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Antivirus for iMac G4

I

iMaclover1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 11, 2013
9
0
Hi there.

I recently purchased an imac g4 with 256mb ram (hopefully 512mb tomorrow)
And i want to make it as secure as an imac can be. I am currently running os x 10.4.11. I want to download antivirus for it but i dont really want to use ClamXav because i have used it on my imac before and it is confusing and buggy. Is there any other antivirus for an imac g4 os x 10.4 other that ClamXav?

And also. What else can i do to make my imac g4 as secure as it can be because i have had bad experiences with windows and viruses. :mad:

Thanks!:D:apple:
 
Intell

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
Antivirus is not needed on Mac OS X. Just disable Java and use an up to date browser like TenFourFox and you'll be fine.
 
Intell

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
Remove the plug in from Internet Plugins and uncheck everything in the Java settings application. There are a few threads in here that explain how to completely remove it.
 
I

iMaclover1

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 11, 2013
9
0
Intell said:
Remove the plug in from Internet Plugins and uncheck everything in the Java settings application. There are a few threads in here that explain how to completely remove it.
Click to expand...

Ok. Thanks. I will download TenFourFox and then disable java in it.

Do you know if there is anything else that i can do to protect my mac from malware and viruses?

Thanks:D:apple:
 
clukas

clukas

macrumors 6502a
May 3, 2010
990
401
Clamxav is quite a popular anti-malware app for OS X, however if you disable java and practice safe browsing youll be fine.
 
eyoungren

eyoungren

macrumors Penryn
Aug 31, 2011
28,793
26,883
As has been mentioned, A/V is not really necessary for PowerPC Macs. However, should you really, really want to use A/V, but not Clam, then try Sophos Antivirus. I've used it in the past on my PowerPC Macs and it's reliable, easy to use and non-intrusive. You want version 8. Unfortunately, though, unless you are willing to upgrade to Leopard you're out of luck. It's Leopard only.

Now that I have an Intel Mac at work, it's installed on this MacPro.

Sophos states that version 8 will be discontinued in April 2014. I'm not sure if that means no more virus definitions or not though.
 
Zotaccian

Zotaccian

macrumors 6502a
Apr 25, 2012
645
7
It's amazing how much people get those viruses on Windows-machines but I'm more interested where they get them since the last time had to battle with malware in my own machine was several years ago when I was downloading games and cracks for them. Even back then I knew there is a risk to get more than the game and a program to remove copy protection, but as far as I know all these people I have helped are not downloading pirated games or software so I can't figure where the malware is coming from.

Unsupported OS is never a good thing for security, but just tune up FireWall settings little and use TenFourFox, I think TFF disables Flash and Java by default.
 
Y

yjchua95

macrumors 604
Apr 23, 2011
6,725
233
GVA, KUL, MEL (current), ZQN
I don't think there's any good antivirus out there that still has PowerPC support :D

I use my sunflower/lampshade G4 just as the kitchen computer, for aesthetic reasons and for my mom to use.

OS X barely gets viruses by the way. Just to be on the safe side though, upgrade it to 10.5.8.
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
eyoungren said:
then try Sophos Antivirus.
Click to expand...
I recommend avoiding Sophos, as it can actually increase a Mac's vulnerability, as described here and here.

Macs are not immune to malware, but no true viruses exist in the wild that can run on Mac OS X, and there never have been any since it was released over 12 years ago. The only malware in the wild that can affect Mac OS X is a handful of trojans, which can be easily avoided by practicing safe computing (see below). 3rd party antivirus apps are not necessary to keep a Mac malware-free, as long as a user practices safe computing, as described in the following link.
​
Read the What security steps should I take? section of the Mac Virus/Malware FAQ for tips on practicing safe computing.

When the MR Guides are back online, read the Mac Virus/Malware FAQ. Until the MR Guides are available, you can read most of the same info in the Mac Virus/Malware Info post, on which the FAQ is based.
 
C

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,578
1,693
Redondo Beach, California
iMaclover1 said:
And also. What else can i do to make my imac g4 as secure as it can be because i have had bad experiences with windows and viruses. :mad:
Click to expand...

I used to live in a wood house and had problems with termites. Now I live in a new brick house. What kind of termite protection can I get. I've searched the internet over and not one termite chemical claims to be effective on bricks.

Does the above sound silly? It does because you know what a brick is and what termites eat. If you know more about software you'd think that same about asking for AV software for a power PC Mac.

Don't worry about it. The virus problem is not a computer problem. Of the three dozen or so operating systems I know of Windows is UNIQUE in that it has a virus problem. We don't see this on Solaris, Linux BSD, VAX/VMS, NOS, Mac OS X, IOS, and so on, Only Windows.

The real reason for this is that microsoft built Windows on top of DOS and they assumed there there would be only one user per computer and no way to remotely access the computer. So security was never an issue. The other OSes were older UNIX was built with the idea that many people would be logged into the same computer all at once. The plan was that even if one user was dil and tried to crash the machine he would not be able to. Security was a prime factor in the design, no an add-on. These older system were multi-user and networked back in the 1970's and were secure (mostly) Windows added all these features much later but for business reasons had to maintain backwards compatibility. It was this last part that killed them. They have been catching up but the other OSes that Windows now competes with are 20 years older designs targeted at the larger multi-user networked system that existed in the 70's and 80's. Windows has designed for the toy computer that a single person could afford so it was stripped of features so it could run on the old IBM PC (an 8-bit CPU 4MHz with 600K or RAM)
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
ChrisA said:
Don't worry about it. The virus problem is not a computer problem. Of the three dozen or so operating systems I know of Windows is UNIQUE in that it has a virus problem. We don't see this on Solaris, Linux BSD, VAX/VMS, NOS, Mac OS X, IOS, and so on, Only Windows.
Click to expand...
That's not entirely true. There were several true viruses in the wild that affected OS 9 and earlier versions. There just haven't been any in the wild that can affect OS X.
 
I

ihuman:D

macrumors 6502a
Jul 11, 2012
925
1
Ireland
ChrisA said:
I used to live in a wood house and had problems with termites. Now I live in a new brick house. What kind of termite protection can I get. I've searched the internet over and not one termite chemical claims to be effective on bricks.

Does the above sound silly? It does because you know what a brick is and what termites eat. If you know more about software you'd think that same about asking for AV software for a power PC Mac.

Don't worry about it. The virus problem is not a computer problem. Of the three dozen or so operating systems I know of Windows is UNIQUE in that it has a virus problem. We don't see this on Solaris, Linux BSD, VAX/VMS, NOS, Mac OS X, IOS, and so on, Only Windows.

The real reason for this is that microsoft built Windows on top of DOS and they assumed there there would be only one user per computer and no way to remotely access the computer. So security was never an issue. The other OSes were older UNIX was built with the idea that many people would be logged into the same computer all at once. The plan was that even if one user was dil and tried to crash the machine he would not be able to. Security was a prime factor in the design, no an add-on. These older system were multi-user and networked back in the 1970's and were secure (mostly) Windows added all these features much later but for business reasons had to maintain backwards compatibility. It was this last part that killed them. They have been catching up but the other OSes that Windows now competes with are 20 years older designs targeted at the larger multi-user networked system that existed in the 70's and 80's. Windows has designed for the toy computer that a single person could afford so it was stripped of features so it could run on the old IBM PC (an 8-bit CPU 4MHz with 600K or RAM)
Click to expand...

Oh my god. Nearly everything in this is so wrong I don't even know what to say...
 
C

csixty4

macrumors regular
Apr 8, 2010
204
1
Somerville, MA
ChrisA said:
We don't see this on Solaris, Linux BSD, VAX/VMS, NOS, Mac OS X, IOS, and so on, Only Windows.

The real reason for this is that microsoft built Windows on top of DOS
Click to expand...

There hasn't been a DOS-based Windows since ME. Everything from Windows 2000 on has been based on Windows NT, which has its roots in VMS.
 
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