Downloading?

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I was wondering how much you guys download onto your mac's? I'm nervous when it comes do downloading 3rd party apps, such as adium, gimp or anything for that matter. Is this a reasonable concern?
 
S

supremeoverlord

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Phhhhtttt.... I download with impunity! Never fear the unknown if you have a mac!
Seriously, I don't worry much if it is something that I wanted to download from a valid site. I wouldn't download something from buttgrabbers.com or anything but (no puns) even if I did to do any harm I would have to enter my password. So just make sure you are the one who iniated a download and be careful before you give that admin password.
 
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you will be fine mate as far as i am aware there are no real apps that claim to do something and mess up your computer while doing.

as for adium and gimp they are more than fine :)
 
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Don't underestimate your Mac. Download away.
 
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Uhh, guys? There's no reason that somebody couldn't package up a piece of malware on the Mac and offer it up for download.

Nobody ever has, but it's not impossible.

Viruses and worms are difficult to get on the Mac, because they'd have to find some way to install themselves and spread. But there's absolutely no reason why someone couldn't write spyware, bundle it with a screensaver, and put it up for download. People would download it and enter an admin password, and it would gain the freedom to do whatever it wanted to the Mac. It's called a trojan horse, and it actually happened once. (A fake "Microsoft Office:Mac Test Drive" on P2P networks that was really a script that erased files.)

It's not hard to avoid, though. Before downloading any apps, go through
http://www.versiontracker.com/ or
http://www.macupdate.com/

and A) make sure the app is legit, and B)use the links to get to a "reputable" download site.

Immunity from viruses does not mean immunity from evil.
 
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Just use common sense: If it's an app you've seen others mention before, and you're downloading it from a legitimate site (app's homepage/versiontracker.com etc.) then you should be fine.

If you're getting stuff from other sources (p2p - cough) then I'd really be cautious. Personally I'd stay away from it.
 

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