[POLL:] Do you run anti-virus on your Mac?

[DnetMHZ]

I run Clam A/V on my Mac as a "just in case" type thing.

Maybe it's just the windows admin side of me carrying over but I just like to have a little extra protection.

Thoughts?

 

[Kaido]

Nope! No need. Plus I do the majority of my Internet surfing through Firefox with Adblock under XP in Parallels. Whew, that was a mouthful!

 

[TheStu]

While I am not so silly as to believe the hype that Macs are inpenetrable, I do know that the only viruses in the wild for Macs are impotent, childish little things that do no harm whatsoever. The one I remember the best is that virus that infects your machine and then spreads to all your iChat contacts. The thing is, you have to have iChat open, they have to accept, they then have to allow the install to happen, you have to have allowed the install to happen, and it doesn't work through other chat clients like Adium. Plus, evenif you were silly enough to install the virus (by clicking ok twice and entering your password once) and they were as well... all it does is then send itself to their contacts, it does nothing malicious.

Then there was that exploit from hack-a-Mac. Where, if you were using Safari, and if you went to a specific page and if you clicked on a specific link, you could get hacked, but even then they didnt get root IIRC, so what is the point?

So, no I don't run Antivirus on my mac, simply because there is no way to verify the effectiveness of the product. It is almost like saying, locking my doors prevents thieves from getting into my house because I have never been robbed. The two are not necessarily correlated. If and when more viruses show up on OS X, then I will start hunting for an antivirus that has proven effectiveness. Until then, I will surf the web with impunity, visiting any site that I choose.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Not yet.

 

[Keitero]

I run NAV that I got from school and it works just fine. Better safe than sorry.

 

[Nothinman]

but even then they didnt get root IIRC, so what is the point?

Because they don't need root to delete all of your files.

It is almost like saying, locking my doors prevents thieves from getting into my house because I have never been robbed. The two are not necessarily correlated. If and when more viruses show up on OS X, then I will start hunting for an antivirus that has proven effectiveness. Until then, I will surf the web with impunity, visiting any site that I choose.

So you're going to leave your doors unlocked until you hear about some burglaries in your area?

 

[Goosemaster]

gateway AV ftw

 

[RJ45]

I run NAV on my G4PB. I got it from the school I worked at. It's more of a peace of mind thing. It catches some email attachments every once in a while in SPAM emails but, they're all windows viruses/worms. So I just keep the defs updated and it's no big deal.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

but even then they didnt get root IIRC, so what is the point?

Because they don't need root to delete all of your files.

It is almost like saying, locking my doors prevents thieves from getting into my house because I have never been robbed. The two are not necessarily correlated. If and when more viruses show up on OS X, then I will start hunting for an antivirus that has proven effectiveness. Until then, I will surf the web with impunity, visiting any site that I choose.

So you're going to leave your doors unlocked until you hear about some burglaries in your area?

No, what I was saying was that the AV programs for the Mac have nothing serious to guard against so there is no way to know for sure if that is what is protecting my computer. Much like how me saying that locking my doors keeps the robbers out. It could be that there are no robbers in my area, or they know that I have nothing interesting in my house, or my gigantic guard dog keeps them at bay, even if the doors were wide open. Or for all I know, it could be the fact that my house is located in the middle of the woods, 27miles from the nearest public road (security through obscurity). That was my argument, that locking my doors is not necessarily immediately correlated to no one robbing me.

As far as the not needing root to delete all my files, you are right, though I do keep all my important files in a password protected, encrypted SparseImage that I mount when I need it, and gets unmounted when my machines goes to screensaver, or to sleep, or shut down. The SparseImage is backed up daily to 3 different locations, 2 external hard drives and a jump drive, and once a month I burn it off to DVD. I also use an applescript that detects the presence of my phone via bluetooth and uses that to bring my machine out of screensaver, or puts it into screensaver when i step away from my machine.

Like I said before though, until i start hearing about serious threats to my machine from viruses, spyware, or adware, I will run it without AV since I have no way of knowing that any of them are actually effective. No point having an armed guard if I don't know if his weapon is effective against whatever he is guarding against.

 

[erikistired]

i have clamXav installed, altho i don't really use it.

 

[Nothinman]

That was my argument, that locking my doors is not necessarily immediately correlated to no one robbing me.

Of course not but would you seriously recommend someone leave their house unlocked just because they haven't been robbed yet? By your logic no one should practice any type of preventative maintenance because you never know if it'll actually affect you.

As far as the not needing root to delete all my files, you are right, though I do keep all my important files in a password protected, encrypted SparseImage that I mount when I need it, and gets unmounted when my machines goes to screensaver, or to sleep, or shut down. The SparseImage is backed up daily to 3 different locations, 2 external hard drives and a jump drive, and once a month I burn it off to DVD. I also use an applescript that detects the presence of my phone via bluetooth and uses that to bring my machine out of screensaver, or puts it into screensaver when i step away from my machine.

And I would say that's the very definition of "the exception to the rule".

No point having an armed guard if I don't know if his weapon is effective against whatever he is guarding against.

Well just like AV on Windows there will always be gaps in the protection because nothing is perfect but one would assume that AV vendors that make a product for OS X would put some effort into making it effective against whatever is present on OS X.

 

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

but even then they didnt get root IIRC, so what is the point?

Because they don't need root to delete all of your files.

It is almost like saying, locking my doors prevents thieves from getting into my house because I have never been robbed. The two are not necessarily correlated. If and when more viruses show up on OS X, then I will start hunting for an antivirus that has proven effectiveness. Until then, I will surf the web with impunity, visiting any site that I choose.

So you're going to leave your doors unlocked until you hear about some burglaries in your area?

Yeah, but the Apple house has no Windows and you are always looking at the door that is always locked needing a key to open.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

As far as the not needing root to delete all my files, you are right, though I do keep all my important files in a password protected, encrypted SparseImage that I mount when I need it, and gets unmounted when my machines goes to screensaver, or to sleep, or shut down. The SparseImage is backed up daily to 3 different locations, 2 external hard drives and a jump drive, and once a month I burn it off to DVD. I also use an applescript that detects the presence of my phone via bluetooth and uses that to bring my machine out of screensaver, or puts it into screensaver when i step away from my machine.

And I would say that's the very definition of "the exception to the rule".

Yea, I got tired of people in my class using my laptop for who knows what reason (it couldn't be that it had OS X since there was a PowerMac G5 with Quad Core, 8GB RAM, and 2 23" monitors sitting along the wall) without my permission, so I setup truly ridiculous data security and redundancy measures so that if any of them did something stupid under what was a foreign environment to them, I wouldn't be completely screwed

No point having an armed guard if I don't know if his weapon is effective against whatever he is guarding against.

Well just like AV on Windows there will always be gaps in the protection because nothing is perfect but one would assume that AV vendors that make a product for OS X would put some effort into making it effective against whatever is present on OS X.

I would certainly hope that they put effort into it, but I don't know yet what is effective. Due to my data redundancy setup, I will sacrifice about 3-4 hours of my time if I have to reformat due to a virus, then I can find the most effective one. Sort of like how on Windows back when I still used Norton, well it had either expired, or one got past it and I got infected anyway. So after that I started using AVG and haven't gotten one since, which I have no way of knowing if it is due to AVG or different browsing habits, but I hear nothing but good things about it and all I know about OS X AV is that a lot of people use ClamAV... but I have no idea how good it will be when it actually matters.

So I sort am using my machine as a wide-open testbed until it gets infected, then I will find the right tool for the job. It may be the wrong mentality for most, but like I said, my data redundancy setup keeps me from being totally screwed in the event of a total system wipe due to a virus.

 

[Injury]

No, but I don't run AV software on my PC and I've NEVER had a virus that I didn't put on there intentionally. (to figure out how to get it off of someone else's computer.)

I run an online scan every few months, but it always comes back negative.

8 years and counting of having my own PC be virus free. (knock on wood.)

 

[Nothinman]

Yeah, but the Apple house has no Windows and you are always looking at the door that is always locked needing a key to open.

Not always, the main entry point into Windows these days is the web browser and Safari, FF, etc on OS X still do all of the same things that browsers do on Windows and the next exploit in something like FF's JavaScript interpreter might affect you.

 

[Tegeril]

Originally posted by: TheStu
As far as the not needing root to delete all my files, you are right, though I do keep all my important files in a password protected, encrypted SparseImage that I mount when I need it, and gets unmounted when my machines goes to screensaver, or to sleep, or shut down. The SparseImage is backed up daily to 3 different locations, 2 external hard drives and a jump drive, and once a month I burn it off to DVD. I also use an applescript that detects the presence of my phone via bluetooth and uses that to bring my machine out of screensaver, or puts it into screensaver when i step away from my machine.

This is ridiculous.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Tegeril

Originally posted by: TheStu
As far as the not needing root to delete all my files, you are right, though I do keep all my important files in a password protected, encrypted SparseImage that I mount when I need it, and gets unmounted when my machines goes to screensaver, or to sleep, or shut down. The SparseImage is backed up daily to 3 different locations, 2 external hard drives and a jump drive, and once a month I burn it off to DVD. I also use an applescript that detects the presence of my phone via bluetooth and uses that to bring my machine out of screensaver, or puts it into screensaver when i step away from my machine.

This is ridiculous.

Yes, yes it is... but I generally go for the ridiculous option, and like I explained up above, it came about because of people messing around on my laptop when I was either on the other side of the room, or out of the room... drove me nuts, so I went from open door policy to something akin to Fort Knox.

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Originally posted by: Tegeril

Originally posted by: TheStu
As far as the not needing root to delete all my files, you are right, though I do keep all my important files in a password protected, encrypted SparseImage that I mount when I need it, and gets unmounted when my machines goes to screensaver, or to sleep, or shut down. The SparseImage is backed up daily to 3 different locations, 2 external hard drives and a jump drive, and once a month I burn it off to DVD. I also use an applescript that detects the presence of my phone via bluetooth and uses that to bring my machine out of screensaver, or puts it into screensaver when i step away from my machine.

This is ridiculous.

Yes, yes it is... but I generally go for the ridiculous option, and like I explained up above, it came about because of people messing around on my laptop when I was either on the other side of the room, or out of the room... drove me nuts, so I went from open door policy to something akin to Fort Knox.

I guess I can sort of understand.

I encrypt all of my work on my work laptop and machine

 

[Tegeril]

I guess I'm not seeing what's so hard about activating fast user switching and just returning to the login screen or locking the system when you get up with Windows + L...

 

[DnetMHZ]

Originally posted by: Tegeril
I guess I'm not seeing what's so hard about activating fast user switching and just returning to the login screen or locking the system when you get up with Windows + L...

um... that would be a neat trick on a Mac