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Antivirus advice

C

chameleon81

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 16, 2006
434
0
Hi,

I used to use Norton on my iMac. I think it slowed my system so for my Macbook I' m looking for sth else... Do you have any another suggestions?

I know mac doesnt have virus if it has its a dead one , it doesn' t even burn in the hell, it is stronger than Muhammed Ali, it travels faster light and stops quicker than Porsche brakes etc.

BUT still i dont feel very safe without anti virus.

Thank you
 
chameleon81 said:
Do you have any another suggestions?
Click to expand...

Get rid of everything.

BUT still i dont feel very safe without anti virus.
Click to expand...

Stop being a pansy. There are no viruses. Any exploit will be zero-day and we'll all get it. Why would you want to waste your money when you don't have to?

Morpheus: Welcome... to the real world. You're using your eyes for the first time. Get used to freedom.
 
Tallest Skil said:
Stop being a pansy. There are no viruses. Any exploit will be zero-day and we'll all get it. Why would you want to waste your money when you don't have to?

Morpheus: Welcome... to the real world. You're using your eyes for the first time. Get used to freedom.
Click to expand...

+1 on that, there's so many anti virus questions recently, I think I've spotted 3 just today :confused:

To the OP: I've never used any anti virus on my mac, and even on a large university network, don't feel the need to turn the inbuilt firewall on...
 
Schtumple said:
+1 on that, there's so many anti virus questions recently, I think I've spotted 3 just today :confused:

To the OP: I've never used any anti virus on my mac, and even on a large university network, don't feel the need to turn the inbuilt firewall on...
Click to expand...
,

I also read one of them but the answers to that topic were not type i m looking for. ( such as Mac are great etc. )

Maybe I m wrong but in my opinion if I dont have anything which will warn me against viruses , I ll never be able to tell if I have virus or not.

Not every virus is written to slown down your system or pop up windows. They might act like keyloggers etc.
 
I don't have any antivirus on my Mac, and never had any viruses.

The other guys are right; don't bother with antivirus on OS X. Waste of money, time and resources.

Fact: all Norton Antivirus (and any other antivirus program) actually knows about are Windows viruses. That's right, it's database has Windows viruses, not Mac viruses. The idea is that it'll stop a Windows virus if you get one in your email or download one or something, thus preventing you from sending it to other PCs. But the Windows viruses themselves are harmless on OS X.
 
i guess if you don't want to spread windows viruses via email, local network, etc you should keep AV, but it won't help much regarding mac viruses
 
chameleon81 said:
After these kind of answers I decided to make own research on internet.


http://www.intego.com/news/ism0803.asp is an example for possible trojan horse on our system.

Anyways thanks for the answers
Click to expand...

Ever heard of scare tactics ? the link you quoted is from a antivirus software company, anyways Trojans by definition need your admin password to install so unless your daft you wont get one
 
Neil321 said:
Ever heard of scare tactics ? the link you quoted is from a antivirus software company, anyways Trojans by definition need your admin password to install so unless your daft you wont get one
Click to expand...

Let me ask this though. What if you have Apache running or even FTP, and someone exploits those? They can gain root access that way without needing your password or anyone to type one. I've never heard anyone doing that on OS X, probably because most people have it off.
 
I've been using Macs with no AV software for the past 5 years and have never had a virus. You don't need AV software on a Mac
 
yg17 said:
I've been using Macs with no AV software for the past 5 years and have never had a virus. You don't need AV software on a Mac
Click to expand...

Maybe you dont know that you have one. :)

Maybe your computer is infected since 4 years and you are being used to send 1 email per week by spammers.

Who knows :)

rychencop said:
do a search. there are only 1000 threads about this topic.
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You read the messages before referring to other posts. I told before I read some of the open topics.
 
Tallest Skil said:
We know. Because it can't happen. Because UNIX is completely different from the crap that is Windows. It. Can't. Happen. Without the consent of the user.
Click to expand...

Unless someone exploits one of the running services... Unix machines are tougher, sure, but not invincible.
 
One of the problems with Norton AV, is it tends to slow the system down.

If people are installing this, then they may look at the Norton drive tools, which are downright dangerous these days -- and best avoided -- please look at the other drive repair tools that actually care about the customer and are updating the SW.

---

With the ISP providing some of the av scanning for the really problematic e-mails, scanning the desktop, e-mails, and download folder every now and then works -- since the entire drive scanning takes forever these days.
 
chameleon81 said:
Maybe you dont know that you have one. :)

Maybe your computer is infected since 4 years and you are being used to send 1 email per week by spammers.

Who knows :)
Click to expand...

Please trust us on this. You most certainly would know if you had a virus because you would have to

1. download it
2. launch it
3. PROVIDE YOUR PASSWORD
4. install it

There are no self-executing files like in Windows here. The closest thing OS X has is a setting to automatically open disc images for you and there is no way that can take advantage of your comp.
 
I have never used anti virus software on any of my Macs or Windows computers, and I have never had a virus.

I am very careful where I go on the Internet, and I never open random emails.
 
Yes, let's ALL get bloated anti-virus software for our Macs! It will protect us from all the Mac viruses out there. Let's also wrap aluminum foil around our heads, to protect us from all the brain-stealing gamma rays fired by Martians hovering over our cities in invisible flying saucers! :rolleyes:
 
MisterMe said:
Before you can get a MacOS X virus, there has to be a MacOS X virus. There are none.
Click to expand...

It does not have to be a virus. What about a remote attacker? Since OS X uses BSD's ftpd and Apache's httpd, there exists a possibility of unauthorized remote access. There are plenty of exploits found in Apache and ftpd, and this could allow root access to the wrong person.

Sorry, but you're coming across very uppity about this and I'm not sure why. I'm not trying to offend here, but point out there are risks involved with any computer system.
 
belvdr said:
It does not have to be a virus. What about a remote attacker? Since OS X uses BSD's ftpd and Apache's httpd, there exists a possibility of unauthorized remote access. There are plenty of exploits found in Apache and ftpd, and this could allow root access to the wrong person.

Sorry, but you're coming across very uppity about this and I'm not sure why. I'm not trying to offend here, but point out there are risks involved with any computer system.
Click to expand...

Then get LittleSnitch, it's asks for permission whenever there's port access. "Such and Such is receiving data on port 4242, allow or deny?"

The fact is no anti-virus will protect from a first time virus. The first time something gets released for the Mac, everyone will get it. Norton, ClamAV, won't matter what you run - you will get it. Why? Because if it's the first virus, none of these companies will have the patches out for their AV software that will stop a virus. AV software only protects from viruses currently in the wild. AND if Macs get their first virus, I guarantee you that Apple will send out a patch BEFORE Symantec delivers one to their customers.
 
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