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matblacke... matblacke...
 
February 10, 2009 09:07 AM

What virus checker should I use for a Mac and free?

My girlfriends macbook is acting funny
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fjpoblam fjpoblam
 
 February 10, 2009 06:18 PM
Visit their website: what ClamXAV does is, NOT scan your Mac itself for viruses, but rather scan files for viruses lest you transfer viruses WITH those files when you send them to a Windoze machine. See the difference? The viruses won't attack yer Mac, just the Windoze machine for which they're destined.

I tried and tried and tried and tried (believe me I tried REALLY hard! appleinsider, arstechnica, other places where people should be WILLING to gripe!) to find someone anyone to admit there's malware on a Mac. I've been using Windoze all these years and just couldn't believe there's no malware on Macs. Not yet, apparently, just like bernz says. So fetch a copy of ClamXAV if you're gonna send any files to Windoze pals (which you likely will). Else, don't sweat it for now.


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matblackex... matblackex...
 
February 10, 2009 09:58 PM
Thats the thing there is. a little while back there was a malware that gave somone control over your web cam and another that logs key strokes. And there has been others. I listen to a podcast called secuitynow and at the begining of each they talk about whats been happening in secuity. More and more they are talking about mac thing. Mac is just to populer now for it's own good.

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psy2k psy2k
 
February 10, 2009 11:34 AM
I use Clam Xav on both my MacBook and iMac. Its light, free and is updated with new virus definitions daily. You can get it from here:
Source(s):
http://www.clamxav.com/


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matblackex... matblackex...
 
February 10, 2009 10:00 PM
I have downloaded it and have run it. 3 so far but they were all .exe files. It was the facebook one a while back.

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bdegrande bdegrande
 
February 10, 2009 02:38 PM
ClamXAV, but there is really no point until there is an actual virus in the wild. All you are doing now by running an antivirus package is slowing your Mac down. Install it, run it periodically for peace of mind, but don't leave it resident. Once a real world virus appears, and the antivirus makers react to it, then run antivirus regularly.

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matblackex... matblackex...
 
February 10, 2009 09:51 PM
That is the problem there are some in the wild and my girlfriend just downloads and click on anything with out even thinking about it.

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bernz bernz
 
February 10, 2009 05:22 PM
It's almost certainly not malware (virus/trojan/etc) because the OS is an "annoying" target platform for malware authors -- 'nix-like systems are so diverse (in their actual file system layout, etc) that it's just not worth the bother (yet). Perhaps you can elaborate on "acting funny" -- computers are rather complicated, and there's a lot of stuff that could cause "funny" behavior without needing the help of malware. ;-)

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matblackex... matblackex...
 
February 10, 2009 09:54 PM
The browser just stops while loading a page. I have sen the same thing with windows machines and it was because of malware sending info or trying to do a redirection.

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bernz bernz
 
February 11, 2009 06:14 AM
The browser can stop loading for many reasons; it's best to actually trace some traffic and see what's going on before concluding it's malware that's causing your problem. http://wireshark.darwinports.com/ will show you to a nice traffic analyzer. If you stop all browsing activity (close all browser instances), and still see unexpected traffic, it *could* be suspicious, but there are still many "legit" processes that send and receive minor amounts of traffic.

Another excellent exercise would be to get a process list ('ps aux' or similar; do 'man ps' to get the info) and investigate each one to see if it's familiar (e.g. "ftpd" might be an ftp server -- but are you even running one? if not, that's suspicious! and so on).

Good luck!

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