new to Macs, how necessary is virus scan software?

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you don't need it. Sure if it makes you feel better theres a few you can buy but I've never had any problems and don't intend to buy any ant-virus in the near future.

 

No need, unless you really want a placebo effect.

Mac OS X has no viruses since it was released almost 10 years ago.

 

Not necessary at the current time - this may change at some point in the future!

 

Not.

 

As the others have said, there are no known viruses for OS X. However, if you want to be extra safe, rather than buy a program just download ClamXav. It's free and does a good job of scanning files you think might be suspicious.

http://www.clamxav.com/

 

<---- put very well, this could change over night but for now you need nothing. Don't worry when you need one you will know it. It will be the biggest media storm ever.

 

If you interact with PCs then I would suggest ClamXav which is free. You can't catch a PC virus but you can potentially be a carrier.

 

I've heard that people that share a lot of files with pc users scan their macs for viruses. I guess this is to avoid passing a virus to non-mac users.

I'm really not sure about this and hopefully someone can clear this up.

I guess that you can have documents with a virus but if you are on a mac you wouldn't notice but when you send it to a windows pc, this virus can activate on their pc.

 

Correct.

 

if you will be running a mail server, or maybe some file site, you may want to use clamav for scans. Or if you will be sharing directories with windows users, in the case of a virus spreading around.

If this is just a personal laptop used for standard usage, don't bother.

 

Possible Or Probable: Not Quite The Same Thing

To shave a fine edge on the question of whether MACs are vulnerable to viruses. The reason why there have been no MAC OS 10 viruses in 12 years has more to do with the laziness of the folks who write virus code. They just don't want to bother writing virus code for UNIX platforms -- too much trouble. So they focus their talents on the weaker Windows environment. It is just easier.

A case of optimizing the effects of time and effort. That only means that when a really neurotic code slinger gets motivated, then there will be a MAC virus.

And whoever said -- None of the current protection plans will be effective -- Yes probably that is correct.

Oh and I forgot. My MAC hard drive crashed a week ago right after I installed the most recent Intel security update. Lost a lot of stuff.

 

Just my 2 cents. I say get it under certain circumstances. I just renewed my Norton Anti-virus. I got my first virus on my mac from my online college professor. He sent me my paper back graded and with it was a macro virus. Let me say it did NOTHING to my mac. I saved the file to my flash drive, and then reopened it on my PC at work. It was fine. I reopened the same file at home and there was a virus. The virus software at my work didn't catch it because it was crappy virus software.

I went out and bought the virus software. Scanned my computer, and there was the virus. Some kind of macro virus. So, lesson learned, if you are sharing files with a windows computer, I would recommend virus software. Even though it did nothing to the MAC it could have caused havoc to Windows, the mac just being the carrier of the virus!

 

MAC is short for Media Access Control ( MAC address )

Norton is probably the worst thing you could install on your Mac,try a search

 

Never really thought about being a "carrier". Clamxav here I come!

 

Unnecessary.