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Best Antivirus For Mac Osx

BlackLight

BlackLight

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 21, 2008
162
14
Out of the three recommended by apple which do you'll think is more reliable

  1. Intego VirusBarrier X5,
  2. Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 11 for Macintosh
  3. McAfee VirusScan for Mac.
 
interesting timing - look what the BBC posted today, now there does appear to be something rotten in denmark, as i have noticed for the last 12 months or so the tech page of BBC news seems to jab -apple at every opportunity - and actually sulked when people pointed out to them their one sided approach - I think it was about a comment Stephen Fry, a long term mac user, made about the team. They actually managed to do a review of the crackberry storm without mentioning the iphone once !

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7760344.stm


As Macs win a bigger share of the market, they present a more attractive target
Rory Cellan-Jones
BBC technology correspondent

Apple has urged Mac owners to use anti-virus software.
In a note posted on its support site in late November, Apple said it wanted to "encourage" people to use anti-virus to stay safe online.
The move is widely seen as a response to the growing trend among cyber criminals of booby-trapping webpages that can catch out Mac users.
Before now Mac users have been largely free of the security problems that plague Microsoft's Windows.

The support note recommends that Mac owners install one or more of three anti-virus products.
Advice on the site said: "Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult."
Apple recommended users try McAfee VirusScan, Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 11, or Intego VirusBarrier X5.
The vast majority of malicious programs circulating online are aimed at Microsoft's Windows, largely because the software is used by so many people.
A handful of viruses have been written that targets Mac's OSX, but most have been demonstration versions only and few have had any significant impact on Apple users.
One virus, known as AppleScript.THT, could take control of a Mac and grab screenshots or keystrokes.
However, in recent months, hi-tech criminals have signalled a change in tactics away from e-mail borne viruses. Instead, many are infiltrating popular webpages in a bid to infect the machine of any and every visitor.
Many seek to steal valuable information such as login names, passwords or game accounts instead of trying to install themselves on a machine.
 
Good question. I'd like to ask, also, for your opinions or experiences with ClamXAV.
 
I use nothing on any of my Macs and no that my brothers IT company that has around 15 iMacs dont use any as well. No problems as of yet!
 
Neil321 said:
Blimey another AV thread, BackLight their are at least 100000.00000 posts on this subject and the answers the same "Their are no known viruses in the wild that'll affect your Mac"
Click to expand...

well i don't know cause i will own my very first mac next week Monday(can't wait) but for the pass few days i've been reading a lot of reports saying APPLE the manufacture of Mac computers and OSX themselves are RECOMMENDING mac users to start using antivirus on their systems . Now i bought this system very expensive and i wouldn't want anything happening to it i could of prevented, soo if Apple is saying to do it then i will.
 
I haven't thought about a Virus in years, I forget that people worry about that. Seriously, you don't need an AV software; all it will do is use resources, it won't anything.
 
BlackLight said:
well i don't know cause i will own my very first mac next week Monday(can't wait) but for the pass few days i've been reading a lot of reports saying APPLE the manufacture of Mac computers and OSX themselves are RECOMMENDING mac users to start using antivirus on their systems . Now i bought this system very expensive and i wouldn't want anything happening to it i could of prevented, soo if Apple is saying to do it then i will.
Click to expand...

Have fun.
 
Whilst I agree, that no antivirus is needed, I'm sad not to see Sophos on that Apple list.
 
As far as I can tell, there are no viruses that affect os X right now. What you may have to watch out for are trojans. Some people might call them malware or spyware, but the difference between them and a virus is that you have to give permission to install the trojan. In short, if you just use a little common sense, you don't need resource hogging anti-virus software. As soon as I think there's a reason to do it, I'll install some, but for now, why waste your money? BTW, Apple "recommends" everything they sell in the online store... Do they sell this stuff in the Apple stores? Nope, didn't think so...

Isaac
 
Sky Blue said:
Whilst I agree, that no antivirus is needed, I'm sad not to see Sophos on that Apple list.
Click to expand...

Sophos, in my experience, is a pretty crappy antivirus... Sure, it finds stuff, but it's not designed very well.

Whatever you do, don't buy McAfee or Norton. They're so incompetent they can't even write a proper uninstaller. Better idea? Don't click randomly. Use something like Web Of Trust.

And for the record, there is a DNS changer that affects Macs.
 
BlackLight said:
well i don't know cause i will own my very first mac next week Monday(can't wait) but for the pass few days i've been reading a lot of reports saying APPLE the manufacture of Mac computers and OSX themselves are RECOMMENDING mac users to start using antivirus on their systems . Now i bought this system very expensive and i wouldn't want anything happening to it i could of prevented, soo if Apple is saying to do it then i will.
Click to expand...

Ok fine think what you will if you want to install some unnecessary bloated crap that'll do nothing but take up resources & slow your system down to a slugs pace then that's fine by me. Also on the subject of this Apple release note try reading the thread in the OS X sub forum the answers still the same

Their is a search feature at the top of the forums pages or better still the link in my sig
 
toxic said:
Sophos, in my experience, is a pretty crappy antivirus...

Whatever you do, don't buy McAfee or Norton. They're so incompetent they can't even write a proper uninstaller. Better idea? Don't click randomly. Use something like Web Of Trust.

And for the record, there is a DNS changer that affects Macs.
Click to expand...

Have you used Sophos on OS X?
 
I never used any AV on Windows and never caught anything, so I'm sure as hell not going to on my Mac. A good hardware firewall and an alert user is all that is needed imo.
 
BlackLight said:
well i don't know cause i will own my very first mac next week Monday(can't wait) but for the pass few days i've been reading a lot of reports saying APPLE the manufacture of Mac computers and OSX themselves are RECOMMENDING mac users to start using antivirus on their systems . Now i bought this system very expensive and i wouldn't want anything happening to it i could of prevented, soo if Apple is saying to do it then i will.
Click to expand...

They are essentially just covering their asses just in case. I don't even run an antivirus on my Vista installation because they are usually big resource hogs and I haven't had a single virus for years. I simply run a software firewall and that's mostly just because I like to know what programs are accessing the net and why. Antivirus/spyware programs are generally for fixing messes that people have caused themselves. These are the people who use IE because they don't know any better and would gladly click on "britney_naked.exe". Common sense is becoming a rare thing these days so it's not surprising.
 
If I remember properly, the suggestion by Apple to use anti-virus software was originally meant to help protect windows users. It was part of the whole "being a responsible member of the internet community" or some such. The idea is that we wouldn't be part of the distribution of viruses even if our machines weren't being affected by them...

Isaac
 
Neil321 said:
Ok fine think what you will if you want to install some unnecessary bloated crap that'll do nothing but take up resources & slow your system down to a slugs pace then that's fine by me.
Click to expand...

If you use a decent AV app then the likes of Safari, Mail, anything iWork or iLife, blah blah blah....has a larger system footprint.
 
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