Does a MAC need virus protectio?

OK so it may seem a dumb question... My year one Virex sub expired and I'm wondering do I really need this? IF we a (and I was for the previous well since 1985ish) PC user it's a no brainer. But do I beleive the hype of with only a small penetrationin the market nobody bothers with the MAC...

For those who support the use of anti-viral software can you provide example of what has been hit OSX?

No need for it. In my many years of mac use. I have gotton only 1 virus. I wouldn't really call it a virus b/c it didn't harm my system. It just made my files go out of order. Now days with os X, the apple OS is safer than ever. there is nothing to worry about!

This is an on going discussion on this board. If you want more detail, just search this board. Most of the people here say no you don't need. There are some that suggest you should use it to protect your PC brotherin, from infected mail.

I truely believe it matters what your networks setup is like... get the virus protection software if you have windows on your network.. this will help keeop viruses off those machines by not allowing your mac to transfer them or be a host for those virus files... if you only have macs. or only the one computer there really is no point to having the virus software on there.

Nobody actually NEEDS a Anti-Virus program, it's just good to have. Get a free one. There's no need to pay!

There are not any currently, nor have there ever been any viruses for Mac OS X. This is not to say that there couldn't be a virus, there just aren't any right now. I would recommend virus protection if you regularly connect to Windows machines or Windows networks, not to protect the Mac, but rather to protect the Windows machines. The Mac could harbor a Windows virus, and while that virus won't do a thing to the Mac, the Mac could pass a virus to one of the Windows machines.

Most viruses even if you have a windows virus on a mac, does not automatically transfer over to the window's machine.. you would have to transfer it yourself.. and hopefully you can tell when an email you receive has a virus attached or not

Murlyn said:

Most viruses even if you have a windows virus on a mac, does not automatically transfer over to the window's machine.. you would have to transfer it yourself.. and hopefully you can tell when an email you receive has a virus attached or not

Click to expand...

The only situation I can think of is a Word doc with a macro virus. You could conceivably get an infected Word doc, edit it without noticing, and send it on to a Windows using friend.

Most Windows viruses (worms, really) are so obviously bad that any Mac user would just Trash them immediately, without needing an antivirus program to detect them.

Please use the search function, this topic has been discussed ad nauseum.

To get you started here are a few of the threads simply started in the last 2 weeks:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22684&highlight=Virus

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22651&highlight=Virus

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23123&highlight=Virus