Premium Members Lars Erik Posted March 25, 2010 Premium Members Report Share Posted March 25, 2010 Hi, since my former laptop decided to commit suicide, I have gone and bought a 21,5" iMac. I have always owned Microsoft computers. But I finally had enough of the OS they manufacture. I´m just curious if any of you Mac people use anti-spyware? And if so, which one is good? I have been reading on the subject, and someone feels that this isn´t necessary, ´cause Mac never gets any viruses, and someone feels you should use anti-virus... All suggestions greatly appreciated. Fly safe! LE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Mark Schlicher Posted March 25, 2010 Premium Members Report Share Posted March 25, 2010 Quite simply, I've never gotten a virus/malware/spyware on any Mac computer I've ever owned. My experience with PC's has been, erm, dissimilar. If your computer is behind a router (a hardware firewall) you should be fine, IMO. Hi, since my former laptop decided to commit suicide, I have gone and bought a 21,5" iMac. I have always owned Microsoft computers. But I finally had enough of the OS they manufacture. I´m just curious if any of you Mac people use anti-spyware? And if so, which one is good? I have been reading on the subject, and someone feels that this isn´t necessary, ´cause Mac never gets any viruses, and someone feels you should use anti-virus... All suggestions greatly appreciated. Fly safe! LE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Brian Freesh Posted March 25, 2010 Premium Members Report Share Posted March 25, 2010 I've had an identical experience in 15 years of Apple product using as Mark. I've known dozens, if not over a hundred regular Mac users with identical experiences. And I've never once in person, on the phone, online, etc, heard or seen anyone claim one should use virus protection for Macs. I'm layman enough to not understand why it's so safe, but expert enough to know it is. Congrats on your new purchase, I think you'll enjoy it! I'm not a PC hater by any means, still have one in fact. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
max volokh Posted March 25, 2010 Report Share Posted March 25, 2010 Never see any person who will see any virus for MacOS Even in Russia Certified Apple Pro Video user and Service engineer from 2000 MacUser from 1994 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Kevin Andrews SOC Posted March 25, 2010 Premium Members Report Share Posted March 25, 2010 Been using Apple since the IIe in the 80's. The last bugs for macs were mostly in the late 90's. Small self contained programs disguised as a utility program. Would make your keyboard lights flash, speakers burp, and such. Most bugs had to be loaded directly. Have a MacBook Pro now and have no worries at all. Just go into your sharing prefs and turn on the firewall and shut off auto discover on networks. You'll be good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members William Demeritt Posted March 25, 2010 Premium Members Report Share Posted March 25, 2010 Lars, WE ACCEPT YOU! ONE OF US! ONE OF US! Cult chatter aside, welcome to the Mac world. I'm a lifelong computer technology enthusiast, and even worked in Information Technology for a while. Built PC's for a while, then moved to using Macs (currently posting from my homebuilt Hackintosh; PC parts running Mac OS X Snow Leopard). I've also converted many family members and friends over the years. Just going off my experiences, the people you'll read about (as few as they may be) will encourage antivirus software because they fell victim to one of the few Mac viruses in existence. That's not to say there's only 5 viruses or exploits total. Rather, you compare maybe 280,000+ viruses affecting Windows based PC's against... well, I think January, 2009 was the first occurrence of a true Mac virus. Doesn't mean Macs are COMPLETELY safe, but many features intrinsic to the architecture and design of OS X makes them more secure. File permissions, user permission and hierarchy and more prevents unauthorized software from gaining access to your system. The people who are recommending you get antivirus software for your Mac? They most likely installed something questionable from online, entered the Administrator password allowing it to run, and suffered the consequences. My suggestion: save your money (and your precious system resources... Macs are memory hungry), and just be aware of what you're installing/running. Macs do a much better job of alerting you to running programs that are attachments or downloads, and the security risk involved. By nature, the system will only allow so much access to most programs. Computer geek since 1987 Mac geek since 2004 All around nerd since birth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sverker Hahn Posted April 14, 2010 Report Share Posted April 14, 2010 I have the same experiences as the other Mac-guys. If not buying anti-virus software, you could buy other protection software: Undercover anti-theft software - if your iMac gets stolen. SuperDuper - backup your HDD and make the backup bootable. My MacBook Pro was stolen a month ago - now I have UnderCover on my three Macs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Daigon Posted April 14, 2010 Report Share Posted April 14, 2010 I have the same experiences as the other Mac-guys. If not buying anti-virus software, you could buy other protection software: Undercover anti-theft software - if your iMac gets stolen. SuperDuper - backup your HDD and make the backup bootable. My MacBook Pro was stolen a month ago - now I have UnderCover on my three Macs. And if you are into saving money you can use the unregistered version of Super Duper for free. Functionally it performs all the back up asks I need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Members Benjamin Treplin Posted April 14, 2010 Premium Members Report Share Posted April 14, 2010 Good virus scanner works with the same virus, worm, whatever devinitions as all the others and it's for free. http://www.clamxav.com Superduper is a must. In case of a hard drive failure you can boot within seconds from the last backup. For media VLC, PLEX(can stream dvd over 100 Mb ethernet), Perian and Candelair Just a few. Best Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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