Antivirus Programs

I just purchased my MBP 2.2GHz today at an Apple store and love it so far. Does anyone use AV programs with Mac OS X and if so, which ones do you recommend?

 

This one has the best reputation I think:
http://www.sophos.com/products/enterprise/endpoint/security-and-control/mac/

I used it a bit but didnt find it necessary. Norton also has a mac version of its anti virus. I heared some people actually like Norton, not sure why but it seems to sell pretty good.

 

Does this software slow down the Mac OS, like anti-virus does with windows systems? Secondly, does Sophos detect any Windows viruses. I know they may not affect, but if it somehow gets on the computer by transferring through my PC, I certainly do not want it on my Mac! Finally, does it remove spyware? I too am wondering about this. My personal reason for needing this, is I download anime fansubs, and sometimes it is not always "safe"

 

I've heard moderately good things about the sophos software. It's not as good as the AV/SpyWare programs for windows, but it'll help if you think you're infected.
There's not a whole lot of need for virus protection in OSX right now, to be honest. I think we'll see more and more antivirus programs popping up in the upcoming months as Macs get more popular(be it from more viruses because of there being more targets, or because theres finally a large enough base of people for AV companies to make money).

Either way, DO NOT install any nortons product on your computer! You'll need to get another antivirus program just to get Norton's off!

 

You will not need antivirus on your Mac yet. Turn on the firewall and you're fine. Don't waste your money on antivirus, its not necessary right now.

But if you must, ClamXaV is a free antivirus scanner for the Mac. Once again, I do not believe it is necessary to run antivirus on Mac OS X yet.

 

At the moment it is a waste of time and money to put AV on a Mac. There is no reason to have it since there are no viruses in the wild. I would avoid them all together until there is a need, security software has a tendency to mess things up.

 

With Leopard coming out in a couple months, it'll probably make it even harder to make viruses for the Mac I suppose.

 

Well that and, if there aren't really a good sample of viruses for the Mac, there's no guarantee that you're spending your money on an AV that's actually doing anything or that'll actually be useful if someday a virus does hit.

A 100% virus detection rate doesn't mean much if it's 100% of 0

Wait until a few viruses appear, and then I'm sure the major AV companies will compete to enter the Mac market. Then it's just a matter of picking the best one.

 

Alright, that's good to hear. I read there is one virus out for Mac OS X, but can only infect you if you choose to open it. So, overall it's the user's fault.

 

I'll just add myself here to the people that don't have an AV program for the mac. Just my 2 cents

 

Also, another question regarding iTunes.

When signing up for an iTunes account, they ask for your credit card information. Does it cost money to have an iTunes account or will they automatically charge you if you purchase any music? I want to add album work to my music, but don't feel like manually setting them after loading about 3000 songs into iTunes, so will having account do this automatically and does it cost money?

 

How do you turn on the firewall?

 

System Preferences > Sharing > Personal Firewall > Start

Creating an account does not cost money. And unless you set it up for automatic one-click purchasing, you'll still go through the checkout procedure when you buy songs.

 

In iTunes Preferences there is the option to Automatically get missing Album Artwork. Any album that matches albums on iTunes will have artwork downloaded.

And no, an iTunes Store Account does not cost money. There are two ways to purchase music on iTunes, you can do a "one-click download" or use a "Shopping Cart" style. Either way, its hard to "accidentally download" music because even in one-click download a window will pop up to confirm you want to purchase that song.

 

Alright, I found the automatic album download, but it still requires me to sign up for an account, which I cannot create until I provide credit card information. Why does Apple ask for credit card information for a free account?

 

So that it is nice and easy for you to buy music. They are trying to suck you in.