Sophos Antivirus v PC Tools iAntivirus

OK I know "Macs are more secure than Windows PCs" and all that (supposedly). However that aside this thread is intended to gain insight into which is better out of Sophos Antivirus for Mac Home Edition and PC Tools iAntivirus Free. Any thoughts?

Sorry, but I have to point this out yet again: there are NO viruses for the Mac. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.

So, what would either product do for your exactly, given that fact?

Answer: rob you of money that's better spent elsewhere.

But don't take my word for it, go and have a read: http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/sw...-official-antivirus-malware-firewall-faq.html

I agree with Chas. There are no real Virus's on OSX. Self installing, Self Replicating. In other words TRUE Virus's. There are maybe 2 trojans that need your password to even install.

If I were to use an Antivirus program for OSX, I would run ClamXAV from time to time mostly to zap Windows virus's so they will not spread to a windows system.

Also I am under the impression iAntivirus only scans for OSX Virus's which would not be a good thing as there are only true Windows Virus's.

Added the option I use to the poll. ;D

Macs can get infected. There have been cases of trojans which have infected numerous macs. Even iPhones can get viruses of some sort now...

New MBP User said:

Macs can get infected. There have been cases of trojans which have infected numerous macs. Even iPhones can get viruses of some sort now...

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Name a few.

BTW Trojans are not viruses. One does need to be clear on these things before spreading yet more rumours.

Sawday said:

Name a few.

BTW Trojans are not viruses. One does need to be clear on these things before spreading yet more rumours.

Click to expand...

Please read the second post in this thread:
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/sw...-official-antivirus-malware-firewall-faq.html

And are you trying to claim there hasn't been any malware on the Mac? No need for me to name them, try Google.

dtravis7 said:

Also I am under the impression iAntivirus only scans for OSX Virus's which would not be a good thing as there are only true Windows Virus's.

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From the iAntivirus site

"The iAntiVirus™ database has been designed from the ground up to detect and remove Mac specific threats. This enables a high level of protection whilst keeping memory footprint and resource usage at a minimum. The iAntiVirus™ database is not cluttered with signatures for Windows specific threats which your Mac is immune against."

There are threats to Mac, even if they're not viruses. Although I think this is not too useful since most of those threats are user preventable, but let's be honest, most users don't pay that much attention unfortunately.

chas_m said:

Sorry, but I have to point this out yet again: there are NO viruses for the Mac. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.

Click to expand...

Viruses? Maybe...maybe not. But there's definitely malware out there. Some of my friends in Computer Science have written malware for UNIX based OSs. And as you doubtless know OS X fits in the general category of UNIX related OSs.

And for the record I use iAntivirus Free. While I don't intend to opt for a paid product, I feel it would be optimistic to the point of foolishness to believe any software is invulnerable.

Cheers for all the opinions.

archos4 said:

Viruses? Maybe...maybe not. But there's definitely malware out there. Some of my friends in Computer Science have written malware for UNIX based OSs. And as you doubtless know OS X fits in the general category of UNIX related OSs.

And for the record I use iAntivirus Free. While I don't intend to opt for a paid product, I feel it would be optimistic to the point of foolishness to believe any software is invulnerable.

Cheers for all the opinions.

Click to expand...

IMHO, iAntivirus is a waste because it only scans for Mac malware which there is little.

If you're going to run an antivirus program to scan for viruses and malware, use ClamXav which is also free. That way you can also catch Windows viruses and threats that happen to be in files or emails before you forward them on to your friends and spread them since you're in a mixed network environment.

But as has been pointed out a few times in this thread, this topic has been covered:
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/sw...-official-antivirus-malware-firewall-faq.html

schweb said:

From the iAntivirus site

"The iAntiVirus™ database has been designed from the ground up to detect and remove Mac specific threats. This enables a high level of protection whilst keeping memory footprint and resource usage at a minimum. The iAntiVirus™ database is not cluttered with signatures for Windows specific threats which your Mac is immune against."

Click to expand...

Thanks for that. It was late and I did not feel like checking but was pretty sure that iAntivirus was for OSX Malware only.

schweb said:

There are threats to Mac, even if they're not viruses. Although I think this is not too useful since most of those threats are user preventable, but let's be honest, most users don't pay that much attention unfortunately.

Click to expand...

Agreed although for anyone who is the least bit careful it would be almost impossible to get one of the few trojans out there, but then again, most people are not very careful!

Also agreed on ClamXav. Why pass Windows virus's around the net? If you are going to run an Antivirus app, better to run one that kills off everything Malware wise. As Schweb said, ClamXav is also Free!

Some of my friends in Computer Science have written malware for UNIX based OSs.


You do need to select your friends more carefully!

For the love of christ, there are no viruses for Mac OS X. There are some trojans, and there is potential for something to harm your system every time you are asked to enter your admin password. If you become aware of this fact and react with some common sense during these situations, like, "oh, am I installing something that I trust or is it something nobody has ever heard of?" then you have nothing to worry about.

However, if you are on a windows network and don't want to pass viruses on to windows machines through shared files and whatnot, then you can use those antivirus softwares to scan infected files.

That's it. There is no other need for you to use it. Play by the rules, be smart, and you won't get burned. Unlike Windows, where even if you play by the rules, you can still get burned. It's harder now, though. Which is a good thing.

My Dad, for some unknown reason decided to try out Sophos Antivirus, 3 hours later his system completely locked up because the HD had completely run out of usable disk space.
Since his computer was unusable, I connected to his via ethernet and found out that there was a 98GB temporary file being created by Sophos in which temporarily stored packages, .zip, .dmg .etc files as it was looking in them for non-existent viruses.
Several more minutes of waiting and Sophos finally crashed because it couldn't continue.

if it hurts my Mac, I don't care if it's a "virus" or something else

I'm disappointed that the thread has become about whether possible threats to Macs are true viruses or not.

If we want to be all empirical and operational about it, isn't the important issue about whether there are forms of "malware" (however variously defined) which can cause problems for our Macs, and whether any of these "anti-virus" (broadly defined) products are better or worse at dealing with them?

I installed Sophos, just to see if it did turn up anything, I am pleased to report (or living with false security) that it found nothing on my Mac!

It scanned way faster than any Windows Virus Scanner I've used and seems to use no noticeable resources. But I am left with knowing that whilst I've updated my Mac and my OS a couple of times, a lot of my files are from my first Mac system 4 or so years ago that just gets re-written to my new computer thanks to Time Machine - in 4 years I have nothing - couldn't be happier