Incompatibility issues with OS X 10.9 systems fixed in latest build

Feb 25, 2014 10:08 GMT  ·  By

As Apple struggles to mend its SSL flaw in OS X, ALWIL Software is offering an updated version of its free antivirus app which strangely doesn’t offer a fix for the widely-reported bug, but rather addresses a minor incompatibility issue.

You’d think security companies would jump to fix Apple’s SSL vuln before OS X 10.9.2 is deployed to direct more attention to its anti-malware solutions, but no.

At least not ALWIL Software, which has just deployed an updated Avast! Free Antivirus 8.0 Build 40795 to mend a small incompatibility with OS X Mavericks computers.

According to the release notes, avast! Free Antivirus 8.0 Build 40795 “resolves the problem with Mavericks claiming avast! to be incompatible (happened during system update).”

Build 40795 also includes some “minor fixes,” which aren’t detailed in the official changelog. To download avast! Free Antivirus 8, Mac users are required to have an Intel-based processor, 128 MB of RAM (though 256 MB is highly more preferable), and around 50 megabytes of free disk space to install the software.

avast! Free Antivirus 8 doesn’t eat up a lot of system resources (for things like Web Shield, Mail Shield, File Shield, and automatic virus definition updates), making it ideal for notebook users with an eye on their battery life.