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Ruddell
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 Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 1:08 pm Post subject: Virus |
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| There seems to be a bit of a motion for virus protection using Macs these days. And because they're selling more and more (again) I guess we could see this one coming. But what's the best product out there just to be on the safe side? |
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nospam
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 1:48 pm Post subject: Re: Virus |
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In article <0001HW.C4C871180001B07AB01AD9AF@news.sasktel.net>, Ruddell <ruddell'Elle-Kabong'@canada.com> wrote:
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| There seems to be a bit of a motion for virus protection using Macs these days. |
not really. just a bunch of companies preying on paranoid and uninformed people. nothing new there.
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| And because they're selling more and more (again) I guess we could see this one coming. |
maybe one day, but market share is not a major factor. it's fairly difficult to write a virus that can effectively propagate on its own on a mac. the real risk is software that the *user* installs.
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| But what's the best product out there just to be on the safe side? |
your brain.
don't open files whose sources you don't trust. think about why something asks for your admin password. if it's an apple software update that you downloaded from apple, it's obvious why it's needed. if it's some random application you found online (or worse, what appears to be a document asking for your password), then think twice about running it.
keep your backups current, so if something *does* trash your system, you can restore what was lost (and backups cover other disasters, such as a hard drive failure).
if there ever is a major malware issue, then every mac news site will have information and how to remedy it. and whatever anti-virus utility install now is not likely to block future malware, so you'd *still* need to download something. |
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Richard Maine
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:07 pm Post subject: Re: Virus |
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Ruddell <ruddell'Elle-Kabong'@canada.com> wrote:
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| There seems to be a bit of a motion for virus protection using Macs these days. |
No there isn't. What leads you to think that "there seems to be" such a motion? Almost certainly either marketting stuff from companies that sell such things, or people who have been hooked by such marketting.
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| But what's the best product out there just to be on the safe side? |
As... um... nospam (with no other name given, even a made-up handle, it makes it hard to refer to him) said, your brain.
None of the other products out there will do anything useful for you. There isn't anything out there now that they protect you against, and they won't generally protect against future threats as they don't yet know how to.
Really, the only reason at all to use virus protection software on a Mac today is to help keep you from forwarding virus-ridden emails or downloads to other people, but your brain works much better for that. At least it should.
Corporate environments sometimes mandate virus protection for bureaucratic reasons (and, to be "fair", because they have to deal with employees a bit short on the protection built into your brain.) Such mandates are the source of the large majorty of Mac anti-virus sales. If a corporation mandates that all computers have something called an anti-virus program (regardless of whether it actually does anything - the important thing just being what it is called) there will be vendors glad to sell such a product.
Other than your brain, the next best protection is a NAT router/firewall (as a separate box - not just a software "firewall"). That actually has other benefits in addition to helping security. |
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Gregory Weston
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| Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:27 pm Post subject: Re: Virus |
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In article <0001HW.C4C871180001B07AB01AD9AF@news.sasktel.net>, Ruddell <ruddell'Elle-Kabong'@canada.com> wrote:
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| There seems to be a bit of a motion for virus protection using Macs these days. And because they're selling more and more (again) I guess we could see this one coming. But what's the best product out there just to be on the safe side? |
The best anti-malware solution for Mac OS X is a user who exercises a modicum of caution and common sense. Don't download files from questionable sources. Don't double-click e-mail attachments that you didn't expect to get (and don't relax that practice for mail that appears to come from friends and relatives). Don't run under an admin account for day-to-day use and don't authenticate as an admin blindly every time the prompt shows up on your screen.
Today, the best reason to run anti-malware software on a Mac is that there's some authority figure with the power to tell you do so actually doing so. For instance it may be a requirement for accessing a corporate network. If you're in that situation, use <http://www.clamxav.com/>. Any time you're challenged to demonstrate that you're using up-to-date virus protection, launch it, update the virus defs and take a screen shot (or whatever evidence they want). |
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