Snow Leopard Antimalware Feature Gaining Publicity

[wackymacky]

Nope, me as well.

Anyone intelligent about what they download won't ever have to deal with anything.

In 20 years using macs I've never had issues with virius/trojins/malware (but then I down download dodgy sh*t from torrent sites.

Yes I've had my share of hardware failures and not all of Apple's OS's have been sweet as pie but the goes with the turf of using computers.

 

[MindBrain]

So what is this feature just going to be for Snow Leopard? It seems easy enough to implement for the existing OSX systems as well, and it would be the right thing to do....

 

[Winni]

So much for "there's no malware for OS X" and "Macs don't need anti-virus software". In the next step, maybe Apple should stop producing those ridiculous "PCs have tons of viruses" ads. After all, they're now acknowledging that their own OS also is potentially unsafe. Just like all other systems out there, including GNU/Linux and the rest of the BSD family.

 

[JoshuaGross]

Huh? Explain please.

Re:Skype, I experienced this today. When you first launch the app it digs itself into your system, configures itself to launch upon boot, and takes a few other lovely steps.

I wouldn't call it "malware" but it certainly is obtrusive, annoying and unnecessary.

 

[Bjohnson33]

Good, but not as important as education and behavior awareness when computing. Unfortunately the ignoramuses inclined to click on things they shouldn't or open attachments from people they don't know are probably just as likely to infect their Mac as they would a PC.

I think this is the key - it's your behaviour that is the most important thing. Downloading things that are from shady sources is the most likely way of picking something up.

 

[MacAndy74]

Good move by Apple. Hope they keep on updating the list as needed.

 

[tooz]

Good move by Apple. Hope they keep on updating the list as needed.

with any luck it won't need updating

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

So much for "there's no malware for OS X" and "Macs don't need anti-virus software". In the next step, maybe Apple should stop producing those ridiculous "PCs have tons of viruses" ads. After all, they're now acknowledging that their own OS also is potentially unsafe. Just like all other systems out there, including GNU/Linux and the rest of the BSD family.

Comparatively speaking, Windows machine DO have more viruses than Macs. Most of that is probably sue to market share though I'd wager. If Macs were 'the computer OS' and Windows was sucking up 7% or less of the market, OS X would be the most attacked and Windows would be relatively free of attacks.

Technically ANY operating system is 'unsafe'. It's only a matter of time before big time nastiness happens with OS X. So far, to my knowledge, the Mac viruses from pre-system 7 to pre-OS X have been nuisance things and not the 'wipe your machine scorched earth' types PC's sometimes get. Apple would do very well to not rest on that idea. It WILL HAPPEN. Later hopefully than sooner...

With more OS agnostic programming environments like Java, I'm surprised that there hasn't been any cross platform attacks yet. I'm waiting to see the first virus that can attack either Macs or Windows, with the same file. That would be a programming trick...

 

[gnasher729]

What bothers me is that it renews the prompt whenever I update one of my apps... If someone downloads an update to an app they've previously downloaded and approved, from the same URL as before, the answer to the prompt is always going to be yes -- so there's no point in renewing the prompt.

That's what code signing is for, and application writers should start using it. With code signing, the OS _knows_ that the new application has been created by the same people as the previous one, so it won't ask again.

 

[lamadude]

I agree that the mac adverts should stop comparing themselves to windows. The "I'm a mac" "I'm a PC" give me no reason whatsoever to use OSX over Ubuntu or another linux distro. (Not saying that those reasons don't exist, but they aren't shown in the ads)