ClamXav settings

Hello all,

I am new to the forum and fairly new Mac switcher. I am attending University in the fall and the IT dept. requires AV software on all computers connecting to their network. I have done a bit of research and the Uni accepts ClamXav and it appears that it is highly recommended by users here.

My questions are specific for the best method to setup the application for good performance and limit the resources required. In my PC days I always ran AV from the big boys and never changed the default settings so I am a bit confused as to best set up the ClamXav application.

Automatic scanning - should the settings be configured to scan the complete hard drive periodically or can you limit the scan to certain directories without risk?

Sentry preferences - what specific directories should be monitored or do you configure the complete HD?

Excluded files - I have a lot of music and photo files can these files extensions be excluded or is there a risk of not scanning these? Does it help with performance and scan duration.

All help would be appreciated,

JP

Hi there,

As I am sure others will come along and tell you, at present, there are no viruses for Mac.
There are, however a couple of Trojans, but you shouldn't come across these, if you don't use file sharing sites.

Moving on, what I would suggest is that you initially scan the whole hard drive, then limit the subsequent scans to either the downloads folder, or set ClamXav to scan the download as it occurs, if it has this feature.

I recommend removing ClamXav.

Jay, I use clamXav...be sure to get the 2.x beta, much better interface. I did an initial home folder scan on install and I've to it setup to run one every 30 days in the schedule (but that's optional). I also have clamXav sentry setup to do real-time scans of my download folder and desktop. Has caught a few windows viruses so far and doesn't impact performance at all.

Printerman said:

I recommend removing ClamXav.

Click to expand...

How about you pay attention to what the poster asked before you make ignorant statements. Regardless of your personal view on AV software and the Mac, the point remains their school network requires it.

schweb,

thanks for the reply and recommendation. On the topic of excluded files, as I no nothing about malware and such, is it ok to exclude certain files extensions or is this risky?

You can exclude if you want to, but honestly I don't really see any need to if your'e only actively scanning the downloads and/or desktop folder. It should hurt anything to just scan everything.

Schweb, Rottie,

thanks for your recommendation I will try the settings you suggest.