Hey I know a lot of people are saying "there are no virusses for mac" but imo they are fools, mac's are more popular than before and so it makes sense bad stuff will be made for a mac too. i wanna 'prepare' myself a little bit and grab a good solid free mac anti virus, any suggestions? or am i over paranoid now?

 

Avast, Avira, ClamXav, Sophos Anti-Virus Home Edition, not sure if Comodo Antivirus for Mac is free, but you can check.

 

Antivirus for Mac?

 

actually in the us alone about 600,000 mac are infected (recent study by a Russian company)....

isnt there anything like a sandbox for mac...that's the best solution IMO. I gave up on AV a long while ago.

 

Mac viruses in just because of a leaky Java. Do not use it and will not have problems

 

you mean don't use java? but don't a lot of sites and/or apps use that? just asking, kind of a noob in that area... could use all the help there is..
also a sandbox? is that a 'test' are to check files out without having them affect other stuff on your computer?

thanks yall, i downloaded clamxav, is it good?

 

Unless you have applications that use Java (some torrent apps do) or come across websites that make use of Java applets (very rare) you can turn it off completely. I've had it turned off for years. Just go to your 'Utilities' folder (inside Applications) and start Java Preferences, click on the General tab and _uncheck_ 'Enable applet plug-ins and Web Start applications', and all the Java SEs in the list below. Additionally you can go to your Internet Plug-ins folders and remove the Java plugin, and/or go to Safari's preferences and again uncheck 'Enable Java' under the Security tab. What you shouldn't turn off though is JavaScript. Many websites use that.

Best AV, I'm using Sophos. Just make sure you turn off the on-access scanner (which slows down the system) and the Live Protection. Both are overkill.

 

Actually those 600,000 Macs were infected by one single virus, as far as i know. It´s a trojan called "Flashback".

Here you get a free tool made by a very young german developer. You can check with it whether your Mac is infected or not.

http://www.moritzwette.com

But you can cool yourself down: i am a heavy long-time Mac User. I never found any virus on my system. Meanwhile i check it once a year or so.....

By the way: a Mac is not unprotected. Apple cares about virusses and OS X is standard protected and will be actualized, when updated.
Go to your system preferences and check your general security settings. In the right below corner go to the further options and make sure,
that you have a mark in the checkbox for secure (-ity) downloads. This is a somehow hidden function. Many people don´t even know about it or
they don´t get the sense of it..... guys like me for example. I too heard comparatively late about it, from a computer journalist.

 

Alraun,
Thanks a lot for this eye opener. I've used Mac since 2010 and up until today I hadn't been sure about what might or not cause a virus infection. Fortunately, the flashback virus is not in my machine. The OP's concern is valid for anyone.

Once again, thanks a lot.

 

Esset nod, just like windows.

 

most of the reports in the internet about mac-virusses are dated around april/may 2012, as this thing
with Flashback happened. The following Apple Update solved the problem. Since that time
virusses on a mac are a very sporadic subject in the daily press.

But it is entirely possible to get a Virus on a mac - if you run a windows system on it, which has it´s
own internet access. Another security breach is Microsoft Office for Mac, because some parts of the office package contains Makros.
Strange enough, that Microsoft products always carries along their own spooky badmen ,whether they run on Mac or PC.
Infected office documents are in fact no problem for the mac, but he can deliver them to other people.

In a mixed OS corporate environment, an OSX-based machine may still host, share and propagate files infected with Windows malware,
which could potentially find their way into an environment where they could become active and do harm. It is worth having AV in that situation
to detect such infections and prevent your Mac becoming a digital Trojan horse.
If you take care about others, check the Mac from time to time. But it´s not necessary, to run an active Virusscanner all the time.

It is often reported, that the biggest security risk is always sitting in front of his computer, because Trojans are not autonomous, so they have to be activated first, before they can
harm a thing...

I personally don´t know anybody who ever got a virus on Mac....

 

Just like windows : ESSET NOD