Any good virus protection for iMac?

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I know that there are not a lot of virus's out there, but I do a lot of downloading and I just bought my iMac, so I would like to keep it safe. So does anybody know any nice virus protection software? It doesn't have to be free, as long as it works I'll feel better. Thanks!!
 
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For the iMac if you feel you must having come from the Windows environment, install ClamXAV which is freeware. If you run Windows through Bootcamp etc., download Microsoft Security Essentials, another free program.


http://www.clamxav.com/

Most experienced Mac users here do not use any AV software, as there are no Mac OS X viruses, and good safe browsing practices will beat malware.

Go into Safari Preferences > General and make sure the box besides Open safe files is NOT selected.
 
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I know that there are not a lot of virus's out there, but I do a lot of downloading and I just bought my iMac, so I would like to keep it safe. So does anybody know any nice virus protection software? It doesn't have to be free, as long as it works I'll feel better. Thanks!!
I was told by a Certified Mac Technician that there are viruses for OS X, and that you should run Sophos Free Edition. He is a very smart engineer, and he told me that Sophos was the best one. I have it on both of my iMacs, and I don't notice a slowdown at all.

There are 2 schools of thought on this. One says don't even bother. The other says to run one. I chose the second school of thought.

Free Antivirus for Mac - Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition
 
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I refuse to be hacked by miscreant hackers...Sophos worked for me, protect yourself, I did and I am glad no more harm came to my computer.
 
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I was told by a Certified Mac Technician that there are viruses for OS X, and that you should run Sophos Free Edition. He is a very smart engineer, and he told me that Sophos was the best one. I have it on both of my iMacs, and I don't notice a slowdown at all.

There are 2 schools of thought on this. One says don't even bother. The other says to run one. I chose the second school of thought.

Free Antivirus for Mac - Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition
This certified "Mac" technician is wrong, sorry. There are currently zero viruses in the wild for OS X. If there were, believe me.. I'd have heard about it.

I refuse to be hacked by miscreant hackers...Sophos worked for me, protect yourself, I did and I am glad no more harm came to my computer.


"No more" harm implies that there was harm to begin with. Care to clarify? Again, sorry but.. no viruses for OS X. I've not run into one darned thing in the 4 years I've been running. Neither has my wife, and believe me.. she's not exactly tech savvy. And I don't even touch her Mac.

Best virus protection? You and common sense. If you HAVE to run anything, run ClamXav. After all, why would you run a virus check, if there is NOTHING to check for in the first place? And technically speaking, ClamXav checks for Windows viruses because um... yeah, there are none for OS X.

If you click on a pop up and you're directed to a page that asks for your credit card number and you give it up... that's no a virus. That's ignorance.

Doug
 
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And if you think he is correct, ask him for the viruses.
 
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This certified "Mac" technician is wrong, sorry. There are currently zero viruses in the wild for OS X. If there were, believe me.. I'd have heard about it.




"No more" harm implies that there was harm to begin with. Care to clarify? Again, sorry but.. no viruses for OS X. I've not run into one darned thing in the 4 years I've been running. Neither has my wife, and believe me.. she's not exactly tech savvy. And I don't even touch her Mac.

Best virus protection? You and common sense. If you HAVE to run anything, run ClamXav. After all, why would you run a virus check, if there is NOTHING to check for in the first place? And technically speaking, ClamXav checks for Windows viruses because um... yeah, there are none for OS X.

If you click on a pop up and you're directed to a page that asks for your credit card number and you give it up... that's no a virus. That's ignorance.

Doug

I somehow contracted the flashback trojan horse, and the funny thing is I had been explaining to my windows user friend that my Mac had no issues of the sort. he then installed Sophos and immediately scanned and found the malicious malware which disguised itself as Flash from Adobe. It I found out later is a phishing program which sends all kinds of user data possibly keystrokes and important sensitive information to some rogue server. I do not buy things from pop up windows anyway. But I appreciate your candor and I am more careful now. I love my Mac and cannot ever go back to Microsoft Windows.
 
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Shockingly, the most common references to OS X viruses seem to be from websites attempting to sell people anti-virus software. If there were large scale threats I would think that they would have received a whole lot more press on forums like this.
 
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This certified "Mac" technician is wrong, sorry. There are currently zero viruses in the wild for OS X. If there were, believe me.. I'd have heard about it.

"No more" harm implies that there was harm to begin with. Care to clarify? Again, sorry but.. no viruses for OS X. I've not run into one darned thing in the 4 years I've been running. Neither has my wife, and believe me.. she's not exactly tech savvy. And I don't even touch her Mac.

Best virus protection? You and common sense. If you HAVE to run anything, run ClamXav. After all, why would you run a virus check, if there is NOTHING to check for in the first place? And technically speaking, ClamXav checks for Windows viruses because um... yeah, there are none for OS X.

If you click on a pop up and you're directed to a page that asks for your credit card number and you give it up... that's no a virus. That's ignorance.

Doug

Sorry but you are wrong.

No system is unhackable and people with more secure systems than we all us have been hacked.

Hackers will write a virus and go for the maximum exposure which will always be pc as more people use PCs instead of Macs.

Its not impossible for a virus to be written for a Mac just unlikely because less people have Macs and the way Mac works with things like keychain make it more secure.

The very nature of Mac OS means if you did contract a virus you would spot it a lot more easily than on your pc and just kill the virus.

Its like saying people dont make fakes of low demonination coins and notes.

They do fake low demonination money but counterfeiters will always go for the maximum value bills for maximum exposure and to get the maximum change back in real money.

I agree about Clam X being worth installing to be sure but to tell people they dont need to install anything is quite irresponsible.

Heres one that Sophos found

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2029303/virus-mac-invulnerable

The best quote I ever saw on this was from a hacker who said

"The only machine that isnt hackable is one which has never been used, has no internet connection and will never be switched on"
 

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And if you think he is correct, ask him for the viruses.

The only thing out there for OSX in the Wild are a very few, maybe 3-5 Malwares. Some people put Spyware, Malware as Virus's but really they are not. The ONLY way to get any of that Malware is to accept the file and put in your root password. There is nothing that self installs or self replicates, at least not at this time.

There are no TRUE Virus's made for OSX at this point in time. If a TRUE virus ever does make it into the wild, trust me. we will all know.
 
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I was told by a Certified Mac Technician that there are viruses for OS X, and that you should run Sophos Free Edition. He is a very smart engineer,
Is he the guy in your avatar? Cause he's blowing smoke too.

This certified "Mac" technician is wrong, sorry. There are currently zero viruses in the wild for OS X. If there were, believe me.. I'd have heard about it.
If there was an actual "certified" Mac virus released, everyone would know about it, because it would be the first for OSX. It would be a top story on the evening news of every network.
 
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Sorry but you are wrong.

No system is unhackable and people with more secure systems than we all us have been hacked.

Hackers will write a virus and go for the maximum exposure which will always be pc as more people use PCs instead of Macs.

Its not impossible for a virus to be written for a Mac just unlikely because less people have Macs and the way Mac works with things like keychain make it more secure.

The very nature of Mac OS means if you did contract a virus you would spot it a lot more easily than on your pc and just kill the virus.

Its like saying people dont make fakes of low demonination coins and notes.

They do fake low demonination money but counterfeiters will always go for the maximum value bills for maximum exposure and to get the maximum change back in real money.

I agree about Clam X being worth installing to be sure but to tell people they dont need to install anything is quite irresponsible.
I respectfully disagree with you in this particular instance. No one ever said that OS X will never get hit with a virus one day. What was said, and is true is that there are NONE right now. So please tell me how logical it is to run anti virus software which has ZERO definitions for any real OS X viruses?

As soon as there IS a virus (should the day come), you can bet your biddy that you won't need a third party program to take care of it. Why? Software update or an more immediate download directly from Apple.com will be the first lines of defense.

Heres one that Sophos found

Virus shows that mac os x is not invulnerable- The Inquirer

The best quote I ever saw on this was from a hacker who said

"The only machine that isnt hackable is one which has never been used, has no internet connection and will never be switched on"
I understand where you're coming from, but I'm not wrong. There are currently zero self propagating viruses for OS X. You're speaking of the old and misaligned "security through obscurity" speech. That ol' gag! There never has, nor ever will be proof of this theory. You can just as easily say that it would be a black hat's wet dream to get some active viruses out there, because of the increased popularity of Apple and OS X.

So when exactly should we start worrying then eh? Where does the market share have to be poised before OS X becomes a "target" ? And do you really believe that "hackers" haven't cared enough to try? I'm sure they have, but with obvious little headway. Or am I wrong and just speculating like you are? Hmmmm See what I did there ?

Either way, it appears as if the bulk of what harm can come from what current dangers are out there now are not from a real trojan, but silly popups that one would have to agree to click on and then enter their admin password. That "Trojan" found by Sophos? First of all, that was back in February, and was squashed rather quickly. Secondly, it's hardly a dangerous type of "Trojan" since it required active participation from the end user to actually do anything.

In OS X, if a fake pop up occurs, asking for your admin password... do you simply click on it because it says so, or do you ask yourself why it popped up? These things IMO seem to target Windows switchers, whom are so used to just clicking on everything they see, through force of habit. It's poor education in computing, exacerbated by Microsoft's lack of care for their consumers, and partnerships with third party security companies. It's all in the $$ buddy.

When I was running Windows, guess how many viruses I was struck with? ZERO. I distinctly remember encountering one Trojan.. Trojan B something, can't remember, and believe that I got it on purpose for the sake of learning.

And for the record, I never said that OS X wasn't hackable. But hackable has nothing to do with anything. Of course OS X is hackable, but it's in the "how's" which is what is important. Ya know those conferences they hold with hackers to get into machines every year? Yeah, they're given open access to the system.

If there was an actual "certified" Mac virus released, everyone would know about it, because it would be the first for OSX.
There's a good chance I'd hear about it before it hit the masses, is what I was trying to convey. But you're absolutely correct.

Doug
 
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I'm a novice when it comes to this so I have no idea but what about malware? That is not technically a virus, is it? Is malware a threat to Macs?
 
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Check out dtravis7 reply. There are a few malware but generally you have to run them and provide your password to install them. One was attached to pirate software. Also as suggested make sure you have not selected 'Open safe files' in Safari Preferences > General.

Regularly we are told here about viruses being in existence but all that can ever be produced are these malware hacks. If ever there is a Unix OS X Mac genuine virus, the press will trumpet the information world wide overnight.
 
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The only thing out there for OSX in the Wild are a very few, maybe 3-5 Malwares. Some people put Spyware, Malware as Virus's but really they are not. The ONLY way to get any of that Malware is to accept the file and put in your root password. There is nothing that self installs or self replicates, at least not at this time.

There are no TRUE Virus's made for OSX at this point in time. If a TRUE virus ever does make it into the wild, trust me. we will all know.
The only difference is, as soon as there is ANOTHER virus out there for OSX, I'll be protected. I can't worry about learning it here first. And, I won't hopefully learn about it by getting it first. :)
 

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The only difference is, as soon as there is ANOTHER virus out there for OSX, I'll be protected. I can't worry about learning it here first. And, I won't hopefully learn about it by getting it first. :)

Not necessarily true. You must realize that the whole reason for definition updates for your A/V software is that they are updated after some new fangled thing has come out and they've spent the time to figure out how to stop it. Meanwhile, you're still just as vulnerable as the rest of us.

Just got my latest copy of Maximum PC yesterday and guess what? Yet another article on getting rid of malware on your PC. Well, this time, and for the first time in pretty much all the articles I've read over the years, they got the first point right. Have a read at:

Maximum PC | Scrub Your PC Clean: Remove Malware in Four Easy Steps

At this point in time - that Step One is really all it takes in OS X - that is, if you're keeping OS X up to date.

And I reckon, anyone not willing to not do the things you shouldn't, then you probably should have an A/V on your machine.
 
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Is he the guy in your avatar? Cause he's blowing smoke too.
No, that is lordpuffer.....He is lord of all the puffers (of cigars);D

We can just agree to disagree, for there is never going to be complete agreement on the question of whether or not an antivirus is needed for OSX.

I choose to take the safer path. You choose to take your chances. I'm not going to try to change YOUR mind, however, if someone asks for my opinion, it will be there. :)
 
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Not necessarily true. You must realize that the whole reason for definition updates for your A/V software is that they are updated after some new fangled thing has come out and they've spent the time to figure out how to stop it. Meanwhile, you're still just as vulnerable as the rest of us.
This is true....However, the same way that the virus for OSX was going around the last time, and didn't need our root password to be installed, it took Apple too long to put out an update to protect OSX. I am betting that Sophos will discover it early enough, update my definitions, and I'll be protected.
 
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If ever there is a Unix OS X Mac genuine virus, the press will trumpet the information world wide overnight.
And for that very reason I'm surprised that we have not seen one yet. Imagine the satisfaction, recognition, ego boost, fame, thrill, (or whatever it is that motivates these people) someone would get by being the first to do this.
I would think there would be countless misfits out there trying hard to accomplish this.
 

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