Virus Protection On Your Mac? Do You Need It?

Wednesday, August 24, 2005 | Commentary | Read or Post a Comment

Virus Virus protection king McAfee announced that McAfee Virex for Macintosh now supports Mac OS X Tiger?

What? There’s virus protection for Macs? Why? What’s it do? What’s it cost? Who needs it?

First, let me announce that my Mac gets viruses all the time. They’re usually embedded in email spam and aimed at Windows users. My email server uses Mac OS X Tiger Server which has a virus detection system built-in.

I get notified whenever an email message comes through and.... (excerpted).

7 Reader Comments

Mike Johnson said:

Regarding computer viruses. If I download anything from a Mexican website could my computer be infected with Swine flu.

Dudemeister said:

Dude, you don’t need virus software on your Mac. There are NO public viruses for the Mac, so no need for virus protection software. It’s a scam, fear mongering by software makers.

Vaughan Bonnell said:

You mention Virex for OS X Tiger, but what about OS 10.5 Leopard, do I still need a virus protection software, will Virex work with Leopard?

Jan Clausen said:

Strange. I would say that Comcast is mistaken, too. Maybe someone has hacked into your wireless network and is sending out email, but it’s not coming from your Macs. There are, to date, exactly zero viruses on the Mac that do that kind of thing. I would contact Comcast, ask them how they know it’s happening, and offer to unplug or turn off all your Macs, while they check again.

Jerry Baptist said:

Hi, Got the response from iggy pence. No PC connected but I do have a wireless network on the Mac Book. And I hope I did not pick up a virus on that one ? I’ve emailed comcast and asked them about McAfee, but them have not got back to me as yet. Thanks for the help iggy pence ( nice name)

iggy pence said:

If you’re using a Mac on your home network, and there’s no PC connected to it, then your Mac is NOT, I repeat, NOT sending out email spam. That’s very common on Windows PCs, but unheard of for Macs. I’d say Comcast is wrong.

Jerry Baptist said:

Hi, Comcast emailed me and said I have a virus and our computer(s) are sending out spam and we should do something, like downloading a copy of their free virus software, McAfee. But it’s for a windows machine when I tried to download it ? Using 2 Mac G5’s and a MacBook G5. Puzzled?

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