Another slowdown

Question

Sophos installed on Mac Pro (original) and 2009 Macbook. Whenever I launch NeoOffice cpu usage rockets to extremely high levels and NeoOffice takes ages to launch. I suspect this is something to do with NeoOffice using Java, but it makes Sophos unusable on my wife's Macbook due to the ridiculous amount of time it takes to launch.

If I run ClamXav on the Macbook, even when set to monitor the entire hard drive, launch time for NeoOffice is very good.

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jupp · Accepted Answer

I can take a look into this more if needed Adrian, but im pretty sure NeoOffice is built in Java (you excluding Java and this helping would point to that a bit), and therefore at start up will be opening countless .JAR files. So, .JAR files are essentially zip files with a collection of java .class files in them, and when i say 'a collection' it is often thousands. If you have archive scanning enabled in the on-access settings then the scanner has to intercept the NeoOffice request for the .JAR file, uncompress it in memory, scan all on the .class files inside, and then pass back the file open request to NeoOffice.  This unfortunately is not the quickest thing in the world as there are often so many files inside the .JAR. Running the On-Access scanner without it scanning in archive files doesnt reduce your protection, any files accessed within an archive are scanned, and if you were to manually open, for example, a zip file its contents are scanned at this point. I hope this helps to explain a little as to why you saw the slow down. :1000289