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Apple 'officially recommends' antivirus...

like many mac owners we were once a windows believer until the attacks and crap forced us to buy anti this and that until we got smart and bought the Apple....yet i use intego suite and am satisfied altho i wish they would add keylogging spyware and these things to their product i am wondering if this is an offbeat reason to use antivirus.....i had been trying to find smithmicro's internet cleanup 5 and i really went everywhere...and yet not everywhere...i emailed sm-i finally get a reply and i was busy with things and suddenly after reading their reply what i suddenly find on my computer was a 15 day demo copy of their internet cleanup 5 (this was one day ago) their email reply made no mention of doing this and i was rather mad as hell that they just were able to put this on my computer....being a demo copy nothing works...but i deleted it, i'm not computer smart and its really eating at me how they just like that put a demo copy of their product i've been looking for on my computer--was it embedded in the email reply or what? because actually its not unlike a virus being put on one's computer...
 
yetanotherdave said:
You are running the same OS as your patients (respitory system, heart, brain, liver etc), so are susceptable to the same virus' as them.
My mac is running a different OS to a windows PC. It's impossible for a windows virus to run on my mac. No need to add protection to it, it's already fully protected.

The day that someone releases a virus for mac's, that runs without entering an admin password, that doesn't require me to download and run an application manually, then I'll get AV software. Until then, it will only cause problems on my mac at best.
Click to expand...

I think you must have misunderstood the intent of my analogy. I'm saying that I wear gloves and wash my hands to protect my patients just as much as to protect myself. Now I know that there aren't really any malware threats for Macintosh's so that part doesn't really fly with the analogy. But my patients at the hospital are often already suffering from weakened immune systems (windows and it's security holes) and I wear gloves and wash my hands regularly (antivirus software) more so to prevent myself from passing some infection to them (like I could with an infected word document from my Mac). Yeah that infection might not do anything to me because I'm a healthy young person (like running OS X), but someone in fragile health is likely to succumb much easier and have more problems from things that they can get from simple contact with me if the proper precautions aren't taken. And no, I don't think it's someone's fault if I pass an infection on to them, computer or the real variety. It's up to me as a good neighbor to take what actions I can to prevent the spread of infections of all varieties. Think of it as good hygiene for your computer!

Do you get it now?

SLC
 
SLC Flyfishing said:
I think you must have misunderstood the intent of my analogy. I'm saying that I wear gloves and wash my hands to protect my patients just as much as to protect myself. Now I know that there aren't really any malware threats for Macintosh's so that part doesn't really fly with the analogy. But my patients at the hospital are often already suffering from weakened immune systems (windows and it's security holes) and I wear gloves and wash my hands regularly (antivirus software) more so to prevent myself from passing some infection to them (like I could with an infected word document from my Mac). Yeah that infection might not do anything to me because I'm a healthy young person (like running OS X), but someone in fragile health is likely to succumb much easier and have more problems from things that they can get from simple contact with me if the proper precautions aren't taken. And no, I don't think it's someone's fault if I pass an infection on to them, computer or the real variety. It's up to me as a good neighbor to take what actions I can to prevent the spread of infections of all varieties. Think of it as good hygiene for your computer!

Do you get it now?

SLC
Click to expand...

Not really, the internet's a big place, I can't be responsible for everyone, people have to have personal responsibility and take care of their own machine. I've looked after myself, this also means my computer is not part of a bot net spewing out spam and distributing virus'.
The likelyhood of me emailing a virus to someone is virtually nil, I would have to deliberately do it as there's no way for a windows virus to auto mail itself on a mac.
All the protection you really need to protect yourself and others is a firewall, OS X is all the hygiene your computer currently needs!
 
Good metaphor SLC, but I think I found some holes. You're paid to wear rubber gloves and wash your hands for safety, and wearing rubber gloves doesn't slow you down.

You, as a Mac user, might run antivirus software out of the goodness of your heart. But it slows down your computer and grateful PC users aren't reimbursing you for the loss of computing power.

However, I think running antivirus software is almost unnecessary as most email servers scan the messages for viruses before passing them on to the receiver.
 
Ok, as the page has been removed, the discussion is just going to turn into a virus vs no virus protection/windows bashing sprawl to be the last poster until the wasteland kicks in.
 
SLC Flyfishing said:
And no, I don't think it's someone's fault if I pass an infection on to them, computer or the real variety. It's up to me as a good neighbor to take what actions I can to prevent the spread of infections of all varieties. Think of it as good hygiene for your computer!
Click to expand...

I'll let you run anti-virus software on your Mac, but I don't want my computer slowed down by it. All it does is drain valuable resources I could be using for other tasks. I know this because it completely drains the life out of my work PC.

yetanotherdave said:
Not really, the internet's a big place, I can't be responsible for everyone, people have to have personal responsibility and take care of their own machine. I've looked after myself, this also means my computer is not part of a bot net spewing out spam and distributing virus'.
The likelyhood of me emailing a virus to someone is virtually nil, I would have to deliberately do it as there's no way for a windows virus to auto mail itself on a mac.
All the protection you really need to protect yourself and others is a firewall, OS X is all the hygiene your computer currently needs!
Click to expand...

ltldrummerboy said:
You, as a Mac user, might run antivirus software out of the goodness of your heart. But it slows down your computer and grateful PC users aren't reimbursing you for the loss of computing power.

However, I think running antivirus software is almost unnecessary as most email servers scan the messages for viruses before passing them on the receiver.
Click to expand...

Exactly! I agree with both of you 100%.
 
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