Computer viruses... interesting subject, don't you think? A large number of viruses are lurking in the dark, and the only barrier between your computer and infection is the antivirus program, and that's exactly what I have for you now, an application called exactly VirusBarrier.

VirusBarrier is an acclaimed antivirus for your Mac that comes from Intego and is shaped as a Universal Binary compatible with both PowerPC and Intel platforms. Its latest version is 10.4.3, and after the 30 days trial period expires, you are required to register or remove it from your computer. The price of a single-user license is 69.95$, but 5 and 10-user licenses can also be purchased, for 199.95$ and 359.95$. The package you have to download is 11MB in size, so you may want to start downloading the program now before reading on, especially if your connection is a bit slower...

I suppose that I should say something about the interface now, shouldn't I? Well...well... I must confess that VirusBarrier's interface left me speechless, because it looks absolutely outstanding! There's only one thing I regret about it, and that is the lack of additional visual themes/skins. To be honest, VirusBarrier makes me think about a multimedia player, rather than an antivirus... and this is really good to know, because I am sure everyone will feel just like home when using this program.

First of all, you should think about selecting the disk/folder/file to be scanned, and to do this, you have to press the Selection button. Once you have selected the target to scan, all you have to do is press the Scan button, but you may want to change the program settings, first...

On your road to the Preferences area, you may want to check if your virus database is up to date, and that can be done by pressing the NetUpdate button. Before moving on to the Preferences area, just let me tell you that VirusBarrier can handle Word and Excel macroviruses and even Windows viruses, and not only those threats that can damage your Mac. Now, let's move up to the menu bar and open the Preferences area...

Not quite as I expected, the preferences of this program appear into the main window's lower part, and they should be really easy to understand and change to anyone. Here, you can choose the sounds to play when viruses are detected, eradicated, corrupted files are found and, of course, when no virus is detected. When the alerts are set off, you can even send emails with the reports about the events that triggered those alerts, and Turbo mode or compressed files scanning can be enabled or disabled, as you wish.

An antivirus is not a serious antivirus without scheduling, and I can bet my kingdom for a pack of matches that VirusBarrier is really serious. With this program, you can schedule virus scans, as well as export and clear log operations.

The ability to define secure zones makes real time system monitoring much easier and lighter on your system's resources and the fact that this program is a 100% native Mac OS X application adds a white ball to the "reliability" score.

Now that we know all these, a proper move would be to draw the conclusions and check this handsome program's screenshots, don't you think?

The Good

VirusBarrier is fast, looks great, very easy to use and has everything a good antivirus should have: real time protection, scheduling, the ability to repair infected files, email alerts and many more.

The Bad

The 30 days trial version can't clean viruses, while interface skins would be a really nice thing to have that is not available at this time, but I really hope to see it available as soon as possible.

The Truth

Don't fall into the "Mac OS X is safe" trap, since you don't have to infect yourself to discover how bad viruses and other threats are - it's enough to get an infected Windows program and give it to one of your friends... VirusBarrier is an excellent tool to help you avoid such situations and remain on the safe side of the wall. Good luck and stay safe with VirusBarrier!

Check out the screenshots here: