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pcd2k · Oct 17, 2006, 09:34 AM

Ought not there be an antiviirus pkg built into the OSX

Although
"Mac OS X is built on what is considered to be one of the more secure Unix-based operating systems, BSD."

At times I feel a certain unease when flacky behavioirs spoil my Mac experience and when this seems to be happening I quickly switch disks and Repair Disk Permissions.

Having read this article
Mac News: Science: No Immunity for Macs

I'm now wondering as to whether this routine is worthy of quelling the violence of a possible viral infection to my system ?

Person Man · Oct 17, 2006, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by pcd2k

Ought not there be an antiviirus pkg built into the OSX

Although
"Mac OS X is built on what is considered to be one of the more secure Unix-based operating systems, BSD."

At times I feel a certain unease when flacky behavioirs spoil my Mac experience and when this seems to be happening I quickly switch disks and Repair Disk Permissions.

Having read this article
Mac News: Science: No Immunity for Macs

I'm now wondering as to whether this routine is worthy of quelling the violence of a possible viral infection to my system ?

Repairing Disk Permissions will not correct much, if anything. It's a "magic incantation" for the most part so people feel like they are doing something.

Do a search on "repair disk permissions" and/or "repairing disk permissions" to see what people here think about it.

ghporter · Oct 17, 2006, 10:23 AM

Macs have never been immune to malware, and this has been proven more than once in the last year or so. But there are really very few viruses written to attack OS X (and remember that malware attacks the OS, NOT the hardware), and none are loose "in the wild" as of today. A lot of the reason for this is that the malware writing "community" lacks tools for making malware for OS X, while there are tons of "toolkits" for slapping together a Windows bug that are so simple, even a child could use them--oh wait, kids DO use them, which is why they're called "script kiddies."

In any case, antivirus software is always a good idea. The problem is that, lacking a lot of viruses to watch out for, Mac antivirus software is a very mixed bag. There are some products that are great, some that are awful, and some even worse. I'm using Norton Antivirus on my MacBook Pro right now, and it's great-my wife's iBook has been protected this way for a couple of years. But a lot of people have had really bad experiences with Norton, including having the software screw up their computers badly enough to require reloading the OS-which is one task people want to avoid by using antivirus software.

Millennium · Oct 17, 2006, 11:20 AM

There have been rumors of integrating ClamAV, an open-source antivirus engine, into OSX Client (OSX Server already does it). Personally, I think it would be a good idea to do this.

Person Man · Oct 17, 2006, 12:20 PM

Originally Posted by Millennium

There have been rumors of integrating ClamAV, an open-source antivirus engine, into OSX Client (OSX Server already does it). Personally, I think it would be a good idea to do this.

Especially if the virus definitions get updated via Software Update.

pcd2k · Oct 17, 2006, 10:30 PM

Oh I see, thank you
So does running MacJanitor help at all.
I usually run this after a a day or so net access and it seems to make my system run smoother again

pcd2k · Oct 17, 2006, 10:31 PM

Oh I see, thank you
So does running MacJanitor help at all.
I usually run this after a a day or so net access and it seems to make my system run smoother again

besson3c · Oct 17, 2006, 11:18 PM

While ClamAV is very cool (I use it on my server), it does have some security issues... This may be a problem in the eyes of some.

I really like the idea of an open source antivirus solution though. I'm certain that discovering and quarantining viruses is very much a community effort. I'm not terribly interested in paying somebody to provide me with virus patterns.

Big Mac · Oct 18, 2006, 12:15 AM

Originally Posted by pcd2k

Oh I see, thank you
So does running MacJanitor help at all.
I usually run this after a a day or so net access and it seems to make my system run smoother again

At one time it was required because OS X did not properly schedule missed maintenance routines, but now it is unnecessary.

ghporter · Oct 18, 2006, 08:36 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

At one time it was required because OS X did not properly schedule missed maintenance routines, but now it is unnecessary.

I think it would be helpful if you would qualify that with what it was that made MacJanitor "unnecessary." It was a specific OS version, right? Like Tiger versus Panther rather than 10.3.8 versus 10.3.before... The point is that my wife's iBook running the latest Panther update STILL needs MacJanitor because all those chron tasks still don't get run. My MBP running 10.4.8 may not need anything like that, but I've only had it for a couple weeks so I won't know for a while...

jasong · Oct 18, 2006, 09:05 AM

Well, going back to what the OP was asking, repairing disk permissions will do absolutely nothing for a viral infection should one ever occur. That is so true it should be in all caps and on it's own line.

REPAIRING DISK PERMISSIONS WILL DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THE EVENT OF A VIRUS.

It is theoretically possible that repairing disk permissions could affect the security of your Mac, in that if your permissions are changed to something bad, repairing them will reset them to their original (hopefully) secure state. I'm in the camp of repairing permissions = waste of time, so I'll just stop there.