the difference. There is nobody in the world who is able to objectively judge his own work. The problem here is that one needs to value other people's judgements and not immediately dismiss them as being false, incorrect, etc. as you are doing now. This is considered to be childish and stupid. If you actually listen you are showing that you are mature and want a higher quality.
Which, upon closer inspection, are almost always topics asking about a better way of removing an app completely because manually removing it from /Applications leaves some files. They did not use your Finder method nor did they use any app removal tools.
Except for the fact that you simply have no proper proof that this is the case. There is other proof that shows that you are incorrect in this regard (all you are doing is a filename search which any app can do). That is all I'm saying.
You are making the assumptions of me not reading stuff, etc. for the mere fact that I simply disagree with your information and how you tested it. Instead of denying and trying to defend yourself it would be a lot better if you simply told us how you tested exactly so people can actually mimic your tests. The way it is now is definitely not helpful.
If anyone thinks one of those app-removal tools is more effective or as effective as the Finder method, they can simply run a test for themselves, as I have done many times with many such tools. They can select an app for deletion and let the tool of their choice identify what files it can. Then they can perform the Finder search as described and see if it finds more app-related files than the tool they're evaluating. It's so simple, even a cave man can do it.
I'm not running ML, and I haven't read anything that suggests that. If you have, please post a link. It would be helpful to know.