mac security?

newguy

Hello everyone...shortly i will be purchasing a macbook pro (waiting for leopard). Is there a freeware program like AVG for PC's that i can use for security? Do i need any antiviruses or antispyware programs, or is that already built into the macs?



thanks

mr. me

There are no MacOS X viruses and there is no MacOS X spyware. The sole purpose of antivirus software on the Mac is to avoid passing-on Windows viruses. ClamAV is a freeware antivirus utility which supposedly performs this task well.

newguy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr. Me


There are no MacOS X viruses and there is no MacOS X spyware. The sole purpose of antivirus software on the Mac is to avoid passing-on Windows viruses. ClamAV is a freeware antivirus utility which supposedly performs this task well.

Thanks for the info!

aegisdesign

There's a Macified GUI version of ClamAV called ClamXAV



http://www.clamxav.com/



However, you really are just checking for PC viruses so it's only use is if you're downloading PC software to stick on your PC or Windows partition, or forwarding on emails you've received from a Windows user to another windows user and wish to check. If you're not doing either it's mostly a waste of computer resources. Someday we might get a Mac virus - been saying that since 2001 though.



Spyware is very slim on the ground and it depends on your definition of what exactly spyware is. LittleSnitch is the main tool against spyware in that it will warn you if software is making an internet connection without permission. It's mostly useful to prevent software 'phoning home' if you're paranoid like that.



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



Otherwise MacOSX has it's own built in firewall to prevent incoming attacks.