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Best AntiVirus for Mac?
- Thread starter fr00b
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Huh?
Maybe i didn't make myself clear enough? Here... a visual explanation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id_kGL3M5Cg
From a microsoft word document originating from my mac? This wasn't a "macro" document either... just plain vanilla text. (Some virus scanners interpret certain macro code as suspicious.)
Nope... this was yet another Norton misfire. I sent it to her again and "magically" it passed Symantec's top secret scanning algorthms. LOL!
P.S. Norton AV *is* a virus.
Huh?
Here... a visual explanation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id_kGL3M5Cg
It would have helped if I read your original post better.... =X
I remember back when i installed norton antivirus on my mac mini. It went ta ta's after about 1 hr of use.
Eh?
I wrote:
"The other day I sent a windows user an email from my mac..."
The dead giveaway here being, "from my mac".
YES! and Norton is good at blocking intentional home network stuff too. The companies play on fear as our culture does so we all think we need them. Believe it or not, Microsoft stays pretty up to date with Hot Fixes for vulnerabilities.
Viruses used to be spread by floppies, who uses those anymore? The floppy had a boot sequence when accessed, bam you just transfered something. Much different with USB and jump drives.
Really email is the culprit these days. Don't launch any program from email from 'uncle Frank' even if he says it is the funniest thing he has ever seen.
I have been buying Macs for close to 3 years now, and a big selling point for me always is not having to install an anti-virus on my Macs. I have never been really satisfied with a good anti-virus system in my life with Windows(maybe the free AVG), so I thought this was a huge plus for Apple. As you can see, I'm anti anti-virus. I still don't find myself downloading one anytime soon, but I see some good posts to make me start thinking...
...Everyone is going back n forth about an anti-virus...if there is one to get - which one would you recommend?
Also, are there any reports about Snow Leopard running or having anti-virus?
CrackBookPro
. I still don't find myself downloading one anytime soon, but I see some good posts to make me start thinking......Everyone is going back n forth about an anti-virus...if there is one to get
- which one would you recommend?Also, are there any reports about Snow Leopard running or having anti-virus?
CrackBookPro
Why? I see this all the time, but no one ever has any reason to go against norton?
Norton has the largest resource footprint of any virus-scanner that I've ever seen, with McAfee running a close 2nd. It's a total resource hog, and has virtually no benefit over software like AVG-free or Kaspersky.
Okay - I get the part about not needing to run AV software on a Mac. But what if you are also running Windows on your Mac through Parallels?
lol at the people saying 'common sense'
you do realise that macrumours.com could've been hacked, a hacker modified a flash object (banner ad etc) and then can compromise your system in roughly 10 seconds. At this point an attacker can plant a virus if one so wishes. But really there are better things to do...
It's possible and it has been shown in the real world.
Tons of code is exploitable.
These are not viruses though. Viruses are so 1990s. There are much worse things that can get you these days.
OS X can be hacked like a bitch too.
jpegs are not safe in windows either. so don't 'only open picture files'. There was a recent image vulnerability in windows which allowed an attacker to gain remote access to your machine. Once entry is gained, malware is placed deep into the system (rootkits etc). You will not even notice they are there... AV will -not- find them.
These very people saying 'i dont run anti-virus on windows, i dont do dumb things' are probably already compromised
And even better, they are not running AV to see if they are ok or not.
3/4 of windows users are already compromised. The other 1/4 do not have internet.
Don't worry about viruses. Worry about trojans, vulns and haxorz
PS. Don't use an AV for Mac
you do realise that macrumours.com could've been hacked, a hacker modified a flash object (banner ad etc) and then can compromise your system in roughly 10 seconds. At this point an attacker can plant a virus if one so wishes. But really there are better things to do...
It's possible and it has been shown in the real world.
Tons of code is exploitable.
These are not viruses though. Viruses are so 1990s. There are much worse things that can get you these days.
OS X can be hacked like a bitch too.
jpegs are not safe in windows either. so don't 'only open picture files'. There was a recent image vulnerability in windows which allowed an attacker to gain remote access to your machine. Once entry is gained, malware is placed deep into the system (rootkits etc). You will not even notice they are there... AV will -not- find them.
These very people saying 'i dont run anti-virus on windows, i dont do dumb things' are probably already compromised
And even better, they are not running AV to see if they are ok or not.
3/4 of windows users are already compromised. The other 1/4 do not have internet.
Don't worry about viruses. Worry about trojans, vulns and haxorz
PS. Don't use an AV for Mac
When is the last time you've "seen" Norton. Not for nothing, but norton 5 years ago sucked. Today? This ain't you father's norton antivirus. It certainly doesn't "block home networking" 'things'....
What is this... "stuff"....
Man, I'm really disappointed that nobody answered the OP's question. I don't care about who gets what or no viruses. I want somebody to list out the freely available antivirus programs that are out there. I, and the OP, would appreciate a list, even if no one else does.
Only if you have an insecure setup.
If the above happened, my machine would.... be fine. Why? Well I use NoScript, so no scripts or embedded data gets executed without my explicit permission (and no, I don't have anything whitelisted either.)
But let's say I did allow macrumors.com to run scripts/embedded content on my machine.
Still nothing. I don't have Flash installed.
But lets say I did. Then the attacker could... <drumroll>... wipe out my bookmarks and screw up my browser config. They couldn't execute anything outside of my browser. They couldn't write to anything outside of my browser's temporary storage directories. They couldn't even open a port on my machine.
Moral of the story? Run NoScript, avoid Flash at all costs, and use a sane permissions setup to lock down your browser.
We have it at work on every computer, that's my experience with it. Granted, that's in a PC environment, and I have no experience on the Mac with it because it's useless.
stuff in this case was connections. Thus, home network connections, norton is good at blocking them, even when you don't want that to happen.
And, to the person saying no one has answered the OP .... um everyone has. In other words most don't use AV so we can't recommend one. Or to look at it another way we don't recommend the usage of.
I googled it as it seems those skills are going away:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/12/apple_mac_users_should_get_ant.html
Portion of article from the above url.
"If you are considering anti-virus for your Mac, Apple recommends a few options (below). I should note that there is also a free anti-virus program available for OS X, called ClamXav. In addition, SecureMac offers a free Trojan detection tool. For the record, I've had Symantec anti-virus installed on my MacBook for nearly two years now and it has never so much as made a peep.
From the remainder of the Apple support advisory:
Here are some available anti-virus utilities:
· Intego VirusBarrier X5, available from the Apple Online Store
License: commercial
· Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 11 for Macintosh, available from the Apple Online Store
License: commercial
· McAfee VirusScan for Mac
License: commercial"
There you go. ;-)
yea i was wondering about this as well. i think i remember reading a thread on this site about it and a member said that you are safe running parallels. does anyone know if it is the same for bootcamp?
Most of them are excellent. Back in the day when I was running a Mac with a pre-G3 processor, the anti-virus slowed things down. A little bit of a pain.
After that a G3 powered machine (rev. a iBook) with McAfee (which I think may be discontinued), then Norton, and only some slowing.
Then I got a dual G4 with Norton and the anti-virus had no slowing effect. Some gamers I know like their machines stripped down and remove programs and don't utilize anti-virus as to get the fastest possible machine, but other than those people in the hundreds of Macs I worked on as a tech, and friend doing tech work as a favor, no basic complaints in last few years of anti-virus.
Oh come on! Macs work properly, they don't need anti-virus!
When I taught computer networking to seniors at the users clubs, worked as a teacher's aide in CS classes at the college, or worked as an Apple, Dell, and warranty tech, I always (professionally) advocated anti-virus programs.
Truth is, with my current Mac, Mac-mini, I don't run anti-virus and I seem OK. I would be very surprised if I got a virus, worm, or trojan attack on my Mac. I do read some reviews from time to time in Macworld and they seem to promote anti-virus programs and some get good ratings.
For now, no anti-virus is probably OK imho as a techie/teacher, but I would never professionally tell my clients or former clients that, but in the "future", maybe it's not a bad idea plus it's not that expensive. This reminds me of how safe one has to be before being paranoid. Socially, I would go out to the bar with fellow law students and police cadets, and maybe we would have a beer or mixed drink, hang out a long time, and then drive home. But we would never publicly tell outsiders this as cadets have to adhere to never drinking any amount as is also the code with officers of the court (bailiffs, judges and lawyers, and California law students). As to what other states and other nations accept as drinking and driving, that's their jurisdiction. Some law students used to hit up a rave-sex club just blocks away from the headquarters of the State Bar of California. A couple of students actually ended up buying that club. But I know this is getting into the politic and social issue threads territory.