Mac Anti-virus

[HTB]

I'm running Tiger 10.4.5 on a G4 Powerbook and need to find antivirus software and a firewall that works well on this cut. On my PC, I ran Norton without too much of a problem, but I see this isn't such a hot option for Tiger.

Anybody have any suggestions for what package I ought to be looking at for my Mac?

Thanks,

 

[Bigtwin]

I ran this question here when I got my Mac. The answer was, basically, no need for anything. Use the built-in stuff in Safari, disable open on download, and you are pretty much OK.

Astonishing I thought, coming from Windoze land, but have been running for 2 months no probs so far. Have been a couple of Mac virus scare since then though.

Plenty of freeware viru scanners for Mac, I use one of those, but nothing so far.

 

[walti]

Hardware firewall...

At the moment, not much else needed, both the recent scares have been Anti Virus companies pointing out possible threat area's...

 

[Tsiklonaut]

There is no need for anti-virus on a mac. It's only to kill Windowza viruses that you as a mac user are immune of. Just the anti-viruses for OSXis in case if you send the DOC file to your friend who has MS Windows and hes or her computer starts to make blue smoke after it and you're to blame

So the only good thing about mac-antivirus is it kills Winza affecting bacteria.

If you don't care, then save money and skip it. No viruses for the longest developed UNIX based OSX - the most bulletproof, stable, secure, reliable and the most trusty OS in known history of planet Earth.

Cheers, Margus

 

[ianf]

A lot of the problem lies with the fact intel chips can execute data pages. Which the PPC has mmu protection bits to prevent. It's not really MS's fault to that extent, it's much easier for virus code to overflow buffers and execute off the stack.

I'll have to go research if the game changes on intel macs - it's about time they got around to fixing this.

 

[unshift]

with all due respect i think some are living in a bit of a dream world, granted *nix based virii aren't as widespread as windows and are not as commonly reported but then again these os's aren't as popular in home based computers. This is changing as linux and now bsd (osx) are growing in popularity you will see them coming to the fore. Any OS is only as strong, reliable and secure as the person(s) who has configured it and is maintaining it and with whom the root/administrator password is held

mac antivirus software is not as common but have heard good things about these folk

https://www.intego.com/virusbarrier/

 

[ianf]

It should be o.k. on an intel mac, as from 2001's itanium onwards the mmu can handle this via an execute disable bit.

http://www.intel.com/business/bss/infrastructure/security/xdbit.htm

Note this is true for windows as well, as long as you use physical address extensions in sp2 as well.

 

[HTB]

Thanks Chaps.

I largely agree with unshift - 'the times they are a changin' and I I'm sure us Mac users will get caught sooner rather than later. I know pretty much all the stuff I need to worry about is PC based - so I also heed your advice. I do a lot of work between my MAC and the office PC network

I'll look for some freeware and see how it runs on my machine. £70 on something I don't really need is a bit excessive!