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Back in the days before OS X, the number of viruses which attacked Macintosh users totalled somewhere between about 60 and 80. Today, the number of viruses actively attacking OS X users is...NONE! However, this doesn't mean we should get complacent about checking incoming email attachments or web downloads, for two reasons. Firstly, there's no guarantee that we Mac users will continue to enjoy the status quo, but more importantly, the majority of the computing world use machines running MS Windows, for which an enormous quantity of viruses exist, so we must be vigilant in checking the files we pass on to our friends and colleagues etc. For example, if you're a wise person and you've turned MS Office's macro support off then you're not going to notice that virus which is hiding inside this month's edition of Extreme Ironing.doc which your friend sent you. If you then forward that document to a less wise person who has not turned off the macro support, then you have most likely just sent him a shiny new Pandora's Box with a sign saying "Open this end"!
Flippancy aside, I'm sure you get the idea: check the file before opening and/or sending it on to someone else. This gives you the opportunity to avoid the file altogether or at least copy and paste any vital information into a new document and send that instead.
Don't forget, if you run VirtualPC you can still become infected and lose valuable data on your Mac even though technically you're running Windows inside a sandbox. VPC will run any application you tell it to, virus or no virus, it doesn't know the difference. You can protect yourself slightly by not using VPC's "shared folders", but that's a useful feature which you shouldn't have to be without.
Although the developer Mark Allan is providing ClamXav for free, he is increasingly spending more and more time developing it and would really appreciate if you would consider making a donation please. All donations (no matter how small) are gratefully received and would be a huge incentive to help me work on future versions of ClamXav, but more importantly to help pay for my bandwidth costs.
This software has the ability to move files on your computer, therefore it is absolutely vital that you back up any important data before running ClamXav. While it is possible to move files back to wherever they were moved from (see the FAQ), I regret that I can not be expected to offer assistance in this matter.
Version 1.1.1 - 30th August 2008 ClamAV 0.93.3 included:
ClamXav specific changes:
Includes engine 0.93.3
Main window and preferences windows remember their positions between launches
Fixed the "there was an error saving preferences" warning
Fixed the dreaded "Where is ClamXav Sentry" bug
Fixed bug which prevented Sentry from starting clamd
Added "NotifyClamd" to freshclam.conf
Under 10.5, the number of infected files found now appears as a badge on the Dock icon
Removed the "Archive Max Ratio" setting in preferences as the ClamAV engine no longer supports it
Increased stability
New Polish localisation
Update to Japanese localisation
Sentry specific changes:
Increased stability
The "move to trash" button now operates correctly, moving files to the volume-specific trash folder
Still uses Growl on 10.4 and 10.5 but doesn't offer to install it if a user doesn't already have it
No longer using as many processor cores as ClamAV can grab
Fixed a bug causing lots of threads to start up and consume lots of CPU
Fixed the dreaded "Sentry can't communicate via /tmp/clamd" error
Recognising if clamd dies and restarting it as required
Fixed a crash when writing to the scan log
Fixed the "too many arguments" crash
Fixed a memory leak
System requirements:
Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
Mac OS X 10.3 version available
System Support:
PPC/Intel
Free
For more information, visit:
http://www.clamxav.com/
Tags: Software Updates ď Software News ď Security ď
