

- #ANTI VIRUS PROGRAMS FOR MAC MAC OS X#
- #ANTI VIRUS PROGRAMS FOR MAC INSTALL#
- #ANTI VIRUS PROGRAMS FOR MAC MANUAL#
Most reputable companies know that “Mac” is not an acronym it’s short for Macintosh and therefore not written in all caps. Secondly, the name should be a dead giveaway. If you don’t have something to remove it, how would it see the virus in the first place? Classic “chicken & egg.” If your computer is scanning and found this software, then it should be capable of removing it. I never got the whole “automatically scanning/download this” scam.

Then you download it, and the real “fun” begins – opening windows and sites randomly and then asking for a credit card. The “MAC Defender” trojan runs by first showing a fake “Virus Scan” window, then telling you that your computer is infected. Go to Firefox>Preferences, click the “General” tab and check the option to “Show the Downloads window when downloading a file.” Now, every time Firefox downloads a file, you have to manually tell it what to do, including an option to cancel the download. Now, to open something downloaded from the Internet, you must actively choose to do so.įirefox has a similar option in its preferences. Turn that option off immediately! Just go to Safari>Preferences, click the “General” tab and uncheck the “Open ‘safe’ files after downloading” option.
#ANTI VIRUS PROGRAMS FOR MAC MAC OS X#
A little common sense and a proactive approach will go a long way in keeping your Mac safe…and to us is the best Mac anti-virus program available today.ġ.) Be aware of what you’re downloading and mounting.īy default, Safari in Mac OS X will mount a disk image it has downloaded, as well as open other archives and such.
#ANTI VIRUS PROGRAMS FOR MAC INSTALL#
Just because we’re relatively safe from most malware out there, it doesn’t mean we should blindly open every file we come across and install each little piece of software. But, at least on a Mac, viruses and trojan horses are kind of like vampires: they can’t come in unless you invite them-with your admin password unlocking the door. So while you may not get a virus from opening an email, you can install something pretty darn awful if you’re not careful. There are, however, reports of “trojan horses” out there, most notably as of late “MAC Defender,” which poses as antivirus software that you download and install.
#ANTI VIRUS PROGRAMS FOR MAC MANUAL#
While in the Windows world, you can hardly log on to the Internet without encountering malware of one kind or another, we here on the Mac side of things have made it through relatively unscathed, especially under OS X.Īt this time, there are still no actual viruses for OS X out there “in the wild ” there have been some shown in demonstration but most, if not all, of them required actual physical access and/or a manual installation in order to work. As you can guess, it wasn’t particularly well-met.

A little over a year ago, we posted an article here on the OWC Blog that talked about why an anti-virus program on a Mac might not be a bad idea.
