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Xscan

Looking for something?

Have to find something on your computer or in your network? Goodbye Spotlight, hello Xscan.

No indexes junking down your disk - have you ever thought of what happens if your indexes start getting indexed? None of that. No 'snapshot' thinking where you only see what the system found the last time it looked (whenever that was). Start finding things that actually really exist instead - and use far more exact criteria than you'll find anywhere else.

Regexes — Regular Expressions

Xscan scans disks using 'regular expressions' so you can find exactly the files you are looking for - no more, no less. Xscan comes with a series of tutorials on how regular expressions are used. (They're not that difficult - really.)

Robust, Scaleable

Xscan was tested on 'megabyte' drags with scans of hundreds of thousands of files all at once. Xscan is amazingly incredibly fast because it uses low level Unix code.

And searching by regular expression is so much more efficient than typing in a few letters and hoping for the best. Just drop a directory on Xscan and watch it work. An entire hard drive can be scanned in a matter of seconds.

What Are You Looking For?

Who's on your computer - besides you, that is? No one? Really? Are you sure?

An Xscan file system audit will tell you a lot you didn't know before - and help you plug things up before you're exploited.

Unwelcome Critters

Xscan finds not only what you're looking for but also what you might not be looking for.

Using security audit paradigms as outlined in the famous Hacking Exposed series, Xscan can filter your searches to turn up possible weaknesses in your system - places the 'black hats' can use to crawl through.

Xscan ferrets out empty files, empty folders, multi-linked files, files with resource forks, files with the 'SGID' bit set, files with the even more dangerous 'SUID' bit set, and perhaps the most dangerous of them all: world-writable files.

Resource Forks

Most other file management utilities for OS X won't even tell you they exist. But the applications of the Xfile System do. And that includes Xscan of course.

Although resource forks have a historical purpose, they have far more crucial purposes today - mostly exploited in malware. They're the perfect hiding place for viruses, spyware, worms, trojans, and other forms of malware that want to reside on your computer without your knowing about it.

And without Xscan you'd never know about it.

Prophetic words: it was precisely resource forks which Oompa Loompa exploited. As all the applications in the Xfile System, Xscan immediately alerts you to their presence. Xscan even ferrets them out for you.

Extended Attributes

Resource forks - as well as 'Finder info' - have been superseded by 'extended attributes' in 10.4 Tiger and better. Today anyone can implant 'arbitrary' attributes in any file or directory on OS X - totally undetectable by users. The Oompa Loompa worm also exploited this 'weakness'. But again Xscan ferrets this information out. And ACP utilities such as Xattr can then deal with them.

More Critters

Xscan also performs a multi-link scan, ferreting out files with multiple 'hard links'. One doesn't delete files on a Unix system; one unlinks them. A file may have any number of names, found in any number of directories (on the same volume). The Finder won't tell you anything about these files either (poor you again); without Xscan, you're again totally in the dark.

All in all there are six points of weakness in a Unix file system - seven in an OS X system: empty files, empty folders, multi-linked files, SGID files, SUID files, world-writable files, and files with resource forks (OS X).

Xscan finds them all.

Xscan also helps you navigate through the nightmare of access control lists and system/user flags. Things get easier when you can see at a glance where the snags are in the file system. Xscan automatically flags file permissions altered by either.

Duplicate File Finder Software

Xscan - together with Rixcomp - can also be used to ferret out duplicate files. Just scan a directory tree, sort by size, and drop the suspect files on Rixcomp's window. You can even do this for entire directory trees.

Results in Db

Xscan can export your scan results in DSV format suitable for use by Xbase or any database manager.

Part of the Xfile System

With Xfile and Xfind Xscan is part of the Xfile System: nothing is hidden, all is eminently accessible, and it's ready in the kind of time frame you didn't think was possible using your default desktop tools.

Xscan: find things in record time and without the clutter you're accustomed to.



See everything. Feel the speed.

Learn More

Want to learn more about your file system and how to protect it? Pick up copy of Hacking Exposed. Couple that with Xscan to keep your system safe.

See Also
Xfile System

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