XProCheck 1.6 update improves performance

XProCheck is one of my unique utilities, to the best of my knowledge the only app that checks whether your Mac has been running its XProtect Remediator (XPR) anti-malware scanner, and reports the results of its scans in full detail. I’m delighted to release a new version of XProCheck that improves both its checks and reports.

Apple introduced XPR two years ago, as a greatly enhanced replacement for its Malware Removal Tool, MRT, which is no longer maintained. XPR is installed on all Macs running Catalina or later, and normally performs two sets of scans, one as the user and the other as root, every 24 hours or so. It currently contains scanning modules for 22 different types of malware, and one to cover those previously included in MRT’s checks. Its scans will not only detect known malware, but will also try to remove (‘remediate’) those that it does detect.

Strangely, XPR doesn’t report detections or remediations to the user, but can report them to third-party security software using Endpoint Protection (Ventura and later). As far as I’m aware, though, few if any security products make use of that, leaving XProCheck as the only way to monitor XProtect Remediator scans and reports.

XProCheck version 1.6 brings one major improvement, in changing the method used to check log entries for XPR’s reports. Previous versions have used the log show command, but this new version now reads the log directly using the OSLog API. Although this does have a small memory leak that would only be significant if you were to run dozens of checks in succession, it brings considerable improvements in speed, particularly when checking scans over longer periods, and on Apple silicon Macs.

This version of XProCheck typically takes less than 60 MB of memory before running any checks, rising to less than 70 MB after it has completed its first check. That may rise by less than 1 MB with each subsequent check made before quitting the app, so is almost unnoticeable.

There are two more cosmetic improvements: XProCheck reports now also give the time of its checks in local time as well as GMT/UTC, and the width of the scanner name field is a little greater, to better accommodate CardboardCutout.

XProCheck version 1.6 runs on all Intel and Apple silicon Macs in all versions of macOS from Catalina to Sequoia betas, and is available from here: xprocheck16-1
from Downloads above, from its Product Page, and through its auto-update mechanism.