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Virus protection

S

syldok

macrumors newbie
Original poster
I have just put Windows on my MBA, do i need a virus protection, can put my Mcafee on and will it only run in the windows environment.

So do you need two virus protections 1 for Mac and 1 for Windows.

I have only just changed over to Mac 1 month.
 
syldok said:
I have just put Windows on my MBA, do i need a virus protection, can put my Mcafee on and will it only run in the windows environment.

So do you need two virus protections 1 for Mac and 1 for Windows.

I have only just changed over to Mac 1 month.
Click to expand...
You do need antivirus on Windows, but it's not necessary on Mac OS X. No 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 handful of trojans that exist can be easily avoided with some basic education, common sense and care in what software you install:
 
GGJstudios said:
You do need antivirus on Windows, but it's not necessary on Mac OS X. No 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 handful of trojans that exist can be easily avoided with some basic education, common sense and care in what software you install:
Click to expand...

Hehe hehe, *smirk*.
I wouldn't say you need antivirus for windows, especially not if it's windows 7, however if one wants to feel safe, sure.
For the mac osx however, like GGJ says here, no virus has been created for Mac osx, other than a proof of concept virus.

That's not to say you wouldn't benefit from having anti viral software, as I believe it covers both worms and trojans, right? - In that case you would definately need it on OS X as well if you want to feel secure.

Edit: You just adviced against getting anti viral software, GGJ, but those do usually protect against spyware, and the other types of malware, that's illadviced, isn't it?
 
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Just run Microsoft Security Essentials on the Windows side. It is free and actually quite good. I cancelled my subscription-based virus protection on 3 machines and switched to MSE about 6 months ago. So far, no problems and no viruses.
 
PraisiX-windows said:
That's not to say you wouldn't benefit from having anti viral software, as I believe it covers both worms and trojans, right? - In that case you would definately need it on OS X as well if you want to feel secure.

Edit: You just adviced against getting anti viral software, GGJ, but those do usually protect against spyware, and the other types of malware, that's illadviced, isn't it?
Click to expand...
I've never said you shouldn't get antivirus... I've said it's not necessary to protect a Mac. The problem with antivirus rests with the bolded part of your post that I quoted. Too many would install antivirus and then have a false sense of security, thinking the AV will protect them, no matter what. A better approach is to always be on guard, exercising caution when selecting, acquiring and installing any software on your Mac. As long as you do that, you don't need antivirus to protect your Mac.
 
GGJstudios said:
I've never said you shouldn't get antivirus... I've said it's not necessary to protect a Mac. The problem with antivirus rests with the bolded part of your post that I quoted. Too many would install antivirus and then have a false sense of security, thinking the AV will protect them, no matter what. A better approach is to always be on guard, exercising caution when selecting, acquiring and installing any software on your Mac. As long as you do that, you don't need antivirus to protect your Mac.
Click to expand...

What about when Antivirus is needed for compliance/audits? Or when you have non-savvy users? Lol, I have to deal with both right now unfortunately.

I need to get some sort of "antivirus" for 10 Macs, hopefully something that can be installed/managed from a Mac Mini server. I've searched and noticed several threads, a lot of good info posted, I would have had no idea about the nonsense that Sophos is unless I read here.

Any suggestions? I notice a lot of guys here mentioning clamXav.
 
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