

Apple tells Mac users: Get anti-virus - astrec
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/02/apple_mac_av_advice/

======
watmough
The 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
Exactly 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
I'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?

~~~
chaostheory
"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."

(on a mac) that's not true. I've been using this approach for years now (both
on Tiger and Leopard) and most mac software recognize this (ones that don't
eventually come around very quickly - it's been 3 years since I've seen one
that didn't)

The only thing you'll run into is the minor inconvenience of having to login
seamingly all the time (though eventually you'll get used to it)

~~~
aston
Sounds like Vista + UAC.

------
jrnkntl
Quote 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>). Here's one from
earlier this year (<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1147>). There are plenty
more. This isn't at all new."

<http://9to5mac.com/crazy-displayport-virus>

~~~
jcl
Did you read the linked article?

[http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/12/apple_m...](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/12/apple_mac_users_should_get_ant.html)

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/>

There is a bit of a disconnect between the Mac's public image and these
quietly posted technical articles.

~~~
cpr
Is 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
I 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
Huh? Isn't the whole point of Apple's ads that Mac OS X is better than
Windows?

~~~
whacked_new
You're right; my mistake -- I glossed over the post and missed the "relative."

------
pstinnett
I'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
They all suck up your resources. Don't waste your time until there's a real
virus in the wild.

------
laut
I'll consider it in the future when a virus for OS X exists.

~~~
bprater
It'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
Isn'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.

~~~
eggnet
The 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.

------
josefresco
<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2550>

Egad, they actually are recommending Norton/McAfee

Poor MAC users, at least there's an option for Avast.

~~~
jgrahamc
I've been using Sophos for a long time on my Mac. You don't have to fall into
the Norton/McAfee trap.

------
twopoint718
This 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/d...](http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/)

------
bprater
I'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.)

------
thomasmallen
In 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
I wouldn't recommend anyone use Norton - on a Mac or Windows machine!

------
TheBosch
Maybe they will recommend the Microsoft Anti-Virus software when it's released
next year ;)

------
tzury
Apple 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
While 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
1\. 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
1\. 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.

