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Mac OS X: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
by santiagogiraldo - 10/23/04 12:02 PMI got a question without answer since long long time ago. Can I have a Mac without antivirus and be sure that nothing's gonna happen ??
Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
by taboma. - 10/23/04 6:40 PM In reply to: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by santiagogiraldoSantia, probaly nothing. Send a post: Which is the best anti-virus program for a Mac? Virex or Norton?
That should get you some posts. I recently installed Symantic's Norton. I have an error message from AOL that an error occurred reading the configuration file. SyntaxError: missing; before statement r240x00032230, r25:0x003c4c7c, r26:0x0032234, r27:0x0012f39c.
What is this all about? AOL told me it was a problem with Norton, because it it is a PC based/Symantic program. AOL told me to switch to Virex, which is a Mac program. Do you think Symantec System Works: Norton, screwed up my connection? I have heard so many conflicting reports about Norton lately, I am almost agreeing with the net. I only downloaded the Symantec/Norton recently. By the way, Norton does not respond to you when you go on-line to ask for simple tech support. $ymantic has a cost per fix that they are more interested in.
Kevin
AntiVirus, AOL, and offshore support
by jnoreman - 10/28/04 11:57 PM In reply to: Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by taboma.Yes, you can have a Mac without any antivirus protection. Consider yourself a police officer in Binghamton, and your Windows-using friends are cops in Baghdad. You may not need the protection, but its better to be safe than sorry. As far as your friends...
I find it interesting that the offshore subcontractors who work for AOL love to blame other companies for their program's shortcomings. At my clients' sites, we have hundreds of OSX Macs using Norton AntiVirus for Mac (or Norton SystemWorks for Mac with AntiVirus) running perfectly. Of course, almost none of them have AOL installed. The problem may be the COMBINATION of Norton AntiVirus running with AOL on the same computer.
So, I think about this... I see hundreds of correctly setup, updated, and maintained Macs run nearly perfectly with Norton AntiVirus installed. Meanwhile, a nearly 20% of the Macs I support with both AOL and NAV have "issues". This seems to match up well with the 15-25% of Macs with AOL and NO antivirus that colleagues tell me have problems. Is that Norton's fault, or AOL's, or a combination?
I don't use AOL. I experience smooth computing nearly always. As a stockholder, I am conflicted...
And for all of you AOL offshore support people, a news flash - Windows programs DO NOT run on Macs. The only thing that Norton AntiVirus for Windows and Mac share are their names and where their revenues go. As always, consider the source of advice before you take it as gospel.
Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
by chipperz - 10/23/04 8:24 PM In reply to: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by santiagogiraldoYes, you can safely run a Mac without an antivirus program. Although Macs aren't entirely immune to virus programs and such, none have surfaced thus far mostly because so few people would be afftected at this time. If Mac continues to grow in popularity, I'm sure some nut out there will write a virus for it. If you mac a .mac account, you can download Virex 7.2 at no cost. This would provide you with the oritection against the nasties if they should pop up.
Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
by mrmacfixit
- 10/24/04 6:36 AM
In reply to: Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by chipperz
Yes, running a Mac without virus protection is quite safe, so far. I disagree with the previous poster about the reason for there being no OS X virus's. Unlike Windoze, any version, OS X is a secure and stable operating system that requires Administrator input before ANYTHING is installed on the machine. Windoze, on the other hand, allows programs, virus's, worms, malware, adware, etc. to be installed without the users permission and even knowledge. The jewel in the crown of any hacker would be to bring down the Mac community with a self spreading, like windoze, virus. Instead they just go for the easy route, Windoze. If you feel you have to, get Virex. Norton Anti-Virus is OK but sometimes flakey. Stay away from the System Works.
Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
by Sugith - 10/28/04 10:34 PM In reply to: Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by mrmacfixit
It isn't so much that virus writers don't bother with Macs because there's "only" 25 million Mac users, but OS X is an extremely protected OS, unlike Windows.
Nonetheless, I've been running Virex since getting my iBook. Better safe than sorry, I say. I've heard that, unlike for Windows, Norton is not Mac-friendly. (They have a defragmenter that has been blamed for a lot of damaged hard drives.)
Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
by Sportymonk - 10/29/04 5:05 AM In reply to: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by santiagogiraldoTechnically - No.
No computer can be safe without a virus protection system. But I suspect you have been hearing a lot of AMcheads say they don't use virus protection and have doubts about what to do. Nobody wants to spend money for something they don't need.
First, there have been viruses written for the Apple, The most recent one I believe was the 1991 Simpson virus which was relatively benign. So in the past viruses for Apples have been relatively rare. The question is why?
First Apples do have only 4% of the computer Operating System market. (This is not comparing Apple to individual computer manufacturers but against the entire MS OS). That makes it a less desireable target for the sick people that write viruses, they can't enjoy seeing a vast amount of pain.
BUT there are other important issues like the configuration of the operating system. Apple shipps with all the ports closed except for those needed as shipped. Windows shipps iwth all the ports OPEN!
Also viruses for Windows can be written in Visual Basic which is easy to learn. Most virus writters don't want to learn to a new language just for Apple.
BUT as Apple becomes more popular through the iMac, Aluminum Powerbooks, iPods, etc, the likelyhood of somebody somewhere picking up the challenge of writting a virus for Apple computers becomes greater. I am surprised it hasn't already happened. To bring the mighty Macheads to their knees after they have lived with that smug knowledge of "I don't worry about viruses and worms" would be something. With the number of Apple people who don't feel the need for virus protection being as large as it apparently is, a virus will be devastating!
I cannot recommend running an Apple without sometype of virus protection. The day is surely coming when the Apple virus will appear.
To go back to your question: Can I have a Mac without antivirus and be sure that nothing's gonna happen ??
No.
Is a virus likely? Not for now. But why be the first to find out when an Apple virus appears?
Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
by srbradbury - 10/29/04 6:03 AM In reply to: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by santiagogiraldoI wouldn't say you could be sure that nothing is going to happen. You can't ever be sure.
99% if not more of the security threats are designed for Windows Systems, as thats what the majority of the world use, so the chances of being attacked are very small.
Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
by damoney777 - 10/29/04 7:18 AM In reply to: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by santiagogiraldoIt is a proven thing that a MAC OS is way more secure than other OS's out there on the market. I personally prefer a MAC, but can only afford a PC Box. No matter how secure you might think any one thing can be, it would be best to keep your MAC a secure as possible. Eventually hackers will get bored with Window's OS's and claim its too boring or easy to bring down a Windows machine. Therefore I believe they will eventually move to a more challenging platform...ie: MAC. If I were you, I'd much rather be safe than sorry...PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENTS, it's worth your sanity. I was running a Power PC back in '99 with Norton installed. I went to a MAC site and downloaded some new icons for my desktop. What happened after I installed them is anybody's guess. At the time of download, my Anti-virus(Norton) was disabled because someone had told me that it slows down my performance and because it was a MAC, I really didn't need it. Yeah, right! After installation of these icons (embedded with a very rare MAC virus) my MAC was completely useless and I mean useless. The malicious code messed up my MAC so bad that it erased files on my hard drive and embedded itself into memory. My hard drive was rendered un-operational and I was not able to recover any data from it at all. I was not able to remove the virus from my memory chip(it destroyed it) and had to purchase another bank. The other bad part of this experience is that I sent this download to my x-girls mom's friend Diane. She also was a type of MAC user who thought virus-smyrus, I don't need protection. Well needless to say, that nasty bug bit her machine and if she could have me put in front of a firing squad right after the damage was done, she would have....twice. Be smarter than the average bear, be ever vigilant, don't think it can't happen to you, because it just might. What I thought,or was led to believe, that this was virtually imposible to happen to a MAC, bit me big time right in my backside. Ouch. If you never get online to download things, surf the net, or check email, then there is very little use in anti-virus software. If your computer isn't connected to a modem or cable/ect, you are pretty darn safe. I still would want AntiVirus installed and running in the background for that friend's copy of his/her favorite program or music or anything that comes from the "outside" for that matter. Don't even get me started on firewall protection. No, I am not an extreme paranoid....I'm running M$ Windows for Petes sake. Always but always keep your sanity and security as your first priority. Here is my final thought on anti-virus. Ponder it then make your decision. If you or your friends install anything on your machine that contains a virus, how are you gonna know if you don't have the counter-measures(AV) installed, running, and updated, to tell you such important things. Protect yourself from that little piece of code that you could have on your machine and not know it. You know the one that makes your day/life terrible and logs all of your keystrokes and sends your banking and personal information to folks you wouldn't care to associate yourself with or have over for dinner for that matter.
SECURITY!!-NUFF SAID
Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
by marysmac - 10/29/04 8:33 AM In reply to: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by santiagogiraldoWhile I've read all the other replies, I can pretty much agree with most of them, one of the things not mentioned is the fact that eventhough you can get a windows virus from another user and eventhough you are immune to that virus, you can still pass it along to other users who then come back to you to complain very loudly that YOU are THE one responsible for mucking up their windows system with a virus or some other sort of thing. To avoid such situations, you can still run a virus program to eliminate any possibility of that. Gets rid of the windows viruses that way and you don't pass them around.
Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
by donernst - 10/29/04 8:42 AM In reply to: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by santiagogiraldoI have a worm on my Emac G4. I get messages that an email to an address, that is not in my address book, cannot be delivered. Either the worm has addresses or I'm being used as a remote terminal by a hacker. Have installed Norton antivrus and Norton firewall. That seems to have solved the problem.
Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
by mrmacfixit - 10/30/04 7:26 AM
In reply to: Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by donernst
THERE ARE CURRENTLY NO WORMS OR VIRUS'S FOR OS X
You almost certainly do NOT have a worm on your eMac. What happens with these worms and virus's is that they invade a Windoze machine and infect it. The worm then trolls around their hard drive looking for email addresses. It looks through the address book and the Internet Temp files and collect all the addresses it can find. It will then select ONE of those addresses at random and compose an email using that address as the From addressee. All the other addresses will be the To addressees. It will then email itself, worm included, to all those people using is own email engine. The poor long suffering Windoze user will be unaware of the email going out. In your case, your address was in the infected machines address book or Internet Temp files and was used as the From addressee. As you know, mail that is not deliverable is returned to the "Sender" by the receiving email server. This is exactly what you received. An email, with your name and email address on it, was unable to be delivered to a certain party. Relax, just delete the email and get on with life. THERE ARE NO VIRUS'S OR WORMS FOR OS X OF ANY SHAPE OR FASHION. Windoze worms and virus's do NOT work on a Mac. Most of the horror storys floating around this forum are referring to the OLD Macintosh Operating System and NOT OS X which is far and away the most secure operating system out there. One of the reasons for there being no virus's for OS X lies in the fact that it requires an Administrator to enter a password before ANY software is installed. For a virus to be effective and to spread to other machines, it would have to be installed with Root privileges and still require passwords whenever it tried to do something. The 'Security by obscurity" is just a myth. Surely the greates claim to fam that a Hacker could have would be the first person to bring down all the Macs on the planet. Wonder why it has not been done yet? Because Windoze has NO security to speak of, and has more holes than Swiss cheese, it is so easy to bring down, or infect, a major portion of the Windoze users. 75% of the Hackers work has already been done for them by Microsoft! Cudos for installing the Firewall and AV software.
Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
by joepete - 6/21/05 10:12 PM In reply to: Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by mrmacfixit
First, antivirus is always a good idea. There is malware (certainly a small percentage compared to Windows) that affects a Mac, but more important, you don't want to become simply a malware carrier. For example, a particular piece of malware, might not affect your Mac but you do not want to unwittingly fowarded it or otherwise share it with others.
For some good Mac antivirus info, see:
http://www.icsalabs.com/html/communities/antivirus/macintosh/archives/macvirus/software/whichone.html
Just to clarify a couple of points:
1. What is "anti-virus?" Today, I think most use anti-virus as a catch-all for a variety of software designed to keep out all sorts of malware. Ideally what you want is something to product against virus, worms, spyware, mobile code, even possible phishing and pharming.
2. Vulnerability of Mac. Macs enjoy two advantages over the PC/Windows world; they are a smaller target, and I think fair to say, a more secure OS. Microsoft's chief failing is that one MS software is designed to trust any other MS software. When a company makes both the OS and most of the common applications (Word, Excel, IE, Outlook, etc.) for a system this creates a dangerous formula. While on one hand this level of trust enables great functionality, on the other there is not that paranoid division of labor that makes for good security. It's not that MS developers are inept; they are just saddled with high risk business model (albeit an amazingly profitable one).
3. Mac malware. There certainly have been Mac malware, it's just not common. However, keep in mind that not all malware is OS specific. Word and Excel macros for example. While today's Java is pretty secure, you don't know who might be able to punch a hole in it down the road. Also, bear in mind that underneath everything, there is a lot of Linux to the Mac, this is great, but if you are running anything like Apache or other services, these all have vulnerabilities from time to time. As Linux grows, especially as an enterprise platform, expect to see more exploits targeting Linux, and that may be more Mac exploits.
Mostly yes, and here's why. Really!
by jrice - 10/29/04 9:59 AM In reply to: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by santiagogiraldoThe others leave out perhaps the main reason you are relatively virus-safe with a Mac.
First of all, hackers aren't all malicious, so lets use the proper term cracker.
Most crackers direct their efforts at large, fortified servers, not personal computers. Attacks on personal computers, while annoying and sometimes damaging, are meant to create chaos on the network and thus for the servers.
At the root of this behavior is the challenge or, if you prefer, what the cracker can get away with. It's like in the old days, breaking in to a place to look around, maybe rearrange things or do a little pilferage. Torching a place was considered beyond the pale, almost unheard of. Crackers do the same thing in a different kind of space, but like their predecessors, they also have their limits.
And unless a cracker happens to be truly malign and truly perverse, like a drive-by shooter, one of those limits is the individual stranger. Apples are people machines, for kids, teachers, artists, graphics professionals, scientists, i.e. individuals. PCs belong to the suits and the organizations that house them.
So, while the Apple domain presents a smaller target, it also presents a different target, one that's not as inviting for crackers as the PC domain. Remember, also, that crackers attack Gates and Ballmer with more relish than they do Jobs and Woz. If you were a leopard with a choice, would you go for a meerkat or a big, fat gnu?
Think of it this way: are you the kind of person who's not upset to find he's slept through the night with the front door unlocked and the keys in the car?
Depends on the neighborhood, right?
________________
Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?
by spiketume - 10/29/04 10:19 AM In reply to: Can I have a Mac without antivirus? by santiagogiraldoThere never is a 100% guarantee that you won't get a virus running a Mac, however since the majority of the population that run personal computers run PC's most of the virus' generated are aimed at Microsoft Software and Operating Systems. So if you don't use Outlook Express or Intenet Explorer there are only about 7 known virus' for Mac, and if you always do your Security Software Updates you are relativly safe. But you may still want to invest in some Anti-Virus software to be safe.
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