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lizharb lizharb
 
M$5 March 31, 2009 07:50 PM

Virus protection for Mac

I'm looking for free or inexpensive virus protection for Mac with good quality protection from everything I could potentially have come my way. Although I'm continually told Macs don't need protection from malicious intruders, I wonder sometime if mine hasn't gotten infected. All of a sudden it has slowed so I can almost brush my teeth while a page is turning. My hard drive has plenty of space. A tech at Apple taught me to clean out the cashes and cookies, repair disk permissions, etc. and I do that regularly. It is as if my computer has someone else drawing on it causing the color wheel to spin almost endlessly at times.

Regards,

Liz
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Best Answer  Decided by Votes

hillo hillo
 
 March 31, 2009 08:17 PM
Try the free Mac OS antivirus software ClamXav here
http://www.clamxav.com/index.php?page=dl

As a rule, the Mac is not subject to attack (as are PCs) and therefore many of the paid/subscription services may not be necessary.

Installing proper firewall and other security measures will assist in keeping your computer and data safe. Backup mechanisms are important too.

Good luck.
Source(s):
I use the product, and
http://www.tuaw.com/2005/07/19/clamxav-1-0-1-released/



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yagelski yagelski
 
March 31, 2009 09:09 PM
I second this answer. ClamXav has worked well on my Mac Pro for a couple of years. And yes... it has caught viruses received via email. They were viruses intended to attack Windows machines, but they were still viruses nonetheless.

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orange orange
 
March 31, 2009 09:11 PM
I use ClamXav to scan certain files. You must remember though, the free version does not run in the background (scan in real time). You must manually scan files.

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hillo hillo
 
April 06, 2009 08:20 PM
Thanks for the tip. There is also a tutorial on Mac OS X 'securing your system' tips from Apple here's the link if you want to take a look yourself: http://www.apple.com/business/theater/?sr=hotnews/#tutorial=securingsystem?sr=hotnews.rss

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pats pats
 
March 31, 2009 08:05 PM
Macworld says - "If you're in the market for a fast-working antivirus program, VirusBarrier X5 (10.5.2) is the gold standard. It will protect your Mac without making your other work grind to a halt. Given that the upgrade price is only $25 more than renewing your virus-definition subscription, which you no doubt will have to do if you have an older version of the program, X5 is well worth the money. The Quarantine Zone offers an added layer of security that in itself is worth the upgrade."
Source(s):
http://www.macworld.com/article/134212/2008/07/virusbarrierx5.html


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mac5150 mac5150
 
March 31, 2009 08:49 PM
I use Sophos Antivirus for Mac. Works great for me and it's a pretty solid AV engine for Mac or PC
Source(s):
http://sophos.com
I use the product.


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ensorceled ensorceled
 
March 31, 2009 10:44 PM
If you are using a supported version of Mac OS X and keep it patched you should not currently need an AV solution.

Make sure you are using the Mac OS X firewall and have it configured to only share to machines you know of. If you connect to the internet it is recommended you use a router rather than put your Mac directly on the internet. Make sure you are not running a P2P program and do not have sharing enabled.

If you are having slow machine problems check what software you have running. Any time I've had a slow system, it was installed software that was the problem. I use "top -o cpu" on the command line to see what is running while things are slow.

If this does not help you *may* have a trojan running on the system. Get one of the free av systems and perform a scan. Clam AV is pretty good and will probably solve any problem you have if it is a virus.
Source(s):
http://db.tidbits.com/article/9511
http://developer.apple.com/DOCUMENTATION/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/top...
http://www.clamxav.com/


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