I recently picked up a MBP and I've been debating whether I should put some antivirus software on it. There seems to be a lot of conflicting opinions about this.
Mac Owners: How many of you use an antivirus/firewall?
- Thread starter Chainsaw Calligraphy
- Start date
SocialNumb
Damn Christians!
Is it possible to get one? Yes, no doubt. Highly likely, no. Personally I've never had an issue, yet. So I have never put an antivirus in any of my macs. I always put a firewall though.
Zack Uidl
Member
^ yep.
Never had antivirus on MAC or any Windows machine and never had a virus.....Search the forums as there are topics about this I know for sure
Never had antivirus on MAC or any Windows machine and never had a virus.....Search the forums as there are topics about this I know for sure
Trevoire520
Member
Never bothered with it myself. I did install an antivirus the other week to give it a check but nothing came up so I just uninstalled it afterwards.
shredder10
Replace that #@#|@#â!!
I've never installed any kind of antivirus software/tool on my macs.
Just the usual Disk maintenance n all.
And as Damian said, just safe browse!
Just the usual Disk maintenance n all.
And as Damian said, just safe browse!
LeSedna
Mat or Mateo
Not many. and when there were occasional mac virus in history, they were alone, and eradicated in the next few days with a simple patch. You'll hear mac-haters talk about those easily because any single virus-like gets in the news (to me that's more of a good thing if any single virus is famous, it means they are exceptional), while when I check my W7 partition (which I like using) with different scanners there are always at least a handful of them. You're safe behind your router's firewall.
The very core of the unix system, + the intentional locks apple puts on top of it, make it difficult to create a virus, so far.
The very core of the unix system, + the intentional locks apple puts on top of it, make it difficult to create a virus, so far.
I have never used one in ~10 years using Mac on multiple machines. Not had a problem so far. I don't even know who makes one for Mac.
Mutant
I hate that supercow !
If you never had any antivirus software on your computer, you can't be sure you never had any virus - it is like saying "i am blind since birth and i know how color blue looks like".
The days of virii written strictly for fame and out of sheer love for vandalism are gone - sure back in the good old days you could sometimes see silly messages like "your machine is now ours ! fear and respect group XXX ! preparing to delete all files ! LOL !".
But modern well written malware is stealthy and you will not notice any suspicious behavior until your sensitive info gets stolen and used to rob you out of your hard earned money.
Also "safe browsing" is not a guarantee.
Your most trusted websites such as this one for example, can be hacked and used to infect your machine too.
The days of virii written strictly for fame and out of sheer love for vandalism are gone - sure back in the good old days you could sometimes see silly messages like "your machine is now ours ! fear and respect group XXX ! preparing to delete all files ! LOL !".
But modern well written malware is stealthy and you will not notice any suspicious behavior until your sensitive info gets stolen and used to rob you out of your hard earned money.
Also "safe browsing" is not a guarantee.
Your most trusted websites such as this one for example, can be hacked and used to infect your machine too.
SocialNumb
Damn Christians!
Shits and pickles. Haven't lost a dime on any Mac at anytime in my long years of using them online. I do all my banking/non-food shopping/ect online. Of course it should go without saying that I'm careful. There are also other ways of checking for security problems without antivirus software. That being said, I've gotten this far. Maybe in the future some ass will go to town on the Mac os platform. I just rather not have the extra bulk until I feel I need it. If one machine happens to get fucked, no problem, I'll move on to the next or replace it.
ratsapprentice
God can gtfo
As has already been said, safe browsing habits basically negate any need for an anti-virus, regardless of platform.
Although probably a good idea on a pc, on a mac it shouldn't be necessary.
Although probably a good idea on a pc, on a mac it shouldn't be necessary.
Honestly, I've founded that safe browsing is much more effective than any antivirus application. As long as you're smart and only download files from sites you trust you should be fine. I think viruses and the like are primarily a problem for inexperienced internet users. You eventually learn how to navigate without running into questionable content/sites/etc. I can't remember the last time I was even on a questionable or fishy site.
This is for Macs of course, but I've even used Windows machines in the past for quite a while and never once had any real issues. It's all about know what to click and what not to click.
This is for Macs of course, but I've even used Windows machines in the past for quite a while and never once had any real issues. It's all about know what to click and what not to click.
nervirasme
Dismember
I work on a Mac for at least 10 years, but I use Windows platform occasionally. Unlike Windows, there was never any reason to have antivirus for mac, whatever the browsing habits...
While true, and I get your point, what I mean is that in ~10 years of using Macs with no antivirus software, I've never had malware affect my machine in any discernible way whatsoever, and my Macs have always acted the same and ran the same as the first day I got them as far as I can tell.
Mutant
I hate that supercow !
OK then you are an experienced and responsible MAC user.
From how the OP formulated his question it looks to me he is a newbie MAC user and doesnt have all that knowledge yet:
An antivirus software will not do any harm and can be turned off temporarily when you need 100% of your computer power.
So if it is freeware then why not ?
http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57422099-285/two-free-mac-antivirus-apps-compared/
JeffTD
Senhor Testiculo
I'd imagine you'd be fine without one, though if it's not slowing down your computer too much, I'd rather be safe than sorry.
FWIW, Mac doesn't have viruses because it's "more secure," it's because only ~10% of consumers are running Mac... What hacker wants to spend a bunch of time writing code that will only potentially affect 10% of the population, when he could affect the other 90%? Not to mention, most hackers are running Windows themselves, and writing a virus for Mac would require them to have Mac OS for testing
FWIW, Mac doesn't have viruses because it's "more secure," it's because only ~10% of consumers are running Mac... What hacker wants to spend a bunch of time writing code that will only potentially affect 10% of the population, when he could affect the other 90%? Not to mention, most hackers are running Windows themselves, and writing a virus for Mac would require them to have Mac OS for testing
Lasse Lammert
HCAF Blitzkrieg
Never had a use for it...and I'm not exactly safe browsing, I go to porn and streaming sites all the fucking time, I even click on popups out of curiousity etc....never had a single problem.
Mutant
I hate that supercow !
If it is slowing your computer, just switch to any properly written antivirus.
Here on my PC Avast run time scan service takes about 2-3% when starting a single small program and up to 15% when loading a medium sized project with many dll files (plugins) active in REAPER.
Of course when the PC is not loading any executables, the service uses exactly 0% of my CPU.
Also the private bytes go from about 15MB to maybe 40MB so it is not using any great amount of RAM.
LeSedna
Mat or Mateo
I'd imagine you'd be fine without one, though if it's not slowing down your computer too much, I'd rather be safe than sorry.
FWIW, Mac doesn't have viruses because it's "more secure," it's because only ~10% of consumers are running Mac... What hacker wants to spend a bunch of time writing code that will only potentially affect 10% of the population, when he could affect the other 90%? Not to mention, most hackers are running Windows themselves, and writing a virus for Mac would require them to have Mac OS for testing
I don't trust this old argument. As if no hacker ever tried. It would make so much noise if a decent virus was developed for mac (last one, Flashback, only infected a few hundred thousand computers, and was removable with a simple executable, or the next java update). I don't think that no decent hacker ever tried it. We're a billion people using internet everyday, there must be legions of hardcore unix hackers in the middle who would find this a very nice challenge. I don't say it's absolutely safe from viruses, but it seems like the way the system is closed, the growing tendency for sandboxing, etc, makes it more difficult. Which joins your argument that it's less profitable. But I do think it's because of the OS itself, not just the number of units especially now that everyone knows someone who bought a 13in MB or a MB Air.
Reading 9gag these days is enough to be convinced so many people would just love to see Apple badly hit in its pride, as well.
