In a world in which software is often measured by numbers of features, Virex stands out. It has few features, small menus, and more explanation and advice than instructions.
In a world in which the fear of computer viruses is pervasive and in which (by virtually all estimates) more than 10 percent of all Macs have been infected, Virex is the first commercial antivirus program. It examines disks, looking for the known Mac viruses: MacMag, nVir, and Scores. It also flags things that might be viruses — it calls them Sneak viruses.
If all you want Virex to do is look, that's all it will do. If it finds occurrences of the three known viruses, it can attempt to repair or disinfect the infected files. It's very good, although not foolproof, at repairing infected files. Virex does a lot of looking when checking hard disks, and the process can take some time. A graphic metering bar shows how the job is going. Virex is actually quite speedy for a program that docs this much disk access.
During some careful testing, Virex scored 100 percent on finding the known viruses. It repaired all but one of the infected test files, (Actually, as the manual suggests, you're often better off replacing infected applications with known clean copies.)
As Virex works, it tells you exactly what it finds and what it’s doing, and you can print this report. The way the reporting works is Virex's only weakness, Printed reports sometimes failed to match what appeared on the screen (particularly when it was printing to a GCC Technologies WriteMove printer — icons had sides omitted and letterspacing was poor). The program has no provision for saving reports. Not only should it be able to save its reports, but it would be nice if it could automatically transmit them over a network to some collection point.
Virex is expensive, and it's not really meant for the single, knowledgeable user. Those people usually have an array of public-domain tools for the job. No one of the public-domain tools does as much as Virex, but in combination they can do the same job, if you know what you’re doing.
Virex is really a tool for work groups with many Macs. It’s intended for frequent, nearly mindless operation by users who don't know or care about power use. In that respect, it is superb.
The publisher (HJC) and the author (Robert Woodhead of Wizardry fame) are committed to keeping the program up to date. If and when new viruses are discovered, HJC will offer new versions of Virex that will stamp them out. It'll also charge a substantial amount for each update.
Virex comes with a very good manual that includes a section on safe computing. It also reminds users that although it is effective against viruses, there are other nasties (so far not seen on the Mac) such as worms and Trojan horses that it can't prevent. In that respect, it's not alone.
When Virex was released, it came under fire from some people on several grounds. Some said that any for-the-good-of-the-community program such as this one should be free. That would be nice, but it ignores reality. Programmers and publishers should be allowed to make a living. More serious criticism was leveled at its price, which was denounced as exorbitant. But that's only so if you measure value by the number of features in a program. Virex offers reassurance and security, and, considering that it's meant for use in a business environment, I believe its price is very reasonable. I have no doubt that the author and publishers will continue to support this program and that, rather than being a challenge to would-be virus writers, it is and will remain a deterrent.
Paden, Jake. (June 1989). Virex. MacUser. (pg. 68).
Robert J. Woodhead
Applications
out of 10 (0 vote)
8 / 
2023-01-07 / 
6c626b7e47a66d4c5f26e02cfee655a002de87e4 / 
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Virex_1.41.sit_.hqx
Emulating this? It could probably run under: 
Mini vMac
