Mac OS X antivirus software

Jan 2006

Since there is every chance your previous computer was running on Microsoft Windows, one of the first things after switching to Mac would logically be – What antivirus software should I use ? The answer is – none.

How come – you might ask. Well, since the first release of the Mac OS X in 2001 the number of Mac viruses is precisely – zero. Plain and simple – there are no viruses that affect Mac OS X.

But what happens to all those viruses circulating around and driving computer users mad? These are all Windows viruses and by its design they don’t run on Mac OS X. Even if you receive it, say in an email, you will see an attachment and you won’t be able to run it. Your operating system will recognise it as “DOS executable file” and it won’t run even if you tried.

But, if OS X is so secure, why should the antivirus companies write those programs after all?

The answer to this question is not really black and white since there is a reason behind it. The risk of a virus on Mac OS X computer is not zero, but it is incredibly close to zero. However, we need to think of our friends and business partners running Windows computers as we may unintentionally infect them. We might receive an infected email from someone and forward it onto someone else. Even though it didn’t affect our Mac it might have a devastating effect on the recipient who is using Microsoft Windows.

Then there are Microsoft Word and macro viruses. Same story, your Mac won’t feel any pain but if you send the file to a Windows user you might get a nasty phone call or an email soon after.

And one more thing, if you are running Windows on Virtual PC (VPC) on your Mac, you need to have antivirus software. But this would be installed on Windows as this is where the vulnerability is. Again, even if your Windows on VPC on your Mac is infected, it won’t affect your Mac.

So, should you really get antivirus software for your Mac? I personally don’t but I’ll leave it to you to decide.

If you do here are some choices: ClamXav (free), McAfee Virex, VirusBarrier, Norton Antivirus and Sophos Antivirus

Mac, Software

Comments

Matthew Price

January 18th, 2006 at 5:21 AM

This is a subject of much debate. Many AV companies do make AV software for Mac so there must be some sort of a market for it. You would have a hard time proving your claim that there have been 0 OS X virii in circulation. I personaly don’t run AV on my Mac but I know that the days of getting away with that are numbered. As more people start using Macs, more virus punks will exploit them.
Silver Mac » Blog Archive » Should you switch to Mac ?

April 16th, 2006 at 1:09 AM

[...] So should you run an antivirus software on your Mac? I surely don’t, but you can get a bit more info in an article I wrote earlier this year, and make a decision for yourself. [...]
Nathan

July 29th, 2008 at 3:09 AM

@Matthew “You would have a hard time proving your claim that there have been 0 OS X virii in circulation”:
It’s not true anymore, but the way that you would verify this is by asking a security company how many in-the-wild viruses there are for each OS. The answer for Mac OS X is still like 2 or something.

If noone has ever reported getting a Mac virus, isn’t it up to the security software vendor to prove that they DO exist? The reason antivirus software exists for OS X is:
1. In a network environment, you want to catch a virus where you can. You don’t just run AV software on your most vulnerable equipment.
2. People are silly bastards, and no matter what you tell someone (you DON’T need an antivirus for Linux), they will insist that they need one to be safe.

#2 is circular logic, and it’s what you’re using as proof.
Nicolas

November 18th, 2008 at 12:56 AM

what about iAntiVirus?
http://www.iantivirus.com/

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