Just like Windows.... Oh, wait, I mean, just like Windows could have done and should have done years ago.

FTR, why don't Google, Bing and other search sites quarantine sites which enable malware like this. Particularly when the sites allow themselves to be a regular transport mechanism for malware. As long as search sites like Google, Bing and others don't help to stop it, more people will continue to visit these same sites over and over and over again. By helping to stop it, instead of making it easier, search sites can make distribution of malware more difficult.

It won't solve the problem, but anything that makes it more difficult for malware or educates users to be more careful makes it better for the rest of us.

Hooray! Although I've already turned off the "automatically open safe file types" option in Safari. Google should be ashamed of itself for allowing SEO poisoning, BTW. As far as I'm concerned, Google Image Search is more or less overrun by content farms and phishing servers.

It's nice that Apple has finally gotten proactive. Even though we only seem to get less than one piece of malware a year, Apple should be dealing with it in a rapid way. Hopefully this will be that way.

Since it's not viruses that Mac gets but just trojans installed by the unwary, this File Quarantine is perfect.

Instead of a full-on performance draining virus checker running 24/7, it now simply has a file-download blacklist that Safari, Mail and iChat reference.

It has already had this for some time, the difference now is it checks in with Apple daily for updates to the blacklist.
"About file quarantine in Mac OS X v10.5 and v10.6"
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3662

Edit: Cool. It not only checks when you download files but when you open them too, so people using Firefox should be covered. But Safari users will catch it sooner.

I have ClamX just for funsies, but have not updated that thing in months. Use it to check USB sticks that are given to me, mostly from Windows Users. I dunno, it sucks that someone released this in the wild, on the other hand it is so easy to neutralize it almost does not count.

I actually had a toothy grin on my face when I saw the "daily malware definitions check".

If its kept squeaky clean and up to date with as many malware definitions as possible, then even the opening of safe files automatically from Safari will be of very little security risk. It'll just flag a warning and dump it to the trash. Although I think the dialogue box should've read "it will be moved to the trash", rather than asking for confirmation.