New Mac User looking for help

[Eljol]

Hello I am new to make, just got my mpb 17 inch a couple weeks ago and was wondering something, I hear that disk cleanup is not necessary on mac since it runs its own cleansing automatically around odd hours 1am and such, my question is, what happens if I am not on at those obscure hours? I am not very fond of leaving my computer on over night, so I wonder if my apple is still getting cleansed on a weekly or monthly basis, even if I am not letting it run over night. Please let me know.

Another question that I have and want to know about is the type of security macs contain. I am well aware that most viruses do nothing to the mac or usually just target windows users, but I have always been the type of person that is better safe than sorry so I would rather have my computer with the software then without it. The process of getting programs for spyware and viruses is usually the first thing I do when I get a computer. Therefore I am wondering if you guys could give me a good combination of a free antivirus software as well as a program that can protect me against spyware,adaware and those type of things. If there is a program that does that all in one please let me know.


My last question is what type of browser do you guys/gals use, I am currently using safari but I have noticed that even though I have my pop up blocker enabled in the drop down menu, I still seem to be getting them when I am streaming movies and don't know why, so I am wondering if there is another browser that better blocks the incoming popups. I have heard of people talking about opera and mozilla's version of firefox and and wondering whether I should switch to those instead of using safari, please let me know about what you guys think as I am trying to get a better handle of my mac and would like to know as much information as possible.

Thank you in advance

Oh and the os system I am currently using mac osx 10.7.2 lion

 

[GGJstudios]

Hello I am new to make, just got my mpb 17 inch a couple weeks ago and was wondering something, I hear that disk cleanup is not necessary on mac since it runs its own cleansing automatically around odd hours 1am and such, my question is, what happens if I am not on at those obscure hours? I am not very fond of leaving my computer on over night, so I wonder if my apple is still getting cleansed on a weekly or monthly basis, even if I am not letting it run over night. Please let me know.

If you're referring the Mac OS X maintenance scripts, if your Mac is sleeping or shut down when they're scheduled to run, they'll just run the next time your Mac is on and awake.

You really don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Most only remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space. It will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space.

One app that I would not recommend, based on the number of complaints that have been posted in this forum and elsewhere, is CleanMyMac. As an example: CleanMyMac cleaned too much.

Mac OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software.

Another question that I have and want to know about is the type of security macs contain. I am well aware that most viruses do nothing to the mac or usually just target windows users, but I have always been the type of person that is better safe than sorry so I would rather have my computer with the software then without it. The process of getting programs for spyware and viruses is usually the first thing I do when I get a computer. Therefore I am wondering if you guys could give me a good combination of a free antivirus software as well as a program that can protect me against spyware,adaware and those type of things. If there is a program that does that all in one please let me know.

You don't need any 3rd party antivirus software to protect Mac OS X from malware. 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 10 years ago. The only malware in the wild that can affect Mac OS X is a handful of trojans, which can be easily avoided with some basic education, common sense and care in what software you install. Also, Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Lion have anti-malware protection built in, further reducing the need for 3rd party antivirus apps.

Mac Virus/Malware Info​

My last question is what type of browser do you guys/gals use, I am currently using safari but I have noticed that even though I have my pop up blocker enabled in the drop down menu, I still seem to be getting them when I am streaming movies and don't know why, so I am wondering if there is another browser that better blocks the incoming popups. I have heard of people talking about opera and mozilla's version of firefox and and wondering whether I should switch to those instead of using safari, please let me know about what you guys think as I am trying to get a better handle of my mac and would like to know as much information as possible.

You can use a combination of ad-blockers to eliminate pop ups on almost any browser. I use Safari with Safari AdBlock, ClickToFlash and a few others, and never see pop-ups.

 

[Eljol]

Thank you for the help GGJStudios, i have version 10.7.2 so i think that is lion. I will be sure to check out the blocker you talked about, also yes I was referring to the maintenance scripts, do they run in the background without me having any knowledge about it or will it prompt me to run these scripts? I haven't gotten any prompts which is is why I am asking. Just trying to keep everything secure . Again thank you for your quick reply in your first post,you pretty much summed everything up for me. Just have that last question about the scripts, if you could answer that it would be much appreciated.

 

[GGJstudios]

Thank you for the help GGJStudios, i have version 10.7.2 so i think that is lion. I will be sure to check out the blocker you talked about, also yes I was referring to the maintenance scripts, do they run in the background without me having any knowledge about it or will it prompt me to run these scripts? I haven't gotten any prompts which is is why I am asking. Just trying to keep everything secure . Again thank you for your quick reply in your first post,you pretty much summed everything up for me. Just have that last question about the scripts, if you could answer that it would be much appreciated.

They run in the background without any notification to you. This widget will show you when they last ran, and you can use it to force them to run, but that isn't needed. Just install the widget and check the times occasionally. You'll see the scripts run regularly, without any user input.

 

[Eljol]

Thank you for all your help I will download this widget and check it out.