Virus etc Protection?

[Anne]

In the past I have used Intego VirusBarrier and NetBarrier software, and these have now expired, so I am wondering whether to renew or not.  I am unsure as to whether such software is really necessary on a Mac, so would appreciate anyone with strong feelings either way letting me know their opinions please!

Anne

[Col]

The paradigm recently shifted on the Mac platform and we are now getting variants of the Mac Defender/Mac Protector Trojan horse and the perpetrators (my money is on a Russian mafia/hacker joint venture) and Apple are locked in an escalating battle of update and response.  I expect more trouble now that the code is out in the wild and infecting numbers of computers- anti-virus/malware software might be a good idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Defender

I got one of these myself when searching in Google Images a few weeks ago and was surprised to see an installer screen for it in front of me. I force quit both the installer and Safari, then relaunched and reset Safari.There was no unusual activity in Activity Monitor and everything seemed OK, so I restarted the computer and checked both Login items (System Preferences, Accounts) and Activity Monitor (Utilities). A few hours later I heard about Mac Defender and went into Safari Preferences (General) and unchecked "Open 'safe' files after downloading" at the bottom of the pane.

As for which antivirus software to use, over the years I have had trouble with Norton Antivirus (poor Mac compatibility, opaque interface, system slowdowns - but reputedly cleaned up since 2009) and Sophos (incompatibility with 10.6, runaway invisible applications running in the background hard to uninstall)

[Anne]

Thanks Colin.  I have always kept unchecked the "Open 'safe' files after downloading" in Safari Preferences, and never enter a password in a web site I have not navigated to independently, but I still worry.  However, it seems no one has any anti virus or web barrier software they can recommend, so I think the Mac must still be pretty safe as long as you are cautious!

Anne

[Jimmie]

I wouldn't touch Norton with a ten-foot pole and anyway there's no reason to buy any software. The latest Security update from Apple removes any variants of MacDefender and after it's installed the system will phone home to Apple daily for updates to the File Quarantine malware definition list. An opt-out capability is provided via the "Automatically update safe downloads list" checkbox in Security Preferences (for users who think Apple is more dangerous than MacDefender ;-).

Run Software Updater, live free, and prosper.

Jimmie

[Deano]

I wouldn't touch Norton with a ten-foot pole and anyway there's no reason to buy any software. The latest Security update from Apple removes any variants of MacDefender and after it's installed the system will phone home to Apple daily for updates to the File Quarantine malware definition list. An opt-out capability is provided via the "Automatically update safe downloads list" checkbox in Security Preferences (for users who think Apple is more dangerous than MacDefender ;-).

Run Software Updater, live free, and prosper.

Jimmie

Ditto re Norton (though it was a force to be reckoned with back in the day). You are right, mainly the OSX mainly takes care of itself, so long as you are assiduous with the Security Updates (and it can be set to check for that). But if you _want_ a good piece of useful trouble-preventing software <http://www.maintain.se/[censored]tail/index.php>  [censored]tail is the one. $14.65. Confucius he say nothing better...

hth