[X-Newbies] Anti-Virus

[Randy B.Singer]

Tony Johansen said:

>You make me thank the computer Gods for leading me to listen to St Steve
>Jobs and invest in the holy (and beautiful) machine Mac. What a relief!

For the past 5 years we have been really lucky.  Even if there is an OS 
X-specific virus released today, it will be the first.  The next Windows 
virus released will be one of *over 100,000*!:
http://vil.nai.com/vil/default.asp

>I, now completely Anti-Virus free, am thinking that if I have an A-V
>program, that I will be better off in the event of a newly released virus
>due to the (hopefully) rapid release of a security patch by the service I
>subscribe to. Is there any real logic in that thinking?

That is the thinking of many folks.  

Others will argue that there haven't been any OS X viruses released 
during the past 5 years, and that there is no reason to believe that one 
will be released in the next 5 years.

You will probably have to make up your own mind where you think the 
situation is headed.  I run anti-virus software, but I use my computer 
for my business, so I'm not willing to chance even the smallest 
possibility of being infected by malware.

>Also during my year of Norton A-V it quarantined about a dozen suspicious
>files. Which I deleted. Are you suggesting that this apparently successful
>work by the program was little more than window dressing? That those files
>would have done no harm anyway because they were likely Windows based items?

That is quite possible.  Or they could have been files infected with 
Office macro viruses.  

I am running Virus Barrier, and I've been using it for about 4 years.  In 
all that time it has only ever flagged one thing, and that was a Windows 
virus.

I used Virex under OS 7, 8, and 9, over the span of many years.  The only 
virus that I recall it ever detecting was during the initial run, and 
even then all that it detected was the inert fragment of a virus.

In the DealMac forums is a discussion entitled: "Have you ever caught a 
Mac Virus?"  You might like to read the comments.
http://dealmac.com/forums/read.html?f=1&i=952391&t=952391



Randy B. Singer
Co-Author of: The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th and 6th editions)

Routine OS X Maintenance and Generic Troubleshooting
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html