Mac OS X: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?

Re: Can I have a Mac without antivirus?

There are two answers to your question Santiago. Yes and No (as you might have expected!) While it's true that because of the relatively small numbers of Mac users vs Windows users, the nut cases who write the viruses won't get the attention they so desperately need by writing viruses for the Mac environment. Plus the Unix underpinning of OSX are pretty solid anyway. So on the one hand, you might be able to get away without having a virus detection program from a system standpoint.

Now your data files, that's a whole different kettle of fish. The worst viruses I ever had to deal with as a Mac tech were the Trojan Horses that hit MS Word documents and jpg graphic files. Since the largest uses for Macintosh computers are still in the graphics areas, the virus that affected jpg graphic files was a real nightmare for a while. The Trojan Horse would change the structure of the file, making it virtually unusable, yet the computer itself was unaffected. The problem that affected the Word documents wasn't specifically aimed at the Macs themselves, but because Office on both sides of the fence share documents, it hit it pretty bad as well. Once the virus definitons caught up to them, we were able to recover the files. Of course, we did loose some in the process (which was the biggest single reason for starting an off-network archiving system!)

So, if for no other reason then piece of mind, I'd say you should have a virus detection and removal program. A good one like Norton Anti-Virus that runs in the background is a great place to start. I know Apple is really big on Virex but I'm not too keen on it. Just my opinion though.

As someone much wiser then I once said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Get your ounce of prevention in a virus detection and removal program, get the monthly updates, do regular back ups and you should be good to go!

Phil