Need Suggestions for Anti-Virus program

[Bote]

I recently upgraded from Panther to Tiger and the Virex program that I got with .Mac does not function properly in tiger. I was not very happy with the performance of Virex in panther anyway. I am looking for any suggestions that anyone might have. I hate Symantec so that one is out for me. I heard about Clamxav and it is very appealing due to its great price(free). Anyone have experience with this program or any others that you liked more.

 

[Bern]

I've always used NAV, not the Utilities just the standalone version, on all my Macs and never had any issues with it. Despite what some people would lead others to believe, I have never seen NAV do anything funky to my Macs over the years...never.

 

[sreedy]

I heard about Clamxav and it is very appealing due to its great price(free).

I've been using Clamxav for about a year and have nothing negative to say about it, all worked great for me.

 

[ahunter3]

I recently upgraded from Panther to Tiger and the Virex program that I got with .Mac does not function properly in tiger. I was not very happy with the performance of Virex in panther anyway. I am looking for any suggestions that anyone might have. I hate Symantec so that one is out for me. I heard about Clamxav and it is very appealing due to its great price(free). Anyone have experience with this program or any others that you liked more.

I see you're from Philadelphia. Do you buy insurance that covers your home in case of elephant stampedes?

There ain't no MacOS X viruses. I've heard nothing but good things about ClamX AV but that just makes it a free and unintrusive form of elephant-stampede insurance.

Actually it's sillier than elephant-stampede insurance. We know a bit about how a stampeding elephant would behave, and how to stop one if a herd of elephants were to theaten Philadelphia. We have damn little we can say about how a hypothetical MacOS X virus would behave and what would have to be done to protect against it or neutralize, quarantine, destroy it.

A better analogy would be if the Bush administration were to open a new Office of Terran Security to take precautionary measures against hostile extraterrestrial invasions. All our scientists agree that ETs could exist in principle and probably are scattered all throughout our universe (two things one cannot say of MacOS X viruses*), but invasion from one of them is entirely hypothetical, we know nothing of the technologies or goals that they might have, and therefore can't even begin to mobilize to protect ourselves against the possibility of their arrival.

Instead of wasting your energy downloading and installing an antivirus package, put it into developing a really good redundant and chronologically continuous backup strategy. It'll do you far more good against the first Mac virus that does show up, and it will serve you well in other ways too.

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* Edit: ermmm, make that ONE thing that cannot be said of OS X viruses. Certainly they can exist in principle!

 

[Bote]

I see you're from Philadelphia. Do you buy insurance that covers your home in case of elephant stampedes?

There ain't no MacOS X viruses. I've heard nothing but good things about ClamX AV but that just makes it a free and unintrusive form of elephant-stampede insurance.

Actually it's sillier than elephant-stampede insurance. We know a bit about how a stampeding elephant would behave, and how to stop one if a herd of elephants were to theaten Philadelphia. We have damn little we can say about how a hypothetical MacOS X virus would behave and what would have to be done to protect against it or neutralize, quarantine, destroy it.

A better analogy would be if the Bush administration were to open a new Office of Terran Security to take precautionary measures against hostile extraterrestrial invasions. All our scientists agree that ETs could exist in principle and probably are scattered all throughout our universe (two things one cannot say of MacOS X viruses), but invasion from one of them is entirely hypothetical, we know nothing of the technologies or goals that they might have, and therefore can't even begin to mobilize to protect ourselves against the possibility of their arrival.

Instead of wasting your energy downloading and installing an antivirus package, put it into developing a really good redundant and chronologically continuous backup strategy. It'll do you far more good against the first Mac virus that does show up, and it will serve you well in other ways too.

HAHAHA Well I do keep guns in my house incase any one breaks in but I would never hurt an Elephant. It is my favorite animal!!!

I am already covered as far as backups. I am just a bit anal when it comes to antivirus since I support a few thousand windows pcs in my work life. I am new to mac and am still trying to get used to the lack of spyware and viruses. It just seems too good to be true....

Thanks everyone for your quick replies...

 

[wdlove]

I also like Norton Antivirus. It has worked flawlessly for me. It was $9.95 fro one year of weekly updates.

 

[Steven1621]

My college gives out Sophos antivirus to Mac and PC people. Seems to be OK, but I don't install it on my powerbook.

 

[jeremy.king]

I see you're from Philadelphia. Do you buy insurance that covers your home in case of elephant stampedes?

There ain't no MacOS X viruses. I've heard nothing but good things about ClamX AV but that just makes it a free and unintrusive form of elephant-stampede insurance.

Actually it's sillier than elephant-stampede insurance. We know a bit about how a stampeding elephant would behave, and how to stop one if a herd of elephants were to theaten Philadelphia. We have damn little we can say about how a hypothetical MacOS X virus would behave and what would have to be done to protect against it or neutralize, quarantine, destroy it.

A better analogy would be if the Bush administration were to open a new Office of Terran Security to take precautionary measures against hostile extraterrestrial invasions. All our scientists agree that ETs could exist in principle and probably are scattered all throughout our universe (two things one cannot say of MacOS X viruses*), but invasion from one of them is entirely hypothetical, we know nothing of the technologies or goals that they might have, and therefore can't even begin to mobilize to protect ourselves against the possibility of their arrival.

Instead of wasting your energy downloading and installing an antivirus package, put it into developing a really good redundant and chronologically continuous backup strategy. It'll do you far more good against the first Mac virus that does show up, and it will serve you well in other ways too.

-------

* Edit: ermmm, make that ONE thing that cannot be said of OS X viruses. Certainly they can exist in principle!

Nice rant, but you forget that most OS X virus software will check for PC viruses and stop mac users from accidently passing them on to others.

For example, you get an exe from a friend named goodPorn.exe and his message claims its a self extracting archive, so you send it to your roomate to open on his Windows machine and BOOM - hes got the pink slip virus and off he goes on a Southwest flight to El Paso, Tx...OS X virus scanners are more of a convenience to your friends than a preventative measure...

 

[Bote]

Nice rant, but you forget that most OS X virus software will check for PC viruses and stop mac users from accidently passing them on to others.

For example, you get an exe from a friend named goodPorn.exe and his message claims its a self extracting archive, so you send it to your roomate to open on his Windows machine and BOOM - hes got the pink slip virus and off he goes on a Southwest flight to El Paso, Tx...OS X virus scanners are more of a convenience to your friends than a preventative measure...

That is a good point because I do have multiple pcs that I use also. 2 at home.

 

[SummerBreeze]

I'm a starving college student, but all the school networks require anti-virus programs. The one that they provide for free is a three year old program that runs terribly, so I just run free av programs. Definitely try ClamXav. Oh, and if you have any need for Windows software, AVG Free has worked well for me on Windows XP.

kingjr3 is right, just because your computer won't get infected doesn't mean you can't infect others. Remember that little monkey from Outbreak, who merrily passed a happy little virus onto everyone in town, causing a national crisis and killing all these people? Sure, he was fine, but no one else was. You definitely don't want to be that monkey.

 

[Blue Velvet]

For example, you get an exe from a friend named goodPorn.exe and his message claims its a self extracting archive, so you send it to your roomate to open on his Windows machine and BOOM - hes got the pink slip virus and off he goes on a Southwest flight to El Paso, Tx...OS X virus scanners are more of a convenience to your friends than a preventative measure...

Not forwarding unsolicited junk executables is an even better preventative measure.

 

[Bote]

I'm a starving college student, but all the school networks require anti-virus programs. The one that they provide for free is a three year old program that runs terribly, so I just run free av programs. Definitely try ClamXav. Oh, and if you have any need for Windows software, AVG Free has worked well for me on Windows XP.

kingjr3 is right, just because your computer won't get infected doesn't mean you can't infect others. Remember that little monkey from Outbreak, who merrily passed a happy little virus onto everyone in town, causing a national crisis and killing all these people? Sure, he was fine, but no one else was. You definitely don't want to be that monkey.

Yeah, no one wants to be that monkey... I have just downloaded clamxav and will install and see how that goes. Thanks everybody!

 

[Atlasland]

Remember that little monkey from Outbreak, who merrily passed a happy little virus onto everyone in town, causing a national crisis and killing all these people? Sure, he was fine, but no one else was. You definitely don't want to be that monkey.

I don't mean to piss on your fire, but I think that monkey actually died.

 

[Kalinatek]

i am using norton antivirus 10.0 its great .

 

[wdlove]

i am using norton antivirus 10.0 its great .

I just purchased Norton Antivirus 10.0. Will probably install it along with my installation of Tiger.