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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Going slow and Norton AntiVirus

anamaria - Oct 24, 2006 - 4:32 pm

My internet is going extremely slow. Others in my house using PC's are not having this problem (using same network/service provider). My brother suggested Spyware, but there is none for MAC. I have done all software updates and it's still really slow.

Alos I have downloaded Norton Anitvirus definitions, is this the anti virus software? How do I run a virus check with it? When I click on it it goes to the installer. What should I install to run virus checks?

Thank you for your help!

Ana Maria
a_m_marques@yahoo.ca

- Oct 25, 2006 - 2:29 am

I switched to OS X in 2003. Feeling insecure and exposed without anti-viral software I purchased and installed Norton Antivirus, and I experienced the same problem as you. It two years ago and since then have never had a virus and never regretted removing Norton Antivirus.

The situation may deteriorate in the future but for the time being I can't see the point in installing antivirus software on OS X - personally, I will review the situation should OS X viruses become known...

I hope this helps you.

Best

IRG

stottm - Oct 25, 2006 - 4:35 am

IRG is right, there are no viable viruses or worms on the Mac yet. The worst I've seen is malicious programs that will hijack your computer or wipe a single users data. These are not viruses but trojans. Beware of downloading illegitimate software as hackers plant trojans in the software to take over your computer. As long as you are not attempting to steal software, you shouldn't have a problem. Don't run software from people you don't know and don't try to pirate software. Mac OS X security will prompt you for your admin id/pw when installing anything that can affect the overall system beyond your single user account. If you get a prompt you were not expecting, be suspicious.

If you frequently trade MS Office documents with Windows users, you may wish to still have an Anti-Virus scanner, may I recommend ClamXav which is a Unix virus scanner that comes with a nice OS X GUI to scan files.

Norton and McAfee on Windows are responsible for some serious slow downs. The Mac OS X version is no different. I agree with IRG you don't need Norton AV.

ClamAV is the engine behind ClamXav (OS X version) and it's heavily used on enormous email systems to scan for viruses on Linux email servers. It's open source and is frequently updated with new virus definitions (descriptions about new viruses). Some claim it's updated more frequently and faster then even Norton AV.

http://www.markallan.co.uk/clamXav

ClamXav is donationware pay if you like it and find it useful. The actual scanning engine is called ClamAV and is open source. The ClamXav gives you a Mac OS X gui rather then just the Unix command line interface to ClamAV.

Apple ships Mac OS X Server with and included ClamAV scanning engine. This is to scan email attachments on Mac OS X Server's email server and to scan volumes shared on the network.