I just bought a Macbook Pro and purchased Norton with it. Is this a good idea? Let's not pretend that Macs can't get viruses. It's a computer connected to the internet. Therefore, it can get a virus. One thing I noticed was considerable slowdown on my PC. Anyone notice anything stupid happening on their Mac running this program?
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Norton Antivirus 10
- Thread starter jonpaul
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Macs can download viruses from the internet just as PCs can. The difference is that the viruses do not affect the Mac (the OS is much better coded, and as Windows is more widely distributed and so more virus makers target Windows).
Norton is a BAD idea. The only purpose of Mac anti-virus is so that you don't pass on infected files to unprotected Windows PCs.
Norton is a BAD idea. The only purpose of Mac anti-virus is so that you don't pass on infected files to unprotected Windows PCs.
Bad idea. Norton is terrible. Terrible, terrible.
And for the record, technically, a Mac can definitely be compromised, but the chances are extremely unlikely and there's absolutely NO "viruses" in the wild for the Mac.
I can understand your ounce of prevention stance, but stick with something like ClamAV X, which is free.
And for the record, technically, a Mac can definitely be compromised, but the chances are extremely unlikely and there's absolutely NO "viruses" in the wild for the Mac.
I can understand your ounce of prevention stance, but stick with something like ClamAV X, which is free.
If it's still in the wrapper, return it. Norton is a terrible system to use, it hogs the system resources and is very intrusive.
You don't need anti-virus. I'm over 2 years on macs with none, and haven't had a problem yet. If you really feel you need one, I'm sure people here can recommend one that's more friendly.
Edit: the speed of responses might give you an indication of the feeling about Norton.
You don't need anti-virus. I'm over 2 years on macs with none, and haven't had a problem yet. If you really feel you need one, I'm sure people here can recommend one that's more friendly.
Edit: the speed of responses might give you an indication of the feeling about Norton.
Get rid of Norton. It's horrific. Symantec make some truly terrible products and Norton Antivirus is right up there at the top.
You don't need Antivirus on your Mac. Perhaps one day, if/when Mac viruses surface, you'll need it. Not now. If you work with Windows users then you may want to install Antivirus in order to stop you accidentally passing a virus on to them, when forwarding them a Word Doc attachment that somebody else has sent you for example, but otherwise it's just unnecessary.
You don't need Antivirus on your Mac. Perhaps one day, if/when Mac viruses surface, you'll need it. Not now. If you work with Windows users then you may want to install Antivirus in order to stop you accidentally passing a virus on to them, when forwarding them a Word Doc attachment that somebody else has sent you for example, but otherwise it's just unnecessary.
I can't pretend that Macs get viruses. Because it doesn't happen.
Return Norton, get your money back, start living in a virus free computer environment.
Return Norton, get your money back, start living in a virus free computer environment.
Norton is bad for Windows yes, compared to some alternatives (because it uses up much resources and is hard to uninstall completely.)
Anyway since there are no Apple viruses spreading around it will probably protect against more or less 0 viruses until one starts to spread.. And well, I wouldn't pay for protection against nothing.
Anyway since there are no Apple viruses spreading around it will probably protect against more or less 0 viruses until one starts to spread.. And well, I wouldn't pay for protection against nothing.
Symantec's Norton products are terrible. They've even gone bad on Windows but they're crashware on Macs. I'd never had so many crashes until I first loaded CrashGuard.
As far as these viruses for Mac OS X, I haven't seen anything yet. It's not that it can't happen but if or when it does happen, it'll be too late.
There are several trojans but you need to authorise the things to take over your computer and with a currently patched system, there isn't as much of a chance that they'll work anyway.
There isn't any harm in being prepared, especially if you deal with people sending you files from Windows, but using Norton products to defend your machine probably won't help you much. Choose Intego, if you must go with a vendor.
As far as these viruses for Mac OS X, I haven't seen anything yet. It's not that it can't happen but if or when it does happen, it'll be too late.
There are several trojans but you need to authorise the things to take over your computer and with a currently patched system, there isn't as much of a chance that they'll work anyway.
There isn't any harm in being prepared, especially if you deal with people sending you files from Windows, but using Norton products to defend your machine probably won't help you much. Choose Intego, if you must go with a vendor.
For the record: The Mac can be affected by any virus that operates in a common scripting language --- including Macro Viruses inside Word and Excel .doc and .exe files, so lets not oversimplify the issue here. Windows viruses can also be embedded into many files which don't have the extension .exe - including files that look like screensavers, graphics, and audio files.
And of course if your run Bootcamp or Parallels with Windows, the Windows environment needs protection.