Okay Mac users, hands up if you run antivirus software. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? While Mac users have been “immune” to virus problems for a long time, the reason isn’t so much that they’re impervious, but that it hasn’t been worth the effort for criminals to try and rip off Mac users. But that’s all changing.
As Dan reported while I was away, there’s OS X Malware out there. On the upside, Sophos has released a free Mac antivirus program that’s both unobtrusive and not much of a resource hog either. Given that it’s free, it sure as hell couldn’t hurt to use it…
[Sophos - Thanks James!]
Nick Chaplin
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 5:17 PMBeen running the Sophos AV on my MacBook Air for almost the last month. No noticeable speed decreases, feels good to be secure.
olearymo
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 5:22 PMWhen I was on Windows, I used minimal antivirus. minimal because i’m careful, and antivirus at all because there are many more viruses in the wild that target windows.
since moving to osx, even if there are *some* malware out there, i think the low number means i can just go with the ‘careful’ part of the equation.
But if your Nanna downloads anything and everything, sure, pop the antivirus on her mac.
(also, avoid divx. i don’t think it’s mal, but i can’t for the life of me get it out of the system).
Tim
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 6:34 PMAm interested in opinions of whether this is really necessary….. If you’re careful, is there any real reason to get something like this?
Dazza Harding
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 8:27 PMAs soon as I got my mac last month, I put an anti-virus on here, I thought it was essential to be protected.
Jeremy Oates
Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 8:29 PMCould you please just post the first paragraph in bold somewhere. It’s a concept almost everyone I know who’s converted to Mac in the last decade seems to have trouble grasping…
Svein Erik
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 at 3:41 AMI tried it and it is no good. Makes my iMac freeze. Need to hard restart to make it work again for a couple of minutes, then it freezes again. Uninstalled Sophos and my iMac works like a charm again.