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Apple tells Mac users: Get anti-virus
- josefresco 18y agohttp://support.apple.com/kb/HT2550 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2550 Egad, they actually are recommending Norton/McAfee Poor MAC users, at least there's an option for Avast.
- pstinnett 18y agoI've been thinking of picking up an anti-virus app for a while, but I really hated mcafee / norton etc when I used a PC. What's the best "mac-like" antivirus application? Something with a good interface and doesn't feel too bloated, but is also powerful?
- nickb 18y agoThey all suck up your resources. Don't waste your time until there's a real virus in the wild.
- jrnkntl 18y agoQuote from 9to5mac: "Apple has always recommended anti-virus software - especially to enterprise customers. They do it because they want Apple users to be safe and for Virus makers to know that their user base is protected. Do a quick search on Apple Docs and you'll find a number of them. Here's one from 2002 (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=50569 http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=50569). Here's one from earlier this year (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1147 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1147). There are plenty more. This isn't at all new." http://9to5mac.com/crazy-displayport-virus http://9to5mac.com/crazy-displayport-virus
- jcl 18y agoDid you read the linked article? http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/12/apple_mac_users_should_get_ant.html http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/12/apple_m... While Apple may recommend anti-virus programs to enterprise customers, they still use the Mac's relative lack of viruses as a selling point in their ads, and an Apple employee told the column writer that anti-virus was unnecessary. Walt Mossberg says the same thing: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/garfinkel/17586/ http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/garfinkel/17586/ There is a bit of a disconnect between the Mac's public image and these quietly posted technical articles.
- cpr 18y agoIs there really a disconnect? The only Mac OS virii out there have been ones that require the user to run something and/or confirm an obviously unsafe action. And there have only been 2-3-4 that have made the news, vs. thousands for Windows. So it's not really a very dire situation, and Apple is right to feature it. I'd certainly rather have a family member use a Mac than a Windows machine, if only for this reason.
- whacked_new 18y agoI just wanted to point out that the parent-parent made no reference to Windows. It would be better if your arguments didn't require this reference.
- cpr 18y agoHuh? Isn't the whole point of Apple's ads that Mac OS X is better than Windows?
- whacked_new 18y agoYou're right; my mistake -- I glossed over the post and missed the "relative."
- 18y ago
- tzury 18y agoApple tells Mac users, ignore OpenSource revolution. Stay with us, we are closed environment just like M$FT, we just do it with a smile ;-)
- modoc 18y agoWhile that looks to be a blatant troll, I really have to ask if you seriously see MS Windows and Apple OS X as being equally closed? Where are MS's versions of Darwin, Webkit, etc...? While Apple isn't 100% open source, they are the closest among commercial end-user targeted OSes. Apple obviously feels, and honestly I think they're probably right, that fully open sourcing their OS would negatively impact their ability to run a profitable hardware/software business. That's absolutely their right. I'd also argue that for mass consumer end users, there is no open source revolution. While I love and use Linux all the time, I'd never put my mother or my sister or my wife on it. Likewise with software, it needs to come with a nice printed or online manual that's easy to use, and a 1-800 number for the support department. Fixing an issue needs to not involve steps like "use vi to edit giant.xml which depending on your distro could be in one of these 10 long path locations". goes to get coffee
- tzury 18y ago1. Most of the Internet runs on open platforms. The Internet is a tremendous revolution by all measures. I strongly believe that your mother, your sister and wife are all been into it already. 2. Have you tried to develop and deliver an Iphone app? Don't you think Apple could have make the iPhone SDK some how more open and flexible. Wouldn't you as a Java guy be happy to have Java there in addition to the Objective C? I switched to Ubuntu from OS X 10.5 and don't think will ever go back.
- modoc 18y ago1. Yes, there is a huge open source revolution on the server side, but not on the consumer desktop. My mom doesn't know or care if the web servers serving up pages are Linux or Windows. As a server-side developer, I've seen and been a part of the big shift to open source OSes, software, tools, etc... However, if you're talking about consumer desktop OSes and apps, there isn't one yet. 2. I haven't worked on an iPhone app. Not really my area. Sure Apple could be more open, although they obviously see reasons not to be, and that their right. However, I'd argue that they're generally more open than most of the widely used competition. You might wish the iPhone SDK supported multiple languages, but compare that to developing for the Motorola Razr, or the Blackberry? I think Apple is doing pretty well. Obviously not as well as some folks would like, but they're running a business and trying to ensure profits, quality, low support calls, all that stuff, and I respect that.
- watmough 18y agoThe misery caused by anti-virus software often seems to outweigh any marginal benefit. It's not even like the software is more than 70-80% effective. Even the Vista built-in AV software rendered it impossible to install Flight Simulator X. This is AV software from a major vendor. If it jacks up the install of their own software, then something is very wrong with the approach. Personally, I believe in regular backups by imaging my HD every week or so, and being careful about what I run on my computer.
- Tichy 18y agoExactly what I always say. I suspect the damage done by AV software is greater than the damage done by viri. It get's really funny when the AV software comes with security holes. Better to just reduce the number of unnecessary software installed on the computers. No software == no security holes.
- huherto 18y agoI've meaning to ask HN this. I remember an article a while ago where somebody recommended not using anti-virus software. His recommendations was to have a separate administrative user that you only use when you install something. That is the standard practice in Unix. I recently asked my friends and they told me that you wouldn't be able to run a lot of software without the administrative privileges. It does make a lot of sense, we are basically running our PC and everything is run as root. What do you guys think?
- thomasmallen 18y agoIn OS≤9 we used Norton, so no big deal. Frankly it's weird that we've been able to get away with not having anti-virus so long.
- Jem 18y agoI wouldn't recommend anyone use Norton - on a Mac or Windows machine!
- laut 18y agoI'll consider it in the future when a virus for OS X exists.
- bprater 18y agoIt's not tough to write a virus for OS X, the hard part is getting root so that you can do some real damage.
- staunch 18y agoIsn't this sort of a myth? I run Linux and a virus running as my primary user (non-root) could delete every single thing I value on my computer. I assume the same is pretty much true for OSX.
- demallien 18y agoYup, for most people, the thing that most needs protecting is the data, not the apps. But the important thing to note is that if the malware can't install itself/access hardware (esp. the network interface), then your platform is not very interesting for malware writers. Of course, I should point out that the person you were replying to was exactly back-to-front. It's much easier to wrangle a privileges escalation than it is to get onto the system in the first place.
- thenduks 18y agoYes but you have backups of that stuff. The real threat/pain is your machine becoming a spam/etc zombie without your knowledge. This is highly unlikely on any Unix-like OS.
- eggnet 18y agoThe problem with building a virus on OSX is not obtaining root access, it is replication. How is a virus going to propagate from one mac to the next? If you don't propagate you're just a trojan and will have limited penetration.
- tlrobinson 18y ago
- bprater 18y agoI've never ran anti-virus, even when I was using Windows. I've always been very careful about what I downloaded, what I allow to get root permissions, backing up, etc. People always want to know why I haven't looked at their email attachments, and the response is always the same: no attachments, no exceptions! (Ok, I'm cool with images attachments.)
- TheBosch 18y agoMaybe they will recommend the Microsoft Anti-Virus software when it's released next year ;)
- twopoint718 18y agoThis may be only tangentially related, but something about AV has never sat well with me. For the record, I fall into the: "don't really use AV software, read mail in Mutt, never use IE under any circumstances, etc."-category so many of my attack vectors may be closed; I've never lost data from any sort of malware. Going back to what I was saying before, something about the approach of AV seems inelegant. This article[1] (point #2) sums up my sense of AV. With it, you're always playing catch-up and that seems weird. I just wanted to get others to weigh in on that idea. [1]: http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/ http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/d...