[Swordmaker]

Why I don't use Mac Anti-Virus from Low-End Mac. . . — PING!

Opinion from Low-End Mac about
not needing Anti-Virus on Macs
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[Ronin]

IMO, MacKeeper has poisoned the well. Everything I have ever read and everyone I have talked to with any experience regarding the product has warned me to stay as far away from that thing as I can.

Yet almost everywhere I go online, whenever the website detects a Mac on the other end, up pops these persistent and aggravating ads that use increasingly sneaky tricks to try and get me to download and install the program.

Even if a anti-virus program for Macs came out that was solid gold, I wouldn’t trust it at this point. It may not be rational, but it’s the way I feel.

[dayglored]

I have a problem with this article, in particular where it says:

There is something unnatural about having anti-virus protection on OS X. I don’t want a background process taking up system resources – however small it is. Some suites on Windows can choke a machine and bombard you with pop-ups, notifications, and updates, and that would drive me insane.

Mac users are very complacent regarding the safety of their computer. Deep down we all know our beloved machines aren’t impenetrable – but we also know that OS X with its Unix/BSD base is built in such a way that makes it very hard to get to.

I have two things to say about this.

1. There is nothing "unnatural" about protecting any computer against threats.
2. While OS X is indeed built on BSD Unix, this means nothing in the case of a human engineered attack that uses the HUMAN OPERATOR as a vector.

I find the article disingenuous. That said, I don't bother with anti0=-virus on my Macs either. But I'm extraordinarily careful where I go on the internet, what I click on, and what I open in email.

These days the "BSD Unix" defense is not worth as much as it once was. And you know, Swordmaker, that I am a Unix-head at heart, and believe that it is the strongest operating system in common use, bar none.

As a System Admin, I see malware emails blocked every few minutes in my corporate firewall. Very few are the old-style direct attacks on an OS. They're almost all attacks on the users.

HUMAN OPERATORS can -- and DO -- compromise any operating system, no matter how intrinsically strong. I'm not sure I like the author's cavalier attitude regarding the real vectors in use these days -- particularly phishing and spear phishing attacks, never mind things like leaving a few infected USB flash drives in the company parking lot for employees to pick up and carry inside...

[basil]

I’ve had only Macs for well neigh on to 20 years—and never a problem, as far as a virus is concerned.