New to Mac - Which AV and Mail App?

MagicBoy said:
Faustus in calling people dumb shocker.

There are no OS X viruses out in the wild apart from the dodgy torrent sites. I don't use them therefore there is no risk.
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Take a look at the history of man, and you doubt man's dumbness? Ah! Ignorance sure is bliss eh? :rolleyes:
 
Having AV at least gives people the opportunity to detect viruses in their machines, more which happens in PCs of course... naturally if you are going to use it there is the additional responsibility of keeping it up to date, but like you say, if people want to be protected, they need to put the effort in, whatever route they decide to take, whether its staying away from sites like that, running and updating AV, or not even browsing the web.
 
dav3evans said:
Torrent sites are hardly untrustworthy these days, and what about people that aren't fully aware of what they consider to be trusted or untrusted? Something could look perfectly legitimate and not be, Warez or otherwise. You can't assume everyone has the same proficiency in browsing the internet.
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Torrent sites are still the Internet equivalent of being given copied DVDs by a stranger in a back alley. You have no idea what you're getting, so you better know what you're doing.
 
Faustus said:
Take a look at the history of man, and you doubt man's dumbness? Ah! Ignorance sure is bliss eh? :rolleyes:
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Out comes the rolleyes. Lovely.

I'm not dumb, therefore I don't need anti-virus. Work the rest out for yourself.


Vonhelmet said:
Torrent sites are still the Internet equivalent of being given copied DVDs by a stranger in a back alley. You have no idea what you're getting, so you better know what you're doing.
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+1
 
Vonhelmet said:
Torrent sites are still the Internet equivalent of being given copied DVDs by a stranger in a back alley. You have no idea what you're getting, so you better know what you're doing.
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I'd be surprised if anyone knew what they were doing straight away..you've got to learn somehow. No one in the world is gifted with mad internet skills from the day they were born, I concede people need to learn AND it isn't to be taken as a fail safe for everything but it can have it's benefits. People are bound to stumble across dodgy stuff from time to time, and for those lesser equipped to either know, or deal with the situation it can help.

This is all getting a little bitter anyway! @That Guy only wanted some advice on what he could go for.. I think between all of the comments on idiots ignorantly using the internet there is enough in here for him to decide...I'll quietly withdraw before I get caught in the cross fire between Faustus an MagicBoy!
 
Bit sharp that; though to be fair the only person who ever seems to stick up for AV is Faustus, even all the mods (UB etc.) see no need for it - surely collectively we are not that dumb.

I vote for a ban on AV threads on macs, this is the third in as many days which has gone pear shaped
 
feriso said:
Bit sharp that; though to be fair the only person who ever seems to stick up for AV is Faustus, even all the mods (UB etc.) see no need for it - surely collectively we are not that dumb.

I vote for a ban on AV threads on macs, this is the third in as many days which has gone pear shaped
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First time I've ever posted about AV for Mac so not sure where your info comes from? Point is you may or may not need it but as it's free and doesn't swallow system resources why not have it as an extra layer of insurance/security call it what you will?
 
I find all this talk of dumb slightly offensive. I choose not to use AV and I've thought carefully about it. Call it an ill-informed decision by all means, but don't call me dumb.

I'll quite happily bow to better knowledge if someone can prove there are OS X viruses out in the wild and spreading. From what I've read the only people actively making noise about viruses/malware for OS X are the security software vendors who *suddenly* find a potential vulnerability. Let's face it - they are promoting their own products.

PCs running Windows are a completely different matter. I install Anti-Virus software on them straightaway and make sure it's getting updates before they go anywhere near the internet. I've seen the damage a virus can do in a corporate environment and the amount of engineer time spent cleaning the mess up.
 
That Guy said:
Taking the Plunge soon and and switching from Win7 to OSX :)

Just wondering which Anti-Virus to use? looking for something that has a light footprint and is free would be great.

Also which Email App? is the standard Mail App any good? I have a Gmail Email Account and a Google Apps Email Account.

Thanks in Advance :)
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Did the same myself a good few months back. Don't regret it one bit.

AV is a swings and roundabouts thing, aye, Sophos is free, decent and low footprint relatively. I reckon you'd have to go out of your way to get a Mac infected though, as others have said in this thread.

Personally, I've not seen anything out there in my own web plodging to get even remotely close to getting poxxed, but ymmv and all that.

That being said, I do run Sophos out of habit from experience of seeing our idiotic web guys "find" web bugs and some other stuff that's logged on our central SAV console.... they're now force proxied through our Sophos Web Appliances and have console managed and monitored AV because they can't be trusted. At home though, neither I nor the wife and the rest do anything remotely daft enough to find what our web monkeys found though, but best safe than sorry.

As to Mail.app, that's what I'm using with 3 GMail accounts and 1 Google Apps account. Works perfectly for me and I'm happy with what it offers.

Mods, is it worth adding something about Sophos (and other AV, maybe) given that this little gem of a question pops up quite a bit?
 
MagicBoy said:
I'll quite happily bow to better knowledge if someone can prove there are OS X viruses out in the wild and spreading. From what I've read the only people actively making noise about viruses/malware for OS X are the security software vendors who *suddenly* find a potential vulnerability. Let's face it - they are promoting their own products.QUOTE]

I've reported a couple of incidents to our support contact at Sophos through work. I suspect they're just generic web bugs, not Mac-specific, but it's best to report anything odd it finds.... We've only a few Macs and they're used by people who REALLY should know better, who think they're better, but who've proven they're dafter than some by miraculously finding malware that's flagged while they're using their Macs!

I'm not an expert in AV by any measure, I just manage our infrastructure and I'm just reporting what I've come across.

For reference, the amount of rubbish our Sophos Web Appliance and desktop SAV clients block from our Windows users "just surfing" is ridiculous. Our Board won't allow us to restruct the rights of staff as to what they do, even with overwhelming evidence they struggle to get through a day without spending time surfing instead of working!
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OK on another note, whats the best package for burning DVDs, Audio CDs and Data?

Was looking at Toast but looks a little bloated for what I need, any other alternatives?
 
OS X will do the basics for all three out of the box.
Data - Finder
ISOs - Disk Utlility
Audio - iTunes

Toast is a bit bloated to be fair.
 
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