Can Apple get a Virus?

[tomax7]

I've been hearing all the hype and TV ad's that Apple can't get a virus.

How about spyware via Safari?

My wife's iMac duo OSX Tiger just recently (within the month) began booting up slow, loading items slow, and now can not connect to the local network either via wireless or ethernet cable at all.

My first thought was: virus. Second: spyware. Third: Microsoft conspiracy

;-)

Me being a Windows guy is trying to figure out how to attack this and find what is wrong, any help appreciated.

1. Is there a "registry" or msconfig one can look around and see what is running? Can I use Linux commands like 'service network start' and other Linux commands via Terminal window to fix things, like stop jobs?


2. Is there a "chkdsk" or defrag command? Apple says it doesn't need defragmentation. Ok fine, but I want to.

3. A side question, how many times can one reload/reformat Apple without having to 'call home' to authenticate it?

cheers
tom

[Viro]

Originally Posted by tomax7

1. Is there a "registry" or msconfig one can look around and see what is running? Can I use Linux commands like 'service network start' and other Linux commands via Terminal window to fix things, like stop jobs?

There is no registry. Thank goodness for that.

ActivityMonitor lists all processes that are running on the system at any one time. This allows you to see if there is any rogue process that is hogging all the CPU time. If you want a more command line approach, you can always go to the Terminal and type "sudo ps -aux" and that does pretty much the same thing.

2. Is there a "chkdsk" or defrag command? Apple says it doesn't need defragmentation. Ok fine, but I want to.

Google a tool called iDefrag. That's a cheap defragmenter that runs on OS X.

There is no need to defrag disks on most modern Unix file systems, and Mac OS X. It is a pointless task, that doesn't improve performance, but actually brings up the possibility of losing data. For a good explanation of why Linux (and modern file systems in general) don't need to be defragmented, have a read of this.

3. A side question, how many times can one reload/reformat Apple without having to 'call home' to authenticate it?

It *never* phones home, since there isn't a unique registration key with Mac OS X. If you bought 1 copy of Mac OS X and installed it on 1 or a billion Macs, Apple wouldn't know. Guess they rely on the users being honest people

[Mikuro]

There are no known instances of spyware for OS X. There are also no known viruses that can affect the current version OS X.


Viro is right about defragmentation. In addition to whta is discussed in his link, OS X has a built-in dynamic defragmenter. It's not perfect, but it's good enough to make defragmenting utterly pointless for most people.

I'm actually a proponent of defragmenting on Macs, but even so, I have to acknowledge these facts. Defragmenting is only useful in very specific cases. There's been quite a bit of discussion/debate/name-calling () about this on these forums. The search feature would probably bring up something (then again, the search feature here isn't very good...).

For general file system repair, try the command-line tool fsck. Or just use Disk Utility (preferably when booted from your OS X installation DVD).

[Satcomer]

The trick you might want to use is the free/donationware application called Yasu. Run this app and it should help you after the Mac reboots.

[macworks]

While Safari is, by far, still my favorite browser, it is not perfect. It uses quite a bit of RAM and disk cache. If she hasn't rebooted in a while or at least restarted Safari, restarting it may help.

As far as viruses are concerned, sure it's possible to get viruses, but with UNIX under the hood, Mac OS X is much less susceptible to them due to the multiple layers of file system security.

Reinstalling OS X is not likely going to do anything other than waste more time. Its possible that the hard drive has file system damage, so checking it with a repair tool is the smarter way to go. If you're only going to buy one tool for the Mac, get Alsoft's DiskWarrior and run that.

[Natobasso]

Originally Posted by Viro

It *never* phones home, since there isn't a unique registration key with Mac OS X. If you bought 1 copy of Mac OS X and installed it on 1 or a billion Macs, Apple wouldn't know. Guess they rely on the users being honest people

The only system install limitation I know of right now are device-specific OS X discs.

[Viro]

Originally Posted by Natobasso

The only system install limitation I know of right now are device-specific OS X discs.

They are system specific, but by model only. You could buy 1 copy of the Macbook system install discs and install them on a billion Macbooks and you wouldn't have any problems.

Well, actually, you probably would warp the discs from being used so much. And you'd take a few thousand years to do all of them. And all Macbooks come with system discs anyway. But the point is, there isn't a limit on the number of machines you can install OS X on, given a set of install discs.

[Viro]

Originally Posted by macworks

While Safari is, by far, still my favorite browser, it is not perfect. It uses quite a bit of RAM and disk cache. If she hasn't rebooted in a while or at least restarted Safari, restarting it may help.

He mentioned startup of the Mac being slow. I think it's a given that he has tried rebooting.

As far as viruses are concerned, sure it's possible to get viruses, but with UNIX under the hood, Mac OS X is much less susceptible to them due to the multiple layers of file system security.

There are no Mac OS X viruses out in the wild. This does *not* mean that you can forget about practicing safe computing (i.e. opening attachments from sources you know, etc). There is nothing inherently magical about Mac OS X. It just makes it more difficult for you to accidently do something that could fsck up your system.

Reinstalling OS X is not likely going to do anything other than waste more time. Its possible that the hard drive has file system damage, so checking it with a repair tool is the smarter way to go. If you're only going to buy one tool for the Mac, get Alsoft's DiskWarrior and run that.

Err... a reinstall *will* correct filesystem damage. However, it should always be a last resort as you need to make sure you back up your documents and settings, something that can be a pain to do.