Apple dropping Virex support on .Mac

hey, anyone ever get a loop virus while on entourage? the emails just keep coming back even though they are supposedly deleted from the server. what is the best anti-virus to rid the computer of this? cm

I contacted .Mac support just after installing Tiger and was told that the Virex issue was being worked on and in the meantime I should reinstall 7.2 which I did Whether or not there are any Mac viruses, it's still a good idea to filter it just in case one gets developed. We don't want to get into the Windows situation now do we? virex 7.5 was always a bit ropey, if you ask me. It hogged way too much of the processor and didn't seem to automatically scan files downloaded through Safari and Mail unless Stuffit joined the equation and that was as a result of stuffit being a good citizen not because Virex was. I do agree though that Apple seriously needs to rethink the .Mac proposition. They should add more storage and new facilities such as calendar editing in any web browser - I can't understand why they still haven't implemented this

Since I switched to Tiger, I dropped Norton Anti-Virus and started using clamXav instead. It's a GUI front-end to an open-source antivirus engine (ClamAV). Its response time to new threats is as good or better than commercial competitors according to their website. Plus it's free. Check it out: http://www.clamxav.com/

I would hope Apple goes with Clam AV and builds their own UI for it with .Mac. While there are no Mac OS X virus it is nice to delete the nasty things from out computers to prevent us from being dormant hosts...

Callum, I can't speak for what Virex actually does, it's closed source, but it certainly claims to scan all sorts of files and attacments for all kinds of Virii. In fact, I've never heard of a virus scanner that only scans for viruses executable by the system it's running on. That doesn't mean they aren't out there, but it would be a pretty silly policy. First, if if it can't hurt you, you can pass it on. And second, three letters: VPC.

Virex was a piece of junk to begin with. However, I honestly think that someone who buys .Mac for just the virus protection was wasting their money. They could have bought Norton or VirusBarrier X for a bit less and paid less per year for updates. By the way, Safari has that lovely Safe Downloads feature. Yes, it's much loathed for its willingness to open widgets, but it should be able to catch other things. And .Mac has built-in antivirus scanners on its email. I don't recall it being advertised, but it's there. As for many trojans and applet exploits, they will sit harmlessly in your Caches folder until you delete them. Anyone who opens random attachments in this day and age probably deserves the macro virus they installed. I'll excuse my white-haired grandma, but anyone who has grown up around computers should know better. Might I add that if you have suggestions for .Mac, as quite a few of us do, send feedback to Apple. I dunno if any of the Apple engineers or higher-ups read these blogs, but I'm sure they take note of large amounts of constructive feedback. http://www.apple.com/feedback/mac/tm.html

Metryq & Jay, No. Virex doesn't scan .exe's why would it. If I recieved (on my mac) a nasty Windows virus (i.e sent from a friends buggered up Windows box.. thing) It would just sit in my inbox... it'd try and execute or do something milcious - but it wouldn't get very far. Virex would not detect these virus', nor would OS X execute it- if you want to stop spreading virus' - buy a mac! Right guys? I think i'm right, but I'm no programmer!

Michael(comment 3) >Could somebody who actually knows something about the Unix internals of OS X chime in? What happens when a user ist stupid enough to give a badly behaved program root? You could trash the system pretty badly. It's all a matter of how the virus writer chooses to go about it. There are any number of ways to keep it from booting up, and there are ways to force a reboot, there are ways to return it to erase your home folder(permanently, even), and you could probably format the disk(DON'T try this: "sudo mv / /dev/null&; sudo /sbin/reboot". That's just what I came up with on 3 seconds notice). That prevents the computer from starting and then tells it to rebooot.

Even the most educated of users can get a virus or trojan horse. You can get them through backdoors in poorly coded software (see Windows), and even the security professionals can make a mistake. When I was fresh out of college, at my first job at a software company called Micrografx (since bought out by Corel), on my very first day one of my bosses got a virus and accidentally clicked on it in her inbox. So I got an attachment from my boss -- I didn't think twice. It was my first month on the job, my boss sent an attachment, I shrugged and opened it without even looking at the extension -- despite being a computer science major that knows better than to open strange attachments. I just had a brain fart at that moment. So I ended up sending a virus to every customer I had contacted -- and I had just contacted a bunch because of a marketing survey we were doing. Moral of the story -- anyone (particularly me) can have a brain fart. Even if you're sure you know better, and you're sure Macs don't get viruses, it just can't hurt. I was on a PC during that story, but the point stands.

I thought that's funny when I realize .Mac offer Virex in first place. I was like.. umm ok? I test it and have it scan in my worst way. Nothing found. And decide never touch that program anymore. Disable it. Go away!