Avast! Mac - Impressions

[megavolt17]

I've used NAV for years on a PC and MAC.  Never any major issues with it but it is intrusive and whenever you have disk access you can see it taking significant CPU time.  My last live update left it in a useless condition so I was considering other antivirals.

On my wife's brand new dual core Intel iMac I installed McAfee.  The computer often shut itself off, hung, etc.  I was going to take the iMac back for exchange but I removed the autostartup parts of McAfee and the iMac then seemed OK.  I then removed every part if McAfee that I could find, then used their uninstaller script, then reinstalled Leopard in case I missed anything.  The iMac has been fine ever since then.

I tried ClamXav and I was never sure if it was working or not.  I am not comfortable writing scripts so I would not have been able to do all of the optional things it apparently can do.  It seemed stable and I had no problems with it, but I did not find it very intuitive.

I uninstalled ClamXav and then tried Avast!  Other than the fact that it won't start hidden or minimized (known issue), and always starts Apple mail (known issue), I like it so far.  No conflicts and minimal CPU use.  I tried the antiviral test site listed and it picks up all of the test viruses on the page.

With NAV I had to disable it to synchronize my Palm to my G5 Mac or the sync would hang when it got to Documents to Go.  No such problem with Avast!  Presently my G5 and my wife's Intel iMac are both running Avast! with no problems.

If you want to see something interesting check out how many files Virex (McAfee) and NAV scatter all over the hard disk of the computer.  Since there was no uninstall command for Avast! and I was not even going to try it in case I did not like it, but I found the removal instructions (easy) here.  It is mostly located in it own folder, which I think shows good programing.

I will try it for the 2 month demo.  If they fix the two know issues above and I have no unexpected problems I plan to register it.  I had been going to try VirusBarrier but after the reviews of it on Version Tracker I am glad I tried Avast! first!

Thanks for supporting the Mac community!

[smkolins]

...  I tried the antiviral test site listed and it picks up all of the test viruses on the page.

I missed that - where's that?

I agree with most of your comments - even that ClamXav needs some development.

But I'd add that Avast through recent updates is blind to several common Word Macro viruses and the dnschanger developed for the Mac. Samples have been submitted but no detection yet. I'd consider the macro examples rather embarrassing as they've been around for a long time. But it's possible they really didn't have any samples until recently.

[megavolt17]

Check out http://www.avast.com/eng/eicar-antivirus-test-file.html
I went to the Eicar test page listed and clicked on the test viruses to see what would happen.  Avast! found them so at least I know it checks what Firefox is trying to download.

I agree that is it embarrassing for Avast! to miss know viruses.  If they don't fix that and keep up with new virus definitions then I will need to try another virus program.  I deal with Windows users all day and I may receive and pass on word macro viruses.  Some of the Excel and Word files have needed macros, so disabling macros is not an option.

I want to have my Mac adequately protected with the minimal slowdown and intrusions possible. Eventually there will be a bad Mac virus because it would certainly get publicity.  In the meanwhile I don't want a slow, unstable system.

[smkolins]

Check out http://www.avast.com/eng/eicar-antivirus-test-file.html
I went to the Eicar test page listed and clicked on the test viruses to see what would happen.  Avast! found them so at least I know it checks what Firefox is trying to download.

0 - that's what you meant. I thought there wasa javascript attack page that Avast was protecting somehow.

BTW ClamXav 1.1 now detects firefox downloads correctly. And Clam does detect the viruses we're talking about though something weird happened with clam (ClamXav versions 1.0.7-1.0.8 and subversions) where the same macros stopped being detected but it's working again.