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ClamXav

caligula357

caligula357

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 31, 2006
70
0
U.K.
oes anyone use this, or recommend a better, free anti-virus app for os x?

i know that there aren't many mac virus', but its better to be safe than sorry ;)

:apple:
 
With no relevant viruses in the wild at this time, it really doesn't matter what scanner you use. No one will know who, if anyone, is good at this game on OS X until there is something to actually look for and clean up.
 
caligula357 said:
oes anyone use this, or recommend a better, free anti-virus app for os x?

i know that there aren't many mac virus', but its better to be safe than sorry ;)

:apple:
Click to expand...

There aren't "many"? Can you refer us to even 1? :) Antivirus software is a switcher's security blanket.

It's like a person who lived his whole life wearing a life vest because he lived on a boat and then one day started a new life on land. Everyone tells him that you can't drown on land, but the guy insists he should wear it in case the floods come.
 
radiantm3 said:
There aren't "many"? Can you refer us to even 1? :) Antivirus software is a switcher's security blanket.

It's like a person who lived his whole life wearing a life vest because he lived on a boat and then one day started a new life on land. Everyone tells him that you can't drown on land, but the guy insists he should wear it in case the floods come.
Click to expand...

Nice analogy! And exactly right!

You will DEFINITELY hear about the first OSX virus the day it appears (if it does)

The only reason for mac antivirus is to scan files that you will share with windows PCs.

Apps such as ClamXAV check for Windows viruses, not those that would affect mac, so your mind should not be more at ease unless you think that windows PCs you share with are underprotected.
 
caligula357 said:
http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2006/02/macosxleap.html ???

i can see what you are saying though, with 99.9% of virus'/trojans/worms being designed for windows, the threat on macs is very low.
Click to expand...

Leap/A wasn't a virus - you actually had to download the program (disguised as an image file), allow Terminal to open it (yeah, alarm bells ringing? They should be...) and then it infected your machine.

Social engineering at it's best but unless you downloaded the file you couldn't get it - the hole has been patched and so far no virus exists that can infect an updated version of OSX.

Anti-virus software for Macs exist to prevent us passing on Windows viruses to Windows users. I say, if they want to use that OS then it's on them to protect themselves from viruses - why should I waste my processor cycles on stuff that has no effect on me.

Please don't misconstrue my statement above as some comment as to how I see all life's situations, my point of view up there is strictly for computing.
 
psychofreak said:
Apps such as ClamXAV check for Windows viruses, not those that would affect mac, so your mind should not be more at ease unless you think that windows PCs you share with are underprotected.
Click to expand...

I use ClamXAV on my PowerBook and MacBook for this very reason. I primarily use Macs at home, but make my living using PCs, so I frequently trade files between both platforms. I have ClamXAV auto-scan new files as they arrive on my :apple: . It appears to work pretty well. It has never detected any viruses except for those I once placed on my HD as a test to see if it was working. ClamXAV requires low overhead and its virus definitions are updated on a regular basis.
 
BlackMax said:
I use ClamXAV on my PowerBook and MacBook for this very reason.
Click to expand...

I have it too, but I don't bother with activating the sentry... when I've scanned my computer, the only viruses (I was actually surprised I didn't have any MP3s with viruses... you know, from back in the day? :eek: ) I had were in my Trash mailbox -- for some reason I had a few trash e-mails that were fairly old that had virus attachments. Not that they weren't obvious spam. But apparently they had just been ahead of the curve at the moment compared to the mail server AV software.

It's generally excellent software. It was written by the open source community, so you know it won't mess up your system like some *cough cough* prominent AV vendor's products. The open source developers behind it are very motivated to continue with it. It's good enough for Apple to use it in Leopard. I wouldn't bother with anything else.
 
I scan about once a month just to make sure I don't have something to pass on to Windows users. I

My University suggests that I have scanning software and even provides a McAfee virus scan package for free. However, I don't listen to them and keep on truckin'. I feel that McAfee's stuff would just reek havoc more than a Virus would anyways. :)
 
I have ClamX AV's sentry set up to automatically check my email folders as mail comes in, just so my Mac doesn't unwittingly pass on a PC virus to a PC friend or something.

I'd recommend It. It's free, light, easy to use, works well and you don't even know it's there.
 
question

I used ClamXav and it found something called a phishing file.
How to delete it? ive sanitized my email address
--
/Users/bil**/Library/Mail/POP-******@pop-server.cfl.rr.com/INBOX.mbox/Messages/469.emlx: HTML.Phishing.Bank-72 FOUND
/Users/bill***/Library/Mail/POP-***@pop-server.cfl.rr.com/Sent Messages.mbox/Messages/479.emlx: HTML.Phishing.Bank-72 FOUND

-- summary --
Known viruses: 87326
Engine version: 0.88.7
Scanned directories: 839
Scanned files: 1359
Infected files: 2
Data scanned: 227.23 MB
Time: 68.565 sec (1 m 8 s)
--------------------------------------
Scan started: Sat Feb 3 07:00:00 2007

/Users/bill**/Library/Mail/POP-**@pop-server.cfl.rr.com/Sent Messages.mbox/Messages/479.emlx: HTML.Phishing.Bank-72 FOUND

-- summary --
Known viruses: 88342
Engine version: 0.88.7
Scanned directories: 915
Scanned files: 2628
Infected files: 1
Data scanned: 389.76 MB
Time: 179.001 sec (2 m 59 s)


thanks in advance. and how to set up email checking on incoming like mentioned before? I am not really intuitively getting this app yet.
 
I don't have any AV protection on my Mac, but if anyone is looking for a good free solution for their Windows partition in Boot Camp or for their Parallels install, I'd recommend Grisoft's AVG. It's nothing special and the updates don't occur as frequently as say a Norton AV solution, however for anyone who uses Windows in a limited fashion on their Mac this is an excellent solution which is more than adequate.
 
BilltheCat said:
No help on my question here? Maybe this just isnt the problem i thought it was?
Click to expand...
Those "phishing files" are just spam in your mailbox, for example the ever-so-popular fake Citibank and Paypal mail. They aren't really viruses or anything like that. If you really want, you can delete those files (or just delete them from mail).

Why is one in your sent mail? :D (you must've been reporting something?)

The reason why those rules are there, is that ClamAV is also often run alongside mail servers, so that such things can be filtered out as junk.
 
iMeowbot said:
Those "phishing files" are just spam in your mailbox, for example the ever-so-popular fake Citibank and Paypal mail. They aren't really viruses or anything like that. If you really want, you can delete those files (or just delete them from mail).

Why is one in your sent mail? :D (you must've been reporting something?)

The reason why those rules are there, is that ClamAV is also often run alongside mail servers, so that such things can be filtered out as junk.
Click to expand...

I hope not! I did return a spam asking how they got this address. pobably shouldnt have confirmed it huh?

btw thanks! I was just concerned that I didnt infect anyone else.
 
Thanks for posting this information. I'm also interested in ClamXav. Thus far, it sounds good, pretty much exactly what I'm looking for.

I'm another one who is a primary Mac user, but I dwell heavily in the windows world. I use Virex 7.2 at the moment. I scan incoming stuff, and any files I am sending out. Periodically, I'll scan my various folders. I have never upgraded this to the newer versions, as I have heard that the overhead got quite high starting with Virex 7.5, and there is a lot of chatter on the various help boards about severe problems. Someone even referred to Virex version 8.5 (now called McAfee Virus Scan for Mac) as "Crippleware", because his system ran so poorly after installing it. Lots of interesting / amusing comments over at Versiontracker.com
 
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