What are those ._<name> files?

I downloaded a Java library and noticed, that for every file and directory there is a binary file of the form ._<name>. It contains something like:

"Mac OS X ... com.apple.quarantine ... com.google.Chrome"

Have those files been added by an Mac OS X IDE (I'm an Ubuntu user planning to use the library with Eclipse)? Can I safely remove those files?

TIA for your help!

Solution 1:

Those are extended attribute files, which OSX uses when the filesystem doesn't support resource forks or extended attributes. You don't care about them. (The entry you quoted is a message to the Finder to display a "This file was downloaded at (date). Downloaded programs may be unsafe. Do you want to open it?" dialog along with a button which will open Chrome and take you to the page the file was downloaded from.)