topic Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC? in Collaboration with other software

ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Fritz T — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:48:47 GMT

Hello, this topic is not about archicad... Hope its the correct forum.
I'm in the process of migrating from PC to mac, and wonder if anyone out there can give me any pointers as to the potential risk of virus infection on OSX. I'm getting many conflicting opinions, ranging from from "take a deep breath and relax, then carry on working" (posting on the apple site), to something completely the opposite and sounding potentially life-threatening on Symantec's site.
What are the risks? What should one be doing - i.e. what is good practice?
Thank you
PS. I do not use Microsoft software, such as Office.

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 13:09:02 GMT

well symantec would say that, wouldn't they

i've never heard of a mac running OSX being compromised

i have heard that some virus checkers for OSX can cause serious problems

at the moment i'd say just run apple 'software update' regularly

bill

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

TomWaltz — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 13:12:00 GMT

We've got 60 people running on OX 10.3 Tiger, with Mozilla mail client & web browser. Half the people here have Apples at home as well.

None of them have virus protection, none of them have had a virus in the two years since we switched.

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 15:34:56 GMT

Been using mac's for 20+ years and I've only had one virus from way back in the floppy disk days. (Computer ran only on a floppy... no harddrive!) I made the mistake of installing a shareware file that somebody gave me and it caused a bug. Never used shareware since.

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Fritz T — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 16:06:19 GMT

Hi
Thanks for all the advice!

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Eduardo Rolon — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 17:36:54 GMT

And remember that Norton AV is notorious for getting OS X to behave erratically, just check the discussion forums at apple, where most of the time the first question to a problem is: Do you have Norton installed? If so remove it...

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:12:14 GMT

ejrolon wrote:
And remember that Norton AV is notorious for getting OS X to behave erratically, just check the discussion forums at apple, where most of the time the first question to a problem is: Do you have Norton installed? If so remove it...

It took to me some years to realise that this soft has the particularity to create problems where they don't exist. Since i don't use it, everything is fine!
Be quiet, at 99%, you don't have viruses risk on Mac.
Marketing, maybe, but at the end, very bad strategy and results for this company.

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Mark Wallace — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:44:11 GMT

Do avail yourself of the monthly software upgrades Apple offers. These upgrades include bug fixes as well as security updates. Gee....today is the 26th.....I should be getting an upgrade notice anytime.

Mark

Dual 2.33 GHz G5, 1.5 Mb RAM
OSX.4.1
AC7, PM 2.3 (still)
-----------------------------------------------
Mark R. Wallace AIA
Mark Wallace Architect
P.O. 26537
Collgeville PA 19426

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Dwight — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 19:50:59 GMT

Me, too.
Virus, what virus???

Had a Microsoft Word Macro virus years ago that virus software would pick up, but was later told that whatever it was just LOOKED like a virus and not to worry, but whenever I get that "do you want to enable this macro (thing that looks like a virus but isn't)" message I say "no" and after a while it stopped asking.

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

__archiben — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 03:13:28 GMT

'virex' is available as a cheap/free and often updated virus checker for the mac. i'd been using it because it came free with a dotmac account i started a little while ago. unfortunately tiger has put paid to that at the moment (there's a conflict), but like all the other mac users here, i've never had a virus in my 13-14 years of using a mac: i had no worries uninstalling it for the time being . . .

~/archiben

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Eduardo Rolon — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 03:22:50 GMT

Actually Apple removed Virex from .Mac because it is incompatible with 10.4 so it can not be downloaded anymore...

www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=2005062008475429

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Dwight — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 03:25:51 GMT

Another way to know that there are no more viruses.

Mac =Innoculation

PC = Festering Pustules.

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Ralph Wessel — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 16:34:56 GMT

Fritz wrote:
I'm in the process of migrating from PC to mac, and wonder if anyone out there can give me any pointers as to the potential risk of virus infection on OSX.
What are the risks? What should one be doing - i.e. what is good practice?

At present Mac OS X is free from viruses, malware, etc. Of course someone will eventually produce one, so a degree of caution is advisable. You can also help your Windows-based colleagues if you detect viruses in their documents.

The main problem with most commercial products is that they can cause more problems than the threat they are supposed to counter, and often break with each new OS update.

I use clamXav, a free Mac front-end for an open source anti-virus engine. Take a look at http://www.markallan.co.uk/clamXav/

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Dwight — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 17:22:12 GMT

Ralph wrote:
Fritz wrote:
I'm in the process of migrating from PC to mac, and wonder if anyone out there can give me any pointers as to the potential risk of virus infection on OSX.
What are the risks? What should one be doing - i.e. what is good practice?

Cupertino advised that your white hat is in the mail.

It is obvious, fromthe regular security updates published, that the MacOS has weaknesses, but Apple seems intent on preventing them from being exploited.

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 17:37:48 GMT

Dwight wrote:
It is obvious, fromthe regular security updates published, that the MacOS has weaknesses, but Apple seems intent on preventing them from being exploited.

Since the updates are coming out before any exploits are reported it seems like a safe bet.

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Dwight — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 17:56:39 GMT

Just to be sure, they hired all the hackers to fix the problems.

Ad in Today's Hacker Magazine:

"Hey, buster: Earn EeeZee money while working in your underwear: Join Apple and get to make trouble!"

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

TomWaltz — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 17:59:06 GMT

At present Mac OS X is free from viruses, malware, etc. Of course someone will eventually produce one, so a degree of caution is advisable.

While that's true, it''s also pretty hard. With Mac's Unix base, most things that could do any real damage have to sneak in a "side door", like the early Tiger Widgets that snuck some code past Safari to actually get some user data.

You're not likely to ever see the "mass re-mailer" viruses for Mail/Mozilla/Thunderbird on Mac. The web-browser is really the weak point in most systems these days. You really count on that software's built-in security to CYA.

The other possibility is just plain old network hacking, which a decent firewall can help prevent.

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Dwight — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 18:01:38 GMT

And of course, isn't it true that Mac has its "ports" closed by default while Windows has them "open"?

If this was customs and immigration, Mac would be like the USA after 9/11 and Windows would be like… Libya?

"Got money? Come right in…"

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

Djordje — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 19:11:55 GMT

Going Intel also means viruses ... it is OS as much as the porcessor.

Good luck.

Re: ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE FOR MAC?

TomWaltz — Thu, 28 Jul 2005 19:27:28 GMT

Going Intel also means viruses ... it is OS as much as the porcessor.

Huh? What difference would the processor make? Running Linux on an Intel machine does not make it mroe virus prone. Why would OSX?