I am done here
Finally
I am done here
As already stated, the number of years of experience anyone has is pointless, since macOS/OS X has only been around 17 years. Also, it doesn't matter how many years of experience anyone has, but rather what they have learned in their years. There are people who repeat the same year of experience 20 times, and others who have 20 years of progressive, growing, expanding experience. There's a vast difference. Those claiming there are true viruses in the wild that can affect macOS demonstrate they are of the former group.You have made your point countless times and are still going on with the same melody.
Point 1 : you have been in computers for zillions of years with very vast know how and experience.
It's impossible to find a true macOS virus in the wild because none have ever been released. It does not follow that it couldn't happen someday, only that it hasn't happened yet. Even if it does, no antivirus app will protect you, since none would detect a zero-day threat. However, safe computing has protected many against zero-day threats in the past.Point 2 : it's impossible to find a virus active in MacOSX and it follows from that thought that nobody could ever make and distribute such a virus.
This is true for many AV apps. Even for the ones that don't negatively impact performance, if the user is practicing safe computing, AV apps offer no increase in security. Some potentially introduce unnecessary vulnerabilities. For anyone with enough common sense to be careful about what they install, AV apps present more risk than protection.Point 3 : antivirus software makes mac computers considerably much slower and less performant.
No one with any knowledge is claiming that. I and others have repeatedly stated that no OS is immune to malware.I DO NOT BELIEVE that the MacOS was created so PERFECT that it CANNOT be attacked. There is no such a thing as perfection in this world.
As to your point 3, I have tentatively installed Eset and Symantec without removing Malwarebytes.
I have not detected in my normal non-pro usage any such slowing down and any ressources being eaten away by all those antivirus installed and running at the same time in the same computer.
Of course they are. They are better equipped to make such a decision if they hear the truth about Mac malware, and not just the FUD being spread by antivirus software companies.To conclude, every user of a Mac is (of course) entirely free to decide by him/herself if he/she feels better with an antivirus or without one.
Changing the mind of anyone posting is not the issue. Thousands of new Mac users read these threads to learn about how to get the most from their Macs. Many come from the Windows world, where the malware scene has been quite different. They deserve to know the truth about malware as it relates to Macs, so they won't get suckered by the software companies' propaganda. That's why we continue to refute false information posted in this forum.To continue this discussion is useless since the posts reflect the firm and unchanged beliefs of those people who already and repeatedly answered the question of the thread starter. Nobody seems to have changed the views by an inch by meeting here people with other opinions.
No, you haven’t. So far, you’ve produced rather innocuous adware and a few instances of malware that doesn’t even work on current macOS versions, all of which can be avoided without needing antivirus software. You have failed to produce proof of even one true macOS virus that has ever existed in the wild. You haven’t proven anything, except your lack of understanding about this issue and your willingness to believe the sales pitches of antivirus software companies that you continue to quote as “research” or “proof”.There is a real threat and we already proved that to you.
So first you try to prove your superiority by claiming 30 years of experience, as if the number of years matters. Then you dismiss someone who has more experience than you. Very convincing!I don't give a crap about your 40 years of experience, because times have changed. I have 30 years of experience and I work in the IT field.
Your “proof” was mostly sponsored content (advertisements) or quotes directly from software companies trying to peddle their antivirus apps. Sorry, but that’s not considered proof of anything, except some people’s gullibility in believing everything they read, without considering the source.I proved to you with the links to professional publications
We’ve been asking you to produce proof of even ONE macOS virus in the wild and you still haven’t done it.You need to post the articles that say there is no malware that you keep applying. We been asking you this for a while now and you still haven't done it.
So, till you prove the existence of a single macOS virus in the wild with links, you have no clue what you are talking about.So, till you prove us otherwise with facts with links, you have no clue what you are talking about.
Antivirus is and will remain ALWAYS behind new malware. With that argument any Windows antivirus used in the world should be seen as ineffective. That is of course pure nonsense. Better a non immediate cure that no cure at all. Pure common sense.I have stated, repeatedly, that there may be a day when there is a real malware threat. That day is not today. Certainly someone could create new Mac malware. However... existing antimalware will not detect it! Existing antimalware CANNOT detect it, that's not the way that antimalware software works! If the day comes when new, powerful, super malware appears, then there will be a delay while the antimalware vendors work out how to detect and kill it
I have found and installed antivirus for mac entirely free of charge!Go ahead. Waste your time and money (and it is a waste...) on antimalware software in the current situation.
I have checked the disk space used by antivirus installations in my mac and it is at the most a hundred or so MBytes. Not a big deal.Ignore the way that some antimalware software (McAfee) will eat your email, that some antimalware software (Norton) will randomly destroy system files, that some antimalware software (Intego) is produced by people who claim that it protects against threats which have been dead for _decades_. All software, including antimalware software, uses CPU cycles and RAM when running. All software, including antimalware software, uses disk space for storage.
No, they are not at all "useless" as you state by yourself since they help other people one is in touch with.the only legit reason to run antivirus suites on a mac is to prevent spreading windows viruses to unprotected windows machines, so they are basically useless.
And I am done here
Anyone running a Windows system who fails to take responsibility for that system and adequately prepare for the malware threats on that platform deserves what he gets. 99.4% of known malware is for Windows. 0.3% is for Android. EVERYTHING ELSE (macOS, iOS, all the Linux distros, all variants of UNIX other that Mac, iOS, and Linux, all non-UNIX OSes, together account for the last 0.3%. The threat level for Windows justifies using antimalware. The threat level for Android is a bit short of justifiying the use of antimalware. The threat level for everything else is well short of justifying the use of antimalware.Antivirus is and will remain ALWAYS behind new malware. With that argument any Windows antivirus used in the world should be seen as ineffective. That is of course pure nonsense. Better a non immediate cure that no cure at all. Pure common sense.
I have found and installed antivirus for mac entirely free of charge!
I have checked the disk space used by antivirus installations in my mac and it is at the most a hundred or so MBytes. Not a big deal.
As to your warnings of "system files ramdomly being destroyed"", "emails being eaten away" and other supposed catastrophic effects, I stated clearly that after installing several antivirus in one single computer, I could not detect nothing being "destroyed", nothing slowing my computer or affecting its performance enough to be felt BY ME.
You are making small things looke like terrible monsters.
Real life is in my experience by far not as black as you paint it and (as you acknowledge yourself) ANY software uses space and ressources.
So what if they do?
Should we give up Adobe, Office and co. because they take computer ressources (and in much greater extent!) and ultimately leave an entirely naked OS?
What use would such an "untouched" OS configuration with no resources at all "eaten away" bring to any user?
Maybe you truly suffered all that terrible havoc you mention because of some kind of antivirus installation you once undertook.
I can only speak of my own experience and in my mac nothing of that kind happened or was felt by me.
Ed
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No, they are not at all "useless" as you state by yourself since they help other people one is in touch with.
I believe that helping others and not just selfishly taking care of one's own system is a very important thing in our present online world.
Ed
No, they are not at all "useless" as you state by yourself since they help other people one is in touch with.
I believe that helping others and not just selfishly taking care of one's own system is a very important thing in our present online world.
Ed
Yes, there is a lag between the time a new malware is released in the wild and the time that it is discovered and antivirus apps are updated to detect it. These are called zero-day threats. As for Windows antivirus apps, they are effective in defending against known viruses, but they provide no protection whatsoever for a zero-day threat. When it comes to a zero-day threat, a non-immediate defense is no better than no defense at all, since neither provide protection. On the other hand, practicing safe computing has effectively protected millions of users from zero-day threats, when no anti-malware app could.Antivirus is and will remain ALWAYS behind new malware. With that argument any Windows antivirus used in the world should be seen as ineffective. That is of course pure nonsense. Better a non immediate cure that no cure at all. Pure common sense.
The price, drive space requirements or even processing requirements of antivirus apps are not the issue. The issue is that they are unnecessary to keep a Mac malware-free, they can lull a user into a false sense of security, and some of them have been used as an attack vector, introducing vulnerability that wouldn't exist without them.I have found and installed antivirus for mac entirely free of charge!
I have checked the disk space used by antivirus installations in my mac and it is at the most a hundred or so MBytes. Not a big deal.
The argument that Mac users should install antivirus apps to protect Windows users that they share files with is a fallacy. If you really are concerned about helping your Windows friends, encourage them to install their own antivirus software, so they'll be protected against malware from all sources, and not just from files that you share with them. If you don't, then all your argument is good for is that if they get infected from another source, you can say with confidence, "Hey! It's not my fault!" How much help is that?No, they are not at all "useless" as you state by yourself since they help other people one is in touch with.
I believe that helping others and not just selfishly taking care of one's own system is a very important thing in our present online world.
Please no unnecessary confusions.99.4% of known malware is for Windows.
And, oh, to anticipate the use (again) of the marketshare argument, please note that the #1 most commonly used operating system worldwide is... Android. Which has 0.3% of the malware on the loose. It ain't the marketshare that makes Windows a happy hunting ground for malware producers, it's that Microsoft didn't take security seriously for a very long time and is still playing catch-up. during the 1980s and 1990s Apple repeatedly changed things to kill whole classes of malware. Microsoft did not. The mess we have is the result of Microsoft's incompetence and arrogance.
Android cell phones are computers. So are iOS phones. My iPhone 6 has a more powerful CPU, more RAM, and almost as much storage than the desktop systems I had in use until relatively few years ago.Please no unnecessary confusions.
Android is not used in COMPUTERS and the possibilities that computers offer to cyber criminals who create all the active virus and trojans and spread them are HUGE as compared to infecting Android running cell phones and tablets.
I am no IT expert but many people discussing computer safety have always explained that precisely the wide acceptance world wide of Windows as the most succesful OS for computers has always made much more profitable to create malware dedicated to Windows run systems.
Why make efforts to infect relatively few systems... when the overwhelming majority of computer users in the whole world run some form of Windows? The more infected systems the more money goes to cyber thieves and that spells W i n d o w s.
It's difficult to judge from outside how carelessly Microsoft might or might not have been in the past but they are presently trying very strongly to protect their OS judging by IT experts (the very respected German "c't" Magazine) who tested the present Windows Defender freely supplied with Windows 10 and found it not at all inferior in catching all kind of malware to well known commercial antivirus sold in the market.
Ed
32-bit apps will continue to work for a while. Apple will be locking them out some time in the future, possibly with 10.15, they haven't said.I've owned and still use Symantec Norton Anti-Virus for so many years that I don't remember when I bought it. Symantec still updates the virus definitions just about every day, I update them every 3 or 4 weeks. The app is 32 bit, but still seems to work.
Lou
Symantec still updates the virus definitions just about every day, ... The app is 32 bit, but still seems to work.
32-bit apps will continue to work for a while. Apple will be locking them out some time in the future, possibly with 10.15, they haven't said.
I do not recommend using antimalware on Macs. I especially do not recommend paying for antimalware on Macs. In particular I really recommends staying far, far, FAR away from Norton/Symantec and McAfee. YMMV.
It's a Red Herring. There is nothing to update. The app is not doing anything.
It detects and deals with (up to 97% of) Windows malware. That's something.It's a Red Herring. There is nothing to update. The app is not doing anything.
Yes, it scans... for Windows malware. It also picks up adware, if any, and other minor problems on Macs. And it slows your system down and eats RAM. Launch Activity Monitor and have a look at how much CPU cycles and RAM it uses while scanning.I'm well aware of the upcoming 32 bit limitation, hence the reason I mentioned it. As far as your recommendation, I'll take it with a grain of salt. As I said, I've been using NAV for longer than I can remember on many machines with absolutely no issues. And, as I also said, Symantec keeps the definitions updated daily.
Don't believe that's true. Every time I insert a device, download new software, or open new software for the first time, I get a box that says it is scanning.
Lou
Depending on the software, you might need admin privs to install the antimalware and once installed it would run with admin privs. If it didn't need admin privs to run, then it would run at whatever level your account is set to. Almost all Mac and Windows home users run accounts which have full admin privs. Both Apple and Microsoft recommend using non-admin accounts, but doing things like installing software and even running some software (TurboTax, the last, the very last, time that I tried it, for example) is a pain in a non-admin account. Business users are usually restricted to non-admin accounts unless they actually are admins.Does anyone know what kind of permissions you give to your anti-virus software?
Could it be that by using the software you agree the manufacturer of the anit-virus gets access to ALL your documents? Could it also be that in order to analyse a possible threat the anti-virus developer may send the files on your hard disc that needs to be inspected to their headquarters? And where are those? And under whose jurisdiction are they in case of a disagreement?
And could this represent a serious security risk?
I just try to add some fuel on this always heat producing and in the end fulminant discussion about this subject. And yes I have an Anti-virus thing on my computer. But it always is switched off because it disables more than that it protects. But from time to time I wonder:
What is riskier, a virus threat or the actual presence of anti-virus software that may breach your privacy?
(oh yes! I don't need answers from anyone that relates risk to Windozzzzzze I can doze on my own..... ;-)
Yeah, it's true (other than the point above about Windows; I should have clarified that I meant there are no Mac virus definitions to update). Just because the software reports to you that it's running does not mean it's doing anything (useful, that is; another lack of clarity in my post). It never finds anything, does it? That's because it's an imposter. There is nothing to scan for on your macOS.Don't believe that's true. Every time I insert a device, download new software, or open new software for the first time, I get a box that says it is scanning.
It detects and deals with (up to 97% of) Windows malware. That's something.
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Yes, it scans... for Windows malware. It also picks up adware, if any, and other minor problems on Macs. And it slows your system down and eats RAM. Launch Activity Monitor and have a look at how much CPU cycles and RAM it uses while scanning.
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Depending on the software, you might need admin privs to install the antimalware and once installed it would run with admin privs. If it didn't need admin privs to run, then it would run at whatever level your account is set to. Almost all Mac and Windows home users run accounts which have full admin privs. Both Apple and Microsoft recommend using non-admin accounts, but doing things like installing software and even running some software (TurboTax, the last, the very last, time that I tried it, for example) is a pain in a non-admin account. Business users are usually restricted to non-admin accounts unless they actually are admins.
If the antimalware has full admin privs, it has full access to every single file on the system. It has to have that access to do its job. This is one reason why antimalware such as Sophos and ClamXAV are so slow: they must literally scan each of the hundreds of thousands of files on the system on a regular basis, and they're not real good at it. Norton/Symantec and McAfee and others are much better, but they're prone to errors precisely because they take short cuts to go fast. Every now and again they mistake innocent files for malware. My fav example of that was the time that Norton for Windows mistook itself for malware and tried to delete itself... and started screaming that attack malware was deleting it. Great fun was had by all fixing _that_. McAfee once thought that 'svchost' was malware; there is Windows malware which impersonates the real svchost, to try to get past antimalware. McAfee thought that the real svchost was that malware and killed it. Systems so afflicted had serious problems connecting to networks. All networks. There would be a _reason_ why I don't let Norton/Symantec or McAfee near any of my systems.
You certainly don't sound like you do. You sound like a college freshman who thinks they've got it all figured out.I have 30 years of IT security experience
andWindows OS has always been in greater risk simply because most computer users in the world work with some form of Windows. The chance to infect many systems is accordingly much higher.
The reason why Apple users (or Linux users) are still in relative safety is just the smaller quantity of Mac (or Linux) users in the world.
The more people switch to Apple computers, the greater benefit comes from creating virus active in a MacOS environment.
precisely the wide acceptance world wide of Windows as the most succesful OS for computers has always made much more profitable to create malware dedicated to Windows run systems.
Why make efforts to infect relatively few systems... when the overwhelming majority of computer users in the whole world run some form of Windows? The more infected systems the more money goes to cyber thieves and that spells W i n d o w s.
You certainly don't sound like you do. You sound like a college freshman who thinks they've got it all figured out.
and
No. No. No. Debunked several times.
Also, I don't expect you to know this, not being an IT person, but here goes:
The entire goddamn world runs on Linux.
The smartphones (Android!!), the set top boxes, the smart fridges, the supercomputers, datacenters, render farms, car infotainment systems. If it has a CPU inside, it can probably run Linux, and usually DOES run Linux.
Cyber thieves go for MONEY, not more infected systems. More uncle George's home PCs aren't worth much compared to vital pieces of network infrastructure or smart cars. Linux is a huge target.
Same goes for the Mac. Let's be honest here, poor people don't usually have Macs, while the most awfully rich people in the world (e.g. any celebrity ever) do. Macs are a huge target.
(Also, compared to the Windows world, most Mac users don't use any kind of antimalware and believe in the inherent security in macOS, making such Mac A JUICY ****ING TARGET!)
Despite all this, Windows is the platform most plagued by malware of all kinds (even true viruses).
All of the articles you posted show ZERO macOS viruses and easily avoidable malware or adware. You haven't proven anything except our points, not yours. You still have failed to provide ONE bit of evidence that a macOS virus has ever existed.Laugh, but all the articles support what I have said. But no one here has proven me wrong "YET" with any links that say otherwise. Like I said, end of discussion till that happens. This discussion actually happened recently on Reddit, and it proves how uneducated people are in believing their Macs are safe.
Same for me.I do ... just in case. I run Sophos AntiVirus Mac - it's free and i never even notice it running in background. Perfect win win situation. It occasionally quarantines an email with a virus so it does it's job. Try it.
https://home.sophos.com/download-mac-anti-virus