Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition

[TOKK777Anti]

Hi, I uninstalled Ver 8.0.1 and reinstalled Version 7.3.10c and it works great.  It only took 25 minutes for “Scan Local Disk” of 400K files.  Also, I use VLC and I don’t have any problem by using Ver 7.3.10c.

I think if you use Christian’s download link, you will get Ver 7.3.10c.

**bleep** Luck.

[Rebel]

Christian’s link was for 7.3.9c, I'll have to stick with that, unless you have a link to 7.3.10.

[TOKK777Anti]

That is very strange...    I used same Christian’s link and checked “About Sophos Anti-Virus” at  the upper black color Sophos’ icon, it showed Version 7.3.10c.  But I think it is OK for ver 7.3.9c.  They (Sophos) should fix ver 8 soon.   

Anyway, I think Sophos is the best "free" Anti-Virus" program for Mac.  

Also, you may want to try "Bitdefender Virus Scanner" from  the Apple store as the back up virus scanner.  I think it is a good virus scanner.  So, I use two program because I don't trust the public opnion about "Mac does not get Virus"

p.s.   I do’t know why my pervious comment showed **bleep** Luck"......  I wanted say “Good Luck”.      

[Rebel]

I downloaded from that link & installed, and mine says 7.3.9c.

Let it run while I was gone, and it finished in 2hr, 2 min., so that's good.

There were a few items detected as threats, and some corrupt files. There were also several in an "unrecognized format", although they're all dmg.

2012-04-10 17:14:43 -0700 Issue: engine found an unrecognised file format at: /Users/Xxx/Software/Stuffit/Stuffit Deluxe 15.0.4/Stuffit Deluxe 15.0.4.dmg.

2012-04-10 16:46:17 -0700 Issue: engine found an unrecognised file format at: /Users/Xxx/Software/Games/Monopoly/Monopoly.dmg

Also several that were supposedly "enrypted", but they aren't, they're just dmg, too:

2012-04-10 17:13:08 -0700 Encrypted file: /Users/Xxx/Software/Screensavers/Digital Minds ScreenSavers/Space Plasma 3D 1.1.dmg.

It's even telling me my copy of Lion is corrupted:

2012-04-10 16:59:05 -0700 Corrupt file: /Users/Xxx/Software/Lion/Mac OSX Lion 10.7.3.dmg

When I opened the Quarantine Manager, there wer several items visible, but they all vanished after about 2 seconds, before I could even check them.

[QC]

Hello Rebel,

the link - like the one for 8.0 and the autoupdate location as well - doesn't point to just one site but it's a name which resolves to various hosts on a distribution network depending on your location. Larger downloads are not rolled out everywhere at the same time so for a short period you'll get e.g. 7.3.9C in some parts of the world and 7.3.10C in others. There's no need to "hunt" for the latest version as AutoUpdate will - err - automatically update to the latest version as soon as it becomes available in your part of the world. Likely it has already done so. 

Christian

[Rebel]

You're right - I just opened Sophos and clicked Update Now, and while I didn't see anything happen, it now shows 7.3.10c.

 Got any insight on the file issues I listed, or why the files vanished from the Quarantine window?

[QC]

Got any insight on the file issues I listed,

Nope - otherwise I would have told you , but I assume Andrew will comment on it.

or why the files vanished from the Quarantine window?

There are several reasons why entries appear in QM for a short period and then disappear, e.g. if your settings requested automatic cleanup an item migth appear in QM and disappear again after the cleanup has completed. The log should contain the details of the detections.

Christian

[Agile]

---

There were a few items detected as threats, and some corrupt files. There were also several in an "unrecognized format", although they're all dmg.

2012-04-10 17:14:43 -0700 Issue: engine found an unrecognised file format at: /Users/Xxx/Software/Stuffit/Stuffit Deluxe 15.0.4/Stuffit Deluxe 15.0.4.dmg.

2012-04-10 16:46:17 -0700 Issue: engine found an unrecognised file format at: /Users/Xxx/Software/Games/Monopoly/Monopoly.dmg

Also several that were supposedly "enrypted", but they aren't, they're just dmg, too:

2012-04-10 17:13:08 -0700 Encrypted file: /Users/Xxx/Software/Screensavers/Digital Minds ScreenSavers/Space Plasma 3D 1.1.dmg.

It's even telling me my copy of Lion is corrupted:

2012-04-10 16:59:05 -0700 Corrupt file: /Users/Xxx/Software/Lion/Mac OSX Lion 10.7.3.dmg

When I opened the Quarantine Manager, there wer several items visible, but they all vanished after about 2 seconds, before I could even check them.

---

Apple DMG is a container format, like MOV or PAX or many others.  The actual volume inside the container can be in a number of formats.   Since it's up to the DMG to report what format is inside, it is possible for a DMG to contain a non-standard object.  The unrecognized file format is not the DMG itself, but a file inside the DMG.

This also explains the encrypted items - a lot of DMGs contain encrypted segments.

As for the corrupt DMG: this is a known issue with the 7.3 engine -- and I had believed it had already been fixed, at least in the version 8.0 product.  Apple added a new container type to handle Lion's new partition structure, and the old engine had issues with a few of the changes.

Of course, if you mount any of those DMGs, both products will have no problems scanning the contents on access or on demand.

[Rebel]

Thanks for clearing that up.

I'd never really thought about it, but I didn't know dmg was just a container, like avi or mkv; Makes sense, though.

[Rebel]

I said in my first post: 

"BTW, the badge in the menubar is not really black, it's actually gray with a black outline. A black badge should be black.

Now the volume icon, that is black!"

Well, last night I saw that the Sophos icon was really black. I clicked on it to see what had changed, and there was an update available, evidently the icon only really turns black for updates.

Since the download link doesn't state which version it is, and there's no release notes, the only way to find out which version it is, is to download it.

The downloaded file (savosx_80_he.dmg) appears to be v8.0, the same version I had trouble with before. Maybe it's a newer update that corrects the bug in v8.0.1, but there's no way to tell.

I'm not going to install something without knowing which version it is, especially when I've already had trouble with one version and had to downgrade.

So Sophos, HOW ABOUT SOME RELEASE NOTES AND A VERSION NUMBER ON THE DOWNLOAD PAGE?!

BTW, I sent a PM about a forum issue to " Agile Employee", and never received a reply.