what's a tar file?

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My virus scan always reports there is a corrupt file at this location (though not a threat): private/var/folders/1T/1Tvfgmc8HrmHsNViXvqaw++++TI/-Caches-/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate/swcdn.apple.com/content/downloads/35/06/061-7751/XRL2mDyBNv4TyFcBmKp28wqQ6rKcFgYm7t/CoreFP.tar.

I tried to open it and see what it is. It seems like it's some sort of link for an obscene pop up. I don't know how it found its way into my mac as I never visit those sites (could be from my PC files, I guess). I tried to get rid of the file. But the trash bin won't allow me to delete this. It keeps saying there are other files in use. What exactly is this tar. thing? Can or should I get rid of it (I'm annoyed by the fact that it's reported as an error every time)? How? Thanks.
 
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First, you don't need a virus scanner for Mac. There are literally no viruses for Mac.

A tar file (also known as a tarball) is an archive of many files like a zip but without the compression. What is being reported looks like an update that was downloaded.
 
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Uninstall your AV software which no doubt is slowing your Mac down. As DaFlake advised there are no OS X viri, and the definitions you download and use to scan are Windows definitions. Pretty hard to write a definition for a virus that does not exist!
 

bobtomay

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1. It's an Apple update file or app

2. What are tar files - link

3. Dump the A/V software and you'll be able to quit wasting your CPU resources running it and your time wondering about stuff that this windows scanner finds on your Mac.
 

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