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Do you need an AntiVirus application on the Mac these days?
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HamSandwich
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Hey,
I generally help my parents with their Macs and, during the past months, they sometimes asked if you need an AntiVirus program on the Mac, too. Some years ago, I would have just said no and put the debate away, but now...
Has that changed? There's a German company that makes a rather renowned PC AntiVirus program (Avira AntiVir) and they are now starting to offer Mac versions (and versions for Linux, I think), so I wondered sometimes...
Is that necessary? I googled and I found a huge note and some kind of Java virus (or so) last year, right? Or Flash, I forgot...?
What do you think, what do you do?
Thanks! Pete
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Moderator  Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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In general I would say no, because the threats that we have seen are still not particularly virulent. Make sure that Mac OS X, Safari and Flash are up to date, exercise normal caution in what you run and be careful with the admin password and that's it. However, that might not be so easy. Apple doesn't make updates available for older OSes the way MS does, so if they are still on 10.5 for instance, they can't keep the OS up to date. It is not clear if Apple will release any more updates for Snow Leopard, but the fact that Safari 6 was only released for Lion is not a promising sign.
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The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
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HamSandwich
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Originally Posted by P 
In general I would say no, because the threats that we have seen are still not particularly virulent. Make sure that Mac OS X, Safari and Flash are up to date, exercise normal caution in what you run and be careful with the admin password and that's it. However, that might not be so easy. Apple doesn't make updates available for older OSes the way MS does, so if they are still on 10.5 for instance, they can't keep the OS up to date. It is not clear if Apple will release any more updates for Snow Leopard, but the fact that Safari 6 was only released for Lion is not a promising sign.
Ah, thanks... No, they are on 10.8 now, so that's another 10.8 pro-argument I'd say, never really looked at it that way... What about the admin password, though? It's an old habit I wonder about sometimes, but the acocunts they use are always admin accounts, I think; that's a problem? What about the password...?
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Down by the river
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I think saying "No" is irresponsible. I'd recommend Little Snitch or Hands Off along with ClamXAV (just enable the Sentry to monitor critical files). Saying we're safe and not having protection vs. virus will lead to a horrific epidemic for us Mac users. Complacency will kill us so get a little protection but don't worry too much.
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