If you signed up for .Mac, then you got Virex as part of the package. Great! But it sucks. Virex does no auto scanning of new files for you as you download them.
A partial fix, pointed out to me by Doug Shivers of PMUG, is to configure Stuffit Expander to use Virex to scan archives.
- Launch Stuffit Expander
- Choose ‘Preferences’ from the ‘Stuffit Expander” menu
- On the ‘Expanding’ panel, check ‘Scan for viruses using’
- Choose ‘Virex” from the popup menu
Now this is no 100% guarantee – You can sill download viruses, but since Mac applications typically need to be sent compressed, and you have stuffit expander set to handle all of your archives, you are good to go.