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Apple Removes Intego's 'VirusBarrier' From iOS App Store, Says It's Misleading
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What about the ones that agree?
I'm all for a cheeky cynical/sarcastic comment, though geez, when you call others morons, use the correct grammar
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Please tell me, you ARE doing this on purpose.
Thank you for the morning laugh.
I rewrote this last paragraph for you MacRumors. Just trying to help.
"When did Apple begin removing anti-virus apps? We don't know."
"How many apps have been pulled? We don't know."
"Will the remaining apps be removed? in the near future? We don't know."
He he he. I love your style, thoguh it might be too honest to apply to some of the "rumours" that pass through as news stories.
Common sense only goes so far, for example, some malware work as drive by downloads on websites.
The only thing more ridiculous than the app itself is the effort made by people in this forum to legitimize it.
Since you can't sideload in IOS, those are obviously much less of an issue there unless they're exploiting a bug Apple doesn't know about. That's how most malware gets on Android phones though.
Still common sense applies. Not impossible, but very unlikely if the site is respectable.
That's really only for non-respectable websites though. and the user does not run No-Script or any other software firewall to help protect them.
Virus free... Not all the time... Just means they can patch vulnerablities as soon as they're known because well, the code is running on their own servers. That solves all the patch distribution issue... Unless their own code is 100% without issues, which is unlikely, no one can claim that there are no security issues.
Also, the chromebooks themselves are not safe if you actually get your hands on it... Which I guess doesn't matter much since they're basically dumb terminals and have nothing of worth on them... Though cached info could be an issue I guess, or people could install some snooping mechanism on them.
Some would call Google itself the malware in this case ;-); but that would slightly insulting.
Androids gave bad rep to virus on smartphones
In my country these apps are always on the top charts on AppStore.
He says he "understands" because he's already made a lot of money from the app, and he's very happy it lasted for so long!
In my country these apps are always on the top charts on AppStore.
He says he "understands" because he's already made a lot of money from the app, and he's very happy it lasted for so long!
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If someone sends a suspect attachment with an email can you not forward it on from an iOS device to a friend or colleague? I'm only as asking as I don't know for sure, but it seems like that's what this virus checker was for, checking your emails on the server and not your phone.
What they should be pulling are the games aimed squarely at kids that are designed to be addictive and continue to offer you "$99 Large bag of gold coins" at every opportunity.
That is false. 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. They are right. See above. The distinction has to do with what type of defense is needed. All OS X malware in the wild can be successfully avoided by practicing safe computing. That would not be true if there was a true OS X virus in the wild.
The same is true, and even more so, for iOS.
Indeed, it was night and the text was meant for another topic
. I pasted it here accidentally. Thanks for pointing that out.
Is that true if you install pirated applications on Apple desktops and laptops running OSX ?
Anyone with common sense and a bit of awareness knows how foolish it is to install pirated software, as it's a common vector for Trojans. Avoidance of pirated software is a basic step in practicing safe computing.
Sure. But like almost everybody else, you forget that you can still receive virus-infected eMails and that you can forward those eMails to other people who might be receiving them on an unprotected system. With an anti-virus software on your machine, that wouldn't be happening.
Also, software like that can protect you from exploits that Apple has not yet fixed in their OS. Yes, Apple provides fixes for known security problems - but until they do, users are unprotected against exploits.
The thing is, most Apple - and Linux - users suffer from an illusion of safety and security. It is a dangerous belief that OS X, IOS and Linux are safe from malicious software. Yes, they are not as heavily under attack as the more popular platforms Android and Windows, but they are under attack nonetheless - and even if they might not get infected themselves, they are still capable of spreading the disease to others.
And Apple is not helping anyone but themselves by pulling such apps from the store. I didn't have an infected Windows system in more than a decade now, and the last infection that I saw was a worm and not a virus - it was the W32.Blaster worm, to be precise. What a mean piece of software that was - but that was back in 2003. I manage an IT team in a data center environment that sits in a global network, my company's own global satellite-powered network. If I'd combine my experience with the average Apple-user smugness, I'd say that it would be safe for Microsoft to pull anti-virus software from their platform, too, because for more than a decade I didn't see any infections in my corporate environment.
But that's as dumb as saying we don't need to produce any more Penicillin because I personally haven't met anyone in the last ten years who was suffering from an illness that normally would be treated with Penicillin...
Every now and then when my clients bug me with service fee when servicing computers, I just tell them to get a Mac. Seriously, I'm a writer, I'm not the usual computer guy they should be calling to begin with. They are never gonna learn why antivirus is needed on PC, what does it mean to "use it safely" or whatever, and when finally something happens they either get the antivirus they found on email for free or call me. It should be ridiculous enough for them to get a Mac by now.
You may well be correct in that it's ill advised, but then so are many many many things real people do in real life also.
Saying so, however makes no difference as to whether people do it.
Not drinking, Not Smoking, Only skiing in safe zones on the mountain.
Not speeding in a car, not eating too much fatty food.
We can advise people, however, we also need to be realistic and accept the reality of life, and do things to protect against ill advised practices.
So, if we can agree that many thousands, tens of thousands, millions even Mac owners have and/or do install pirate software, and let's assume it's the very expensive high end packages that they can't justify or afford the cost of.
Irrespective of your views on should they or should they not.
And dealing with the real world.
Apple Mac computers can become infected with what?
And what steps do people need to take to detect such infections?
Yes Norton. I did not realize the response I would get. But hey remember I said I was comming from Windows and of course I was scared of nasty viruses. and that was back in 2010. I also stated I no longer use it.
Any way, I am glad I was able to make you all laugh and yes I do feel a bit silly in hindsight.
If someone really want to help their email recipients, urge them to get their own antivirus software installed, so they'll be protected from all potential sources, not just from emails received from one user.
That is frequently not the case, as no antivirus app has 100% detection rates, and just because a vulnerability exists in OS X does not mean an exploit of that vulnerability has been released into the wild.
No OS is immune to malware, but there has never been any OS X or iOS malware in the wild that can't be successfully avoided by practicing safe computing. It is more dangerous to put absolute faith in an antivirus app, expecting it will protect against malware. Antivirus apps have an inferior track record, compared to practicing safe computing.
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And people pay the price for making such ill-advised decisions. It is no different when it comes to malware and installing pirated software.
The protection against malware that comes from installing pirated software is: don't install pirated software. There is no protection against user stupidity.
There are various Trojans that can be installed with pirated software, as has been well documented over the years. There may also be back doors installed with pirated apps, which may not be detected by any malware scans. It's just a foolish thing to do.
Don't install pirated software, because all negative results of doing so may not be detected by antivirus apps.
The point is. Even if you would get affected by a virus on iOS (which is pretty unlikely) there is absolutely nothing these apps could do about it because there are ******* sandboxed. These Apps are scams and should be removed yesterday.
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As expected, a snarky comment that has no justification in reality whatsoever gets voted up six times. If down votes were still available, there would be dozens of down votes.
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The app itself is of very limited usefulness. That's why I would never install it. But if you jailbreak your iPhone to run it, then you'll need a _real_ antivirus app, because now you made your iPhone vulnerable. And the VLC player was pulled because a copyright holder of some open source library felt offended by the fact that people could use his open source code on an iPad or iPhone.
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So how is this useful in any way? Surely whoever sent a virus mail to my iOS device can easily send it to someone else? Probably sends it to millions others? And why would I forward this virus mail instead of deleting it immediately? (I get lots of them because my ISP British Telecom is awfully bad at filtering them out; most seem to be zip files containing disguised windows screen savers). I could only imagine such an email to be forwarded by someone with malicious intent, who then obviously wouldn't want that virus scanner.
Fact is: The number of emails containing viruses that get forwarded to some other potential victim is absolutely tiny compared to the number of emails with viruses sent directly to the victim, so they add absolutely nothing to a potential threat.
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You didn't read anything about how Apple Pay works, did you?
All the functionality of Apple Pay is in an extra hardware chip, that even Apple's own software cannot manipulate. Apple itself couldn't write software that for example ordered a Mac and paid for it using Apple Pay. And if Apple can't do it, with total access to everything, then hackers can't do it either.
If you understood the architecture of Windows vs OS X, and Android vs iOS, you'd know how completely silly that statement is.
OS X and iOS apps are sandboxed. Thus can't 'infect' other apps, like non-sandboxed Operating Systems like Windows.
But, no - it's not right to say OS X or iOS is better at ANYTHING, especially on these forums. Viruses, which are pretty common in Windows because of the poor architecture of the OS, does not imply that ALL operating systems are vulnerable. All are vulnerable to social engineering, but not viruses.