New to broadband and need some advice

[asphalt-proof]

I just ordered DSL from Sprint and the setup pkg. is supposed to be here in a couple of days. I have a iMac g4 and I use Safari as my browser. I know that hooking up a PC to broadband with no firewall is just plain insane. But what about the Mac? On my dialup account I have never gotten popups, spam to speak of, no spyware that I know of and no adware. But I am also pretty careful about the websites I visit and the content I download (with dialup there is very little I download except the updates from Apple... Can you say "You can't use the phone, its still downloading".)

So my questions are: first of all, Is there spyware/adware that targets Macs? Is there spyware/adware blockers that are made for Macs? Do they work and are they needed? Is the firewall that come with Panther adequate for surfing and gaming? Speaking of which, do I have to turn off the firewall if I am going to do some gaming? I did a very cursory search and found no thread that asked these direct questions but if I missed a thread just point me in that direction.

By the way just as an aside rant: Oone of the computers at work has recently been infected with a very nasty outbreak of spy-and adware. It pretty much locks up the whole system. I downloaded a couple of spyware blockers and put them to work but the system is so bogged down they take forever to finish and then they crash (the blocker program) and take the whole computer with. I spent the better part of my day futzing around witht this piece of crap machine cursing Microsoft for their inability to put together a decent browser and cursing the writers of this ad/spyware.

This ad/spy ware seems so stupid. First it hijacks yur computer and innundates you with crap most people don't want. OK so some people may want some of it. But the first time they click on it or update it or order something from it they get more. Pretty soon (very soon.. like in 15-20 minutes) their computer is going to crash. Its inevitable. they can no longer gather info from that computer nor can the user buy anthing with it. From a evolutionary standpoint, its completely stupid. Its like the ebola virus. It kills to quickly for it to be very serious. (serious in the sense of a major outbreak.) What do these adware writers hope to gain from this? I mean is there enough of a market that its worthwhile? I really don't know because I don't work in that field. If somebody is knowledgeable in this are please enlighten. End of rant.

 

[aswitcher]

I just ordered DSL from Sprint and the setup pkg. is supposed to be here in a couple of days. I have a iMac g4 and I use Safari as my browser. I know that hooking up a PC to broadband with no firewall is just plain insane. But what about the Mac? On my dialup account I have never gotten popups, spam to speak of, no spyware that I know of and no adware. But I am also pretty careful about the websites I visit and the content I download (with dialup there is very little I download except the updates from Apple... Can you say "You can't use the phone, its still downloading".)

Is the ADSL modem also a router. If so thats an extra level of security there.

Popups can be disabled in Safari although you may want to leave it on for banking etc

So my questions are: first of all, Is there spyware/adware that targets Macs? Is there spyware/adware blockers that are made for Macs? Do they work and are they needed? Is the firewall that come with Panther adequate for surfing and gaming? Speaking of which, do I have to turn off the firewall if I am going to do some gaming? I did a very cursory search and found no thread that asked these direct questions but if I missed a thread just point me in that direction.

Not sure about spyware/adware for the Mac...likely there are a few programs that fall into that category and are now outlawed from 1 Jan 05 by US law.

Make sure you turn the Panther firewall on.

Gaming should be fine, and worse case scenario in the firwall settings just add a new item listing the ports you want open. It should be fine by deault although you may want to tick ichat etc to allow them iirc.

 

[asphalt-proof]

Thanks aswitcher
As far as I know the DSL with plug right into my ethernet card with no external router. I haven't got the kit yet so I really don't know.
I have been playing around with this PC for a day and a half now. No way do I ever want to do this with my mac.

 

[aus_dave]

Thanks aswitcher
As far as I know the DSL with plug right into my ethernet card with no external router. I haven't got the kit yet so I really don't know.

I would say your 'kit' will include a DSL router or modem.

 

[varmit]

The kit will most likely be a DSL Modem, some phoen wire, ethernet wire, and some adaptors for your normal phones. DSL comes over the normal phone line, so the adaptors help keep your normal phones from picking up the DSL signal basically.

There is a firewall built into the Mac OS. Turning that on should do just fine, and only add ports you know should be open for your games, iTunes, and stuff like that. There are no viruses or spyware for the mac yet so you should not have to worry about that for some time.

For the computer with spyware, try http://www.nuker.com/. I used it on my parents 98 machine at home, and it brought the printer, and solitare back to life after adware killed them. Spyware is basically made to find out what you are doing, then advertise and direct you to what they want you to see. But they have become to malicious for some reason. Instead of being nice and giving usefull information, they turn off AV, shutdown programs, install trojans, and redirect to stuff you don't want. They really just dug a hole and jumped right in and kept on digging. Some very dumb people.