Trying to decide on firewall and antivirus software

ginopiazza49

With the recent talk of a Trojan horse - whether it be real or not - I figure that it is better to be a little precautious now and make the move to a firewall software and an antivirus software. I have read many of the posts on the forums. Just thought I would ask, should I go with Intego's Internet Security Barrier or Norton Internet Security 3.0? Or maybe a combination of Intego's Netbarrier X with Norton Antivirus 9.0? I would like to hear opinions. By the way, I already know that Mac OS X has a built-in firewall.

karl kuehn

You do realize that software firewalls don't do much against trojans? Yes? The few firewalls that would do something tend to make life difficult for people who don't already know how to admin them.



I tend to like having a hardware firewall between me and the outside world, but usually that is because I use the nat'ing feature to get multiple computers online at once.

aquatic

1. OS X has no viruses.



2. OS X already has a firewall in Sharing Preferences.



Just be smart and don't download ghetto software/spyware, click on popups, and be careful using your Admin password when installing stuff and you'll be A-OK. Mac virus software causes more problems than it fixes (which is still at this rate 0)

vandewaals

I agree with Aquatic. I run OS X's built in firewall "as is" and for my AV needs I use Virex 7.2.1 (courtesy of my .Mac membership). If you want to tweak the firewall use Brickhouse (a GUI front-end for ipfw, which is what OS X uses as it's built in fw)



Norton's has much anecdotal evidence of being problematic on OS X. At the end of the day, you can take all sorts of precautions, but if you install some shady piece of software that you download from an obscure website or click on some unknown email attachment then you basically are opening the door and inviting everyone in. Thats what this new "trojan" could do if someone made a malicious version. It relies on social engineering, and no firewall can defend against a computer user who doesn't exercise caution in what they do online.

paul

http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/

telomar

I'm inclined to say go for Intego's security barrier. In terms of virus defs support they are excellent and even if macs don't have viruses PCs do and since I tend to swap between PCs and Macs a decent virus scanner becomes a must. Intego's Firewall is top notch. Very customisable and simple to use. Mind you I recently dumped it in favour of a hardware based firewall and router.