Mac OS X Lion being a HUGE memory hog. What to do?

... Sophos is running to protect my computer against malware

Is it?

On a continuum from benign to malicious, Sophos avoids both extremes. However, there have been anecdotal reports of it causing problems (here is a recent one: what is sophos and how do I get rid of it?). It may or may not be the sole cause of your slowdowns but I recommend uninstalling Sophos to eliminate that possibility.

Research Sophos's website to determine how to uninstall it. You will find "Uninstalling Sophos on a Mac" is their support forum's most popular topic. What does that tell you?

It amuses me that anyone would think they know how to prevent Macs and OS X from malware and viruses better than the company that designed them.

It's your computer. Sophos will do nothing beneficial for you. At best it is utterly false "protection". In the meantime your problem remains so do something to advance troubleshooting. Forget about Lion and memory being the culprits - one or more of your computer's processes has a memory leak, or is taxing its resources, or both. Your MBP should run circles around my MacBook Air.

You really should post a new topic, since the two subjects in question "Lion" and "memory" are really not the problems here. A question regarding poor performance, beachballs, freezes, etc. will elicit more interest and more helpful responses. Your last screenshot will help - just select the tab "system memory" at the bottom and post it too.

Good show 😎

... Cnet recommended sophos as a good way to keep my mac from getting viruses

I have little regard for cnet and utter disdain for its parent company CBS.

The only problem is Sophos. The Sophos InterCheck proces is taking too many resources on your machine. This seems to be a common problem with Sophos. It is a bit difficult to see in your example because your screen capture only shows your computer when it is completely idle. You can tell by the Sophos InterCheck memory usage that it is working harder than virtually anything else on your computer. While you sit and look at your scree, without touching anything, then everything is normal. As you as you try to do something, Sophos steps in and slows your computer down while it checks for hundreds of thousands of Windows viruses. As soon as you stop using it, and look at Activity Monitor, Sophos releases control.

Yes, Sophos will absolutely protect your computer from malware - from Windows malware. That isn't your problem. You have a Mac. Sophos could always only scan your computer from Mac malware threats, but that would expose the recent myth that the Mac malware risk is the same as Windows that Sophos and similar companies are working hard to spread.

First I have a 2009 MacBook Pro with 2GB of ram running OS X 10.7.5.

I downloaded Sophos yesterday after hearing about it on the Kim Komando radio show.

After installing it I ran the app and went to bed. The next morning I checked my Mac and the app said no threats.

I then started to use the computer as I always do, FireFox, PhotoShop, Social Media and I found it was very sluggish. I was waiting and waiting every time I tried to do something. I realized the only thing new on my Mac was Sophos so I used the uninstall app that came with it, removed the app and then restarted my Mac.

Everything went back to normal.

cmhall9 wrote:

... I downloaded Sophos yesterday after hearing about it on the Kim Komando radio show.

Kim Komando is as knowledgeable about computers as Dr. Oz is about medical practice.

Looks normal to me too. You might want to use, All Processes," in lieu of, "My Processes."

Yea, you are right on that. It seems most of Kim Komando's tech tips are just ads in disguise.