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95 Comments
- Quix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+40"Then what does Symantec Antivirus for Mac do?"
Takes money out of your wallet. - radiofrequency, on 10/12/2007, -4/+41Thousands of people have writen games, math, statistics analysis, graphics, music, web browser, office suites and productivity software for non-Windows operating systems for years. Combined, they have spent many thousands of man-years developing all this stuff. Yet even after so much time and so much effort expended, there are no viruses for platforms other than Windows. How many lines of code/hours does it take to write a virus/spyware program, anyway?
Frankly, Microsoft's claims about being targeted because Windows is popular does not compute. Windows is targeted because insecurity is part of its DNA. - aptget, on 10/12/2007, -2/+33Mac OS X, Linux, or BSD systems have a lot less viruses due to not being on Administrator accounts. Any kind of software or scripts that require a password can do damage no matter what OS it is. On Windows, .exe, .vbs, .bat, .cmd., etc can load without warning, thus making it unsafe.
If Windows fixes this, viruses go down at least 80%. If Vista would've shipped in late 2005, I might've used it if it was safe. I've lost faith in Microsoft though, so it's 100% Ubuntu for me. Currently waiting to see what Edgy and Edgy+1 will have and then I'll compare them to Mac OS X Leopard and the Intel Core 2 Duo machines. I could end up ditching an installed Ubuntu and just sticking to LiveCDs if I like what I see with Apple.
Next year will be the most important year in computing since Microsoft released Windows 95 in the 90s. - moofree, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23Except virii isn't even a word. The plural of virus is viruses.
- slowelectron, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22I had Norton on my old iBook. When I finally realized it was useless, it was very difficult to uninstall.
- Bradl3y, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20OS X Does have a virus, it is called "Norton Anti". It deceives you by appearing to be a useful peice of software, but then does nothing useful and instead wastes resources.
- earthtoandy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17Viruses is correct.
- corsairstw, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14OS X is inherently a safer, more secure OS. There will probably always be less holes in the system than XP but that doesn't mean that it will be entirely bulletproof.
(Though I like to think that OS X is a completely safe environment) - inkswamp, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13> Mac OS X, Linux, or BSD systems have a lot less viruses due to
> not being on Administrator accounts.
But even the "admin" account on OS X has some fairly stringent, system-wide safeguards in place so what you're saying is not technically accurate. I don't know what Linux and BSD allow an admin account to do, but on OS X, an admin account is nowhere near as powerful as root. OS X has an excellent system in place wherein any changes made outside of your home directory and (I think) the applications folder require a privileged user password to be explicitly typed in by the user. Conceivably, a virus on OS X could wipe out a user's home directory, but it would have a very hard time hosing the whole system or replicating itself. - BenStockwell, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12According to Wikipedia - "In the English language, the standard plural of virus is viruses. This is the most frequently occurring form of the plural, and refers to both a biological virus and a computer virus"
- slowelectron, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12That's the problem - why a special uninstall tool? Almost all other Mac apps - drag and drop to the Trash. Or better yet, zap it with AppZapper. Norton is too invasive.
- bvaughn, on 10/12/2007, -4/+13Then what does Symantec Antivirus for Mac do?
http://www.symantec.com/Products/enterprise?c=prodinfo&refId=825&cid=1008 - moofree, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Not BeOS, it's based on NeXT.
- MariusTh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8That must have been Classic Mac's
- maxplanar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8'Team B': The Soviet Union has non-sonar-based submarine detection technology that we cannot detect. Because we are unable to detect it, it obviously exists. Therefore we must spend more on our own military. You may buy that from us.
Neocons: Sadaam Hussein has WMD and will use them. Only such terrifying weapons would be hidden so well that we are unable to find them. Since we cannot find them, they obviously exist, so we must invade Iraq. You may buy your equipment from us.
Symantec et al: Viruses could possibly infect the OSX operating system in the future. Since none exist today, the threat to your data is enormous. You may buy your antivirus software from us.
Fearmongering - a longstanding tradition that should NEVER be trusted. OSX - virus free ever since it was developed. - earthtoandy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8P.S. with the threat level (read: zero) it is worthless to run Virus software. It causes more problems than the potential threat any.
Another thought is to not be dumb. No OS is immune from stupid users - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Installing norton AV will probably result in more lost productivity and hear-tearing than any virus would cause.
Seriously, that program totally blows ass!
I'd rather be infected than to have to use NAV on any system. - abagchee, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11@titlesaysitall
"just because there is no viruses for Mac OS X doesn't mean there will never be a virus"
All OSX users that actually know the underpinnings of the OS (and are not foaming at the mouth with zeal) will tell you that claiming that OSX will never get a virus is naive and sophomoric. However, the facts stand, as stated by Symantec, that
a) there are currently no known OSX viruses.
b) the so-called worms could not spread because you had to work hard to propagate it. Which literate computer user would enter his/her password when trying to open a jpg file asks for your admin password?
c) OSX is currently and into the foreseeable future, is the most secure operating system by virtue of its current status.
Malware is a distinct possibility but its also sophomoric to call OSX is secure by obscurity. There are millions of Apple users. But the OS provides safety from a rock solid BeOS core and ingrained user-level security. Microsoft is claiming Vista to have similar underpinnings which should make it more secure. But again, not at the same level as OSX since a virus was released a couple of days after Vista Beta 1 was released. Wait and see how this pans out.... - althe3rduww, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Cause its not 2% of users.
Its 22% of users. You need to learn the difference between market share and market population. Market share is the number of computers sold in a fiscal year. Example: Make a computer that some people buy but needs to be replaced quicker you will have a higher market share than the competition.
Apples systems traditionally and even today last longer due to the way apple optimizes software and the os. So if you wish to speak about the number of people using a system in the market you need to understand that market population for OS X is much much higher. - Wulf, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10Piece is excellent, but the headline on Digg is... well... kinda biased.
- gaberm1972, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Before you -digg him to much, he has a point. Running Norton AV on a mac will prevent the spread of a windows virus if you have your mac on a network and is the primary machine you use. It is possible for you to get an email on the mac that has an infected file. Transfer that file to your jump drive and thats all she wrote for the windows machines it hits.
- nomore, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Cocoa API *IS* NeXT, hence why all the funcations start with 'NS' (NeXTSTEP)
- fideli, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@foolfromhell,
If you drag-install a newer version of the program, it'll be just as if you're replacing an older version of a file. Something like, "Are you sure you want to replace this?"
To be fair, not all programs are like this. I've never installed Norton's (or anyone else's) antivirus on my Mac but the most invasive program I found was Adobe Acrobat Professional. I used a tag team including AppZapper and Adobe's Uninstaller to beat it out of my system. - wembley, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The Cocoa API is based on NeXT
- ThirdPrize, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Duh! That is because they are not viruses.
- jerwood, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I love his closing thought: "As I tell my internal and external customers alike, just because there are no file-infecting viruses that can affect Mac OS X now, that doesn't mean there won't be a really nasty one released in the next five minutes." I'm sure that he meant that to be a good reason to buy his firm's wares---but that's exactly the kind of thing that Virus scanning software can't protect against. A good zero-day exploit is the event Symantec is least able to help in. Antivirus is most relevant when you are awash in live viruses, and have to keep dealing with old exploits that continually threaten you. If Apple can keep ahead of what actual live threats occur, then full-up anti-virus has little use for purely OSX machines. The real Mac market for them will be selling to people who want to run Windows on their Mintelacs.
- chazzek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Greedy
Windows isn't HFS-aware, but it's possible to write a virus that is. If a Mac running Windows got such a virus, it could potentially trash the OS X partition. A cleverly written virus could even run on both platforms and infect OS X from Windows, bypassing OS X security. Is this a big threat? I don't think so. I'd like to think that any user skilled enough to be installing Windows on a Mac will either run a virus scanner or know how to be careful. Still, it's something to keep in mind should Mac users run Windows: the whole system is vulnerable to malicious code, not just the Windows partition. - rgawron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Where Symantec antivirus is useful is for finding and repairing Microsoft Word Macro Viruses. In an office of mixed Macs and PC's, if someone with a PC sends you an infected Word file, it can infect Word's .normal file, which can than cause your Mac to create infected Word files. These aren't really a problem on the Mac (Though occasionally, I have seen a file get trashed, so that the data from it cannot be recovered) , but when passed back to a person on the PC, can hose their whole system.
So the only vector for infection on the Mac is a Microsoft Product. Typical. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5"The Lincoln NE public schools had a mac virus. More like maleware or spyware. But the entire system was down for a week"
Yeah that was probably more like a dumb ass administrator signing in as Root and letting anything install onto the network. Like someone previously mentioned. No OS is immunte to stupid users, there should be no reason for anyone to sign in as root, normally Ever. - earthtoandy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5i thought the article was well written and objective
of course it became a sales pitch at the end which was a bit too much for me, but still tastefully done. - Boondoggle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Real men don't waste their time with virus prone OSes
- DelMonte, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Because Mac OS X users believe that their machines are immune from viruses and malware."
These users only exist in your head. I never saw any Mac users stating that OS X was immune to viruses and malware. And I read a lot of comments and forums about this.
There are Mac geeks that check for things like that and monitor network traffic externally on Mac networks. A virus like the one you describe would be quickly discovered, and because the structure of the Mac web community, the news would spread much more quickly than the threat. Instructions on how to protect yourself would be posted in the following hours and available at every Mac online news outlets.
On Windows, there are so many new threats and viruses, that the Windows community simply can't focus on a single one, like the Mac community could if OS X got a first real virus.
On Windows these days, a new virus/worm/malware is like "blah... yet another malware for Windows... better make sure my anti-malware apps are up to date".
But for a new threat on Mac OS X, don't you think that the Mac community would work 10x harder to eradicate it so they can keep a clean slate? One by one, any new virus would get taken care of. And it's impossible that Apple would just sit there and wait until there are hundreds of different malware in the wild, like Microsoft did. When MS did react in a meaningful way, it was way too late. They may try their best with Vista, but there is already a big community of hackers, some with commercial interest that are ready to attack Vista on multiple fronts.
Even if a Windows virus could install something in the OS X partition of a Boot Camp machine, it would just reinforce the fact that people shouldn't run Windows at all, and that it's by far the greatest source of malware.
Using Parallels Desktop to run Windows would shield you against things like that, as by default it's sand-boxed from OS X and the filesystem. - hurfydurfur, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@redwngsycho: Popularity speculation has little to do with it IMHO. Vista is copying the OSX "sudo model" for good reason. With all the Mac haters, I think there's motivation enough to do ANY kind of damage.
- frem001, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Wouldn't Norton Anti Virus prevent viruses (that don't do anything on a mac) from spreading through files that you share with windows hugging hippies?
- Balanced, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6It's also nice to have an antivirus tool on Macs to prevent spreading infected documents around.
- Boondoggle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2And a lot more appealing...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1you're right, all that would happen, security dialogs 'this driver isn't signed' and so on and so forth depending how it was written... the main problem here is that people just click 'continue' and 'yes' to every dialog because they're stupid/sick and tired of fighting with windows... How do you think people get like 15 toolbars in ie6? they click YES a LOT! :p
- Greedy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2BootCamp just lets you install a standard copy of XP SP2 on your Mac.
It's no different than a PC once XP is installed via BootCamp and therefor
you can get any Windows virus the same way you would on a standard PC.
Windows doesn't use HFS... - hurfydurfur, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Wait a minute... can you load an HFS driver without a user prompt in Windows? Would the virus have to reboot Windows? Wouldn't you have to have a WHQL HFS driver loaded to even read the HFS partition? Otherwise, you get that massive error dialog "This driver isn't certified! STOP INSTALLATION || CONTINUE ANYWAY". I guess it's possible although a sad statement if you can do that kind of stuff in the background.
- hurfydurfur, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@The_Decryptor: Because MS wrote it that way. They have no reason to make Office some special app. You can put all app resources under the .app and follow the mac drag-and-drop way, but they chose not to (or didn't choose), who knows. Also, Office is really slow, I don't know what compilier they use or whatever -- a lot of people say it's unreasonably unoptimized. Microsoft software on Mac is a massive exception to the rule.
Yes, OSX has a type of registry. If you "uninstall" Firefox, by drag and dropping to the trash, then you might still have a Preferences file in ~/Library/Preferences/org.mozilla.Firefox.preferences (or something close to that). You can remove it if you want, but then you'd lose your Firefox settings if you installed Firefox again.
Apple preference files can cause the same issues that registry cob-webs cause. Sometimes, Windows users do a clean install by clearing out some registry hives, Apple users do the same thing by deleting ~/Library/Preferences files. It's the same cobweb issue. Although there's no InstallShield, setup.exe, install, uninstall on Mac. You just treat an application, game, program like a regular file -- copy, move, delete. The app doesn't care. Want to move World of Warcraft to an external USB drive? Just move it. - dbug, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If you think you need a virus-scanner for your OSX machine, there's always the free and open source ClamAV. Luckily there's even an OSX friendly port of it with a nice interface: http://www.markallan.co.uk/clamXav/
- soopafly, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3@ foolfromhell
Installing an app on a Mac is simply dragging and dropping to the Applications folder (or basically where ever you want). If it's already installed...you'll see it in the folder. - MariusTh, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4It's based on NeXT, not Be
- tonyspencer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, NAV does scan for suspicious activity, and it does get rid of OS Classic viruses, and Windows viruses that can be propagated by mail. And of course, it scans for macro viruses which can affect Macs if you use Office. It also checks pretty frequently for updates, so if a virus for OS X did come along, you'd get the protection as soon as it was done, which is better than waiting for a scare and finding out the local stores have sold out...
And, as they say, it protects against existing trojans and worms.
Personally, I've been surprised that a rabid anti-Mac person hasn't produced an OS X virus - they have had 6 years to do it. - CrankyMcGuy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Heh. I misread the title. That's "Zero virus'" not "zero day virus". Gotta go to bed...
- CrankyMcGuy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@swordphish
Although the state of things might be that way right now, if there suddenly appeared on the scene a Mac screensaver of Jessica Alba nude that prompted for admin password in order to install a lot of idiots would happily type in their username and password. I don't believe that viruses are going to be a problem for OS X, but malware is another beast altogether. The Symantec piece was surprisingly low on FUD (no, really. Compared to other press releases by them I've read...) but brings up some valid points. I don't think their software can do anything about zero day exploits as the lurid digg title suggests is a problem... - heydigital, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"...our Security Response team had determined that OSX.Leap.A was a worm, and not a file-infecting virus."
All symantecs. - rocketpocket, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I question the amount of effort the Symantec and other virus protection corporations put in to stopping virus rather than just patching them for one once there are no more viruses who needs them.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1uhh... "Symantec admits Zero virus' [aka 'viruses'] for Mac OSX" is the title... pretty self explanatory if you ask me. Maybe 'Zero' shouldn't have been capitalized... either way, I managed to figure it out.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't think it's discouraging people from using the site, hopefully it's encouraging them to RTFM, in other works, GOOGLE IT.
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