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May 30, 2014 4:12 AM in response to JC897by Klaus1,Like nearly all anti-virus applications, Avast can cause havoc to your system - get rid of it.
There are many forms of ‘Malware’ that can affect a computer system, of which ‘a virus’ is but one type, ‘trojans’ another. Using the strict definition of a computer virus, no viruses that can attack OS X have so far been detected 'in the wild', i.e. in anything other than laboratory conditions. The same is not true of other forms of malware, such as Trojans. Whilst it is a fairly safe bet that your Mac will NOT be infected by a virus, it may have other security-related problem, but more likely a technical problem unrelated to any malware threat.
You may find this User Tip on Viruses, Trojan Detection and Removal, as well as general Internet Security and Privacy, useful: The User Tip seeks to offer guidance on the main security threats and how to avoid them.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-2435
More useful information can also be found here:
www.thesafemac.com/mmg
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May 30, 2014 7:43 AM in response to JC897by thomas_r.,I strongly recommend against installing Avast. It has a serious problem with false positives, and has been known to sporadically erroneously identify one particular system file as malicious since at least 2009. If you search these forums for "bootroot.loader" you will find numerous cases, and they are not clustered in time as you would expect if this were a one-time issue.
Even if you decide to use some other anti-virus software, note that you should never allow that software to automatically delete anything. Although Avast has the most well-known and well-documented history of false positives, even the best anti-virus software can suffer from such problems from time to time.
If you have a "lost+found" folder, it will be at the root level of your hard drive. (In the finder, press command-shift-C, then find your hard drive - called Macintosh HD if you haven't changed it - in the window that opens and double-click it.) It is created by the system under certain circumstances (such as a systemwide crash) to try to save modified files that have not been properly closed, and the entire lost+found folder can be deleted if none of the files it contains are important.