Intego ’s VirusBarrier X4 may be pricier than its competition , but it ’s worth it . For starters , it ’s exceedingly easy to use . facility is a couple of mouse clicks and a restart ; after the NetUpdate program upgrade your virus definitions , you ’re quick to go . And its interface is a model of OS X consolidation : It gives you a contextual menu in the Finder , a Dashboard widget to monitor the progress of scans , and it integrates nicely with iCal .
VBX4 is also the firm scanner I tested , by far . It took just two minutes to skim a 900 MB folder , and only 13 transactions to rake a 13 GB leaflet filled with applications — about a quarter of the clip Norton AntiVirus ( ) took . After the first scan , VBX4 ’s Turbo mode makes subsequent scans much quicker — it only needs to scan modified single file .
And after that first scan , you may forget about VBX4 : It works in the background , watching all file activity for planetary house of trouble . In my examination , this desktop monitoring had no obtrusive impingement on my casual use of a PowerBook G4 . consort to Activity Monitor , its processes used basically no CPU business leader , with only occasional , temporary spikes when a file was scanned . you could also schedule scans , scan file and folders via drag and drop , view logs , and create extra - secure ( as well as insecure ) zone via VBX4 ’s user interface .
VirusBarrier also knows what it ’s looking for : It caught everything we threw at it , include Word and Excel macro viruses , with the elision of a couple of Windows viruses . VBX4 offer daily , weekly , or monthly computer virus definition update . After installation , ensure you run NetUpdate forthwith to check for any update to the program or its definitions . I only wish it provided some information about the malware it find ; Norton AntiVirus offers much more encompassing reportage .
I experienced only one minor queerness during testing . During one scan , VBX4 ’s interface interlock me out ( I could n’t set Preferences ) ; I was able to get at those same lineament through a Menubar ikon .
Macworld’s buying advice
Intego ’s VirusBarrier X4 will do a great job of protect your machine from malware and Trojans . While it ’s the most expensive antivirus app I tested , it ’s also the fastest and easy to use — making Mac protection practically painless .
