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applejack seems to remove most of sophos

inbeijing

Today I used a common utility, Applejack, with my mid 2010 macbook pro, with system 10.6.5;  Applejack is a common tool used to fix hard disk problems and erase disk caches.  I was trying to fix a problem with my mini display port not working.  I then updated Sophos, and it downloaded about 80 megabytes of stuff.  As far as I can see, the engine and virus count is almost the same as before I ran Applejack;  so I guess Applejack sees Sophos files as temporary files?  While no harm was done, and Sophos re-updated itself, this seems strange.  Are virus definitions stored as something that common "cleaning" utilities will erase?

I am not complaining too much ;  Sophos has a great product -- I thought so even before it was free.  But Applejack is a nice utility too, and commonly used.  And yes, I did use the newest, Snow Leopard compatible version of Applejack. 

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    Amongst other things, AppleJack attends to caches. Non-essential data.

    It's normal for the large caches created by Sophos to be cleared, if you ask AppleJack to attend to caches.

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    Would it be normal then, when running the standard Sophos update, for Sophos to download more than 500 files, or around 80 megebyes of data?  I have Used OnyX to clear caches, without Sophos feeling the need to update about 80 megabytes of data. I am wiling to accept that non essential files were removed;  however at internet speeds in most of China, it takes a few hours to do this.  Is is possible that Sophos and Applejack have different ideas about what essential cache files are?

    I have tried using Applejack twice, each time letting it remove the cache files.  Each time Sophos feels the need to do a massive update. 

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    That sounds about right, the Sophos Cache essentially stores a copy of the installation files. When Sophos AutoUpdate runs it compares what is on the server to what it has in the cache, then downloads the differences, so by clearing the cache between each update you are essentially having to download the entire product each time. 

    Clearing the cache will do no harm to the Sophos Anti-Virus installation and will not remove any of the updated identities which are stored in the product installation folder, it will result in large  downloads at on every update. 

    Hope that Helps.

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    Thanks for the answers; and yes it does help.  I wouldn't I don't often clear catches, but I was troubleshooting another problem and gave Applejack a try.  This is very interesting to know. 

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