jefffrombedford

Q: Eratic access to Safari and Firefox

I recently downloaded and successfully installed the Sophos Antivirus for Mac Home Edition. I have run the program and it reported a number of corrupt files (all mobile documents).  It also reported around 8  or 9 threats which I chose to Cleanup which it did fine.  All seems fine except that I now have one issue which I am not sure what to do about.  Access to some web pages in either Safari or Firefox is now erratic and Safari reports messages like “Safari can’t open the page “https://webmail.1and1.co.uk because Safari can’t establish a secure connection to the server “webmail.1and1.co.uk”.”  Firefox reports a similar message that “The connection was reset while the page was loading”.  If I retry and perhaps even restart the apps it sometimes goes through OK.  It is not consistent and not on all web sites.  Can anyone help me please as it appears as though I may have inadvertently removed/cleaned up a required file as all was working fine before the running of the app.

 

I am running an iMac 3.4GHz Intel Core i7 processor with 16GB RAM and using OSX 10.9.5

The version of Anti-Virus I am using is Home Edition 9.4.0, Threat Detection Engin 3.61.0 Threat Data: 5.19

 

Thanks

 

Jeff Robins

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), 3.4GHz Intel Core i7 - 16GB RAM

Posted on Oct 2, 2015 10:56 AM

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Q: Eratic access to Safari and Firefox

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Carolyn Samit,Solvedanswer

    Carolyn Samit Carolyn Samit Oct 3, 2015 3:16 AM in response to jefffrombedford
    Level 10 (122,107 points)
    Apple Music
    Oct 3, 2015 3:16 AM in response to jefffrombedford

    The anti virus software is the culprit.

     

    Follow the instructions for uninstalling Sohphos >  How to remove Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac


    Then restart your Mac and try Safari and Firefox.

     

     

     

    Gatekeeper is pre installed on your Mac to prevent malware.

     

    Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy then select the General tab.

     

    Make sure Mac App Store and identified developers is selected. If that area is grayed out, click the padlock icon to proceed.

     

    OS X: About Gatekeeper

     

    Anything else is overkill on a Mac.

  • by pinkstones,Helpful

    pinkstones pinkstones Oct 3, 2015 3:16 AM in response to jefffrombedford
    Level 5 (4,209 points)
    Safari
    Oct 3, 2015 3:16 AM in response to jefffrombedford

    You need to uninstall Sophos.  You may think you need an anti-virus program on your computer, but they're wholly unnecessary on a Mac.  You don't have a PC, and you're not running Windows.  From my experience here, a lot of the problems I see people seeking help for have to do with anti-virus programs not doing what they think they're going to do, unaware that the anti-virus programs out there are designed to find Windows viruses, so they'll only look for Windows viruses.  It gives people a false sense of security because they'll run the scan, see that it comes back with nothing, and assume then that they're fine....when in reality, that same anti-virus program is doing damage to their hard drive.

  • by jefffrombedford,

    jefffrombedford jefffrombedford Oct 3, 2015 3:19 AM in response to jefffrombedford
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 3, 2015 3:19 AM in response to jefffrombedford

    This does seem to have solved the problem, so thank you. Jeff Robins

  • by Carolyn Samit,

    Carolyn Samit Carolyn Samit Oct 3, 2015 4:58 AM in response to jefffrombedford
    Level 10 (122,107 points)
    Apple Music
    Oct 3, 2015 4:58 AM in response to jefffrombedford

    You're welcome

  • by WBKitty,

    WBKitty WBKitty Oct 3, 2015 9:37 AM in response to jefffrombedford
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 3, 2015 9:37 AM in response to jefffrombedford

    My boss and I have been experiencing this problem since last week, also with both Firefox and Safari. Sometimes websites will connect, sometimes they won't; sometimes they will connect and then a moment later will disconnect. We both have Sophos installed.

     

    Finally I entered the web address that I most needed access to as an "Allowed Website" in Sophos Preferences in order to get my work done.

     

    Given this experience, I might have agreed that Sophos was the problem, HOWEVER, my boss just called me for assistance with setting up her new laptop. Sophos is not installed and she is still experiencing a problem with Safari accessing websites. So we downloaded Chrome, and so far it's working. We'll wait and see.

     

    This leaves me feeling that there is an issue with Apple/Safari software.

     

    Apple Support offers this advice (Last Modified: Aug 4, 2015):

    If Safari says it can't establish a secure connection, or the website is using weak encryption - Apple Support

    Use modern cryptographic practices when setting up SSL and TLS services on your server - Apple Support

     

    I followed their advice and contacted the IT support for the one website that I really needed access to. The company assured me that their security was up Apple's specs, and I believe them. Because the company handles sensitive data, they are on top of what's needed to be in compliance.

     

    Therefore, I suspect that some Apple update that occurred last week (or the week before, now that time has gone on) is the source of the problem, since the problem started for both my boss and me at the same time AND her new computer without Sophos is still experiencing a problem.