Viruscan software or not??

[wifeofpdx]

So... new to a Mac here, been doing a lot of reading and, it seems most everyone agrees that a virus scanner is not needed for a mac.

My question is when downloading torrents and the like, is the consensus still the same?

I've read about a trojan floating around and wonder how you would find out without any virus software.

 

[kastenbrust]

Even if you had a virus scanner you wouldn't find any trojans because a
Trojan is a Trojan and a Virus is a Virus

They are two completely seperate things

NO VIRUSES EXIST FOR MAC

You dont need a virus scanner.

 

[és:]

No need for one, in my opinion. I'm sure there will be a day when the first virus pops up and about 10 people will get it, but you're not using Windows here, so I'd not bother.

There is one legitimate reason for using some kind of anti-virus and that is due to the fact that you can pass on a Windows virus. So if you're regularly sharing torrented files (from dubious sources) with a windows machine, it might be wise to either scan before sending or scan on the windows machine.

 

[Unspeaked]

Even if you had a virus scanner you wouldn't find any trojans because a
Trojan is a Trojan and a Virus is a Virus

They are two completely seperate things

NO VIRUSES EXIST FOR MAC

You dont need a virus scanner.

Well, most of the major anti-virus packages will scan for known trojans, so they're not completely useless if you're paranoid.