[makkystyle]

I am fairly new to the mac world and was wondering what .sit and .dmg files are? are they the equivalent of .exe files in the windows world? Also maybe it is taboo to talk about this here, but has anyone downloaded any programs off of limewire? there are a couple I'd like to, but am a bit worried about viruses.

[mindwaves]

Originally posted by makkystyle:
I am fairly new to the mac world and was wondering what .sit and .dmg files are? are they the equivalent of .exe files in the windows world?

Hi,

.exe files are executable files as you know. .sit is essentially equivalent as .zip for the PC with some minor differences, but .sit is used in the Mac platform as "the way" to compress files. .dmg files are essentially disk images so you have to mount them, but they enter and leave as disks much like floppy disks.

[Adam Betts]

You don't have to worry about viruses, etc on Mac because most of the time it will be Drag-and-Drop operation. In Windows, .exe will do everything in the back for you while .dmg and .sit will allow you to drag the application icon to your application folder without any complex installation. Very few applications use installer (similar to .exe) to install software in your Mac.

If you still want to make sure that there is no viruses on your computer, you could register for a new .Mac account and get Virex for free. Or you could purchase other virus software separately.

[sandsl]

To sum up:

1) .sit and .dmg are compressed files.

You'll need Stuffit Expander to open .sit files and Disk Copy (included with OS X ) to open .dmg files.


2) Macs don't suffer from virus infection like PCs do. Currently there is little need to worry about viruses or buy anti-virus software.

Therefore your mac, running OSX, is likely to be safe downloading stuff from Limewire.

[makkystyle]

thanks for all the help guys!!!