[Ti] Off_Topic: Are there OSX viruses?

[John]

> so I used Appleworks.

Or, you can disable Macros in Word - depending on the working 
environment, this may or may not be possible.


> Contrast this with PC users. Talk with a Windows
> poweruser for a few minutes and you'll almost always
> hear first-hand accounts of viruses deleted, worms
> thwarted, and hard-drives reformatted. I've changes
> two preferences, and looked real hard at any programs
> offered for download. Never had any problems.

I fit this description, and will vouch this is true - 1 deleted hard 
drive (half of the users files were overwritten!), 2 near virus 
encounter (on a family machine), a work machine contracted TWO viruses 
(one worm, one virus). Thank goodness for live scanning!

One point I should make, is that you should keep your machines patched, 
as many of the windows viruses and worms have been spread weeks after a 
patch was released. To be honest, the worst thing people can do is send 
emails to people en masse warning about a specific threat - I've had to 
talk two PC users away from deleting legitimate files!


The best advise is not always the best, as people are not generally 
capable of remembering that they shouldn't do something. This is not a 
slam, simply a statement of what I've observed. Reflexes are often 
quicker than a bit of reflection, and it takes less than a second to 
click on a bad attachment. It takes longer to read an email and 
disseminate what that email is about.