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My MBP is really, really, slow. do I have a virus?
- Thread starter gt40x4
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Yeah well, theoretically, my foot is a magical unicorn.
Tell me. If I can "certainly" get infected without any social engineering required , why hasn't it happened on a large scale yet. Market share? Black hats afraid of Jobs? If OS X is touted as the most unsecure OS on the planet, why haven't my boxes been utilzed in the most epic botnet in the world comprised of the most unguarded machines connected to the internet? I have plenty of bandwidth that could be utilized. Why hasn't anyone latched on while my machine wafts in the wind? I know what goes in n' out on my pipes, and to quote the words of a famous singer, I "ain't seen nothing yet".
The OP asked, "can (present tense, as opposed to "could") you get a virus from visiting websites?" The answer is no, theoretically or practically. At the present time, you cannot get a virus on Mac OS X, because at the present time, no virus exists that runs on Mac OS X. Could this change in the future? Of course, but that's not what the OP asked.
How should I know, I can't tell the future! Can you?
Right now there aren't any viruses for OS X but this doesn't mean it will always be that way. We can't look into the future so we can't say for sure that there never ever will be any viruses for OS X.
Ah, we have some who can look into the future. Alright then, tell me, what viruses will be coming our way, when will the Mac Pro, the Mac mini and the MacBook Air get an update? What will happen to Adobe's Flash?
Again, try and comprehend what people are telling you. No one can tell the future so there is no certainty that there will never ever be a virus for OS X. It could happen but it may not, we just don't know. That's why people call it a "theoretical" chance and put the word between quotes. It's a way of expressing uncertainty. It's just linguistics.
There are Linux and OS X machines that are part of some botnets. Safari is one of the main reasons for the OS X security leaks. In that regard it's starting to look like Windows-IE :X Just because you're not part of it or don't know you're part of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist (that way of thinking is rather selfish). You may haven taken enough precautions like a lot of other people. The person who is administering the machine is what makes a difference regarding how secure a machine is. Security does not work the way you seem to think it works. Btw, it's not viruses that put you in a botnet, they're too stupid to do that. The can only infect a machine not let somebody remote control a machine.
Try reading posts #17 en #19 again.
That depends how you read that question. He was asking if you can get a virus on a Mac which is a yes. In both theory and in reality. There are some macro viruses for Office for Mac and we have Windows viruses (reality). The future might be different but we simply can't tell (theory). The OP should've asked if he should be worried about things like viruses on a Mac. The answer to that is a simple "no, but maybe in the future, we don't know what the future holds". Just don't think you're 100% safe on OS X because no OS is safe, they're all flawed in some way. Accept that and take the appropriate measures which mostly come down to behavioural things as well as software measures like using a firewall. There's no need for a virus scanner on OS X (the available ones mostly are Windows virus scanners which is nice for your Windows friends) but you do need something like a firewall and you do need to watch what you're doing.
Again, this was already posted in post #17 so nothing really new here.
Office for Mac doesn't support macros, so macro viruses can't run. (reality) Windows viruses can't run on Mac OS X. No Windows app runs in Mac OS X. (reality)
The bottom line is that no one is saying it's impossible for Mac OS X to get a virus. But first, one has to be created. That hasn't happened yet. AV programs are pointless because they can't detect a virus that doesn't exist. They don't know what to look for. So, for the present time, there is no threat of a virus infecting Mac OS X. Of course, trojans can be installed, but that requires the user to actively install them, which is easily avoided.
We have said that there are currently no Mac OS X viruses.
No, the OP was asking:
Hey guys, im not sure if my mbp has a virus or not cuz it has been running really, really, really, SLOW. so i was wondering of there is a way to test to see if i have a virus, are there any programs i cam run to check?
thanks
gt40x4 said:
It was in the present tense.
But it seems the OP will not come back. gt40x4, if you read this and don't want to post in here, maybe make a new thread with the appropriate information some of us asked you to provide in order to help you.
Hey,
I bought my first macbook pro the other day, the new 15" I5.
Seems to be running strangely slow for what I expected with an I5 and I'm frequently getting that rainbow coloured circle almost every time I multitask. By multitask I mean perhaps two windows on safari open or itunes and safari open at the same time. It's frequently getting stuck with that circle for what seems like endless amounts of time and the other day froze the laptop to my surprise.
Should I be worried that this seems slower then my old core2duo e4300 1.8ghz, 2gb of ram and running XP?
Do I take it to the retail store/ contact apple? please help guys
I bought my first macbook pro the other day, the new 15" I5.
Seems to be running strangely slow for what I expected with an I5 and I'm frequently getting that rainbow coloured circle almost every time I multitask. By multitask I mean perhaps two windows on safari open or itunes and safari open at the same time. It's frequently getting stuck with that circle for what seems like endless amounts of time and the other day froze the laptop to my surprise.
Should I be worried that this seems slower then my old core2duo e4300 1.8ghz, 2gb of ram and running XP?
Do I take it to the retail store/ contact apple? please help guys
The "rainbow coloured circle" is commonly referred to as a beachball. How much RAM do you have on your MBP? Also, launch Activity Monitor and see if any process is consuming system resources.
Do you have a Time Machine back up? Or any other back up? If so make sure it's a back up from before the slow issues started. Reinstall OSX and back everything up, then see.
If that did not fix your problem then you HD might be failing or it could even be something else like the RAM.
If that did not fix your problem then you HD might be failing or it could even be something else like the RAM.
Thanks, sorry for my "newb-ness" in reference to the beachball haha like I said - first mac purchase.
I've checked the activity monitor several times and it never seems that any of the processes tend to go over 5%. For instance now safari is only using 1.2% CPU. But still, surely with little/no extra demand required from the processor from my last pc (the e4300 c2d) in terms of my usage - how come I'm finding it so slow.
I'm pretty concerned after spending well over a grand on a laptop compared to my last build that cost £300 running far lower specs.
I'm running 4gb atm on the new MBP btw.
thanks again
Haven't backed it up so far on timemachine. I've found it slow since the day i bought it 2 weeks ago. I was considering reinstalling OSX but it's so much hassle to put everything back on.
Is there anyway I can test the harddrive and RAM? other then the test check when booting off the CD they put in the box?
If you purchased Applecare with your machine, you are entitled to a copy of Micromat's TechTool Deluxe, so you can check that out.
But the integrated hardware test is pretty good.
But the integrated hardware test is pretty good.