9 replies to this topic

[rhythmboy]

Hey Mac heads,

I have an opportunity to get a free install of Norton Antivirus 10 from uni to install on my home computer, ostensibly to help prevent unwanted virus activity getting from my home computer to the uni's network.

Really tho is it worth doing? I'm just a bit suss about the marginal benefits of having it installed vs potential drop in real-time performance I may encounter.

Anyone had experience and can verify one way or the other?

BTW I've never had a virus on any of the 6 Macs I've owned since 1992...

[lightfoot]

i wouldnt,

as you say, ive never had a virus on a mac either, and we've had them since the mac plus days!

Just stear clear of the more 'dodgy' of porn sites and yah should be right

[Jester_Fu]

Nortons virus engine will be the same regardless of platform. Norton is really very bad at allowing configuration these days. The biggest problem with virus scanners is they try to check every file as it changes. This is where you get real performance issues. You can configure them not to do this... but Norton is very very hard to switch that functionality off. "Real time scanning" is what they call it. Resource occupation is what i call it! If you can switch the real time scanning type crap off, then the virus scan isn't an issue - let it run once a week while you're in down time and it'll make no difference. Leave it in real time and it's a resource hungry crack adict.

[rhythmboy]

Thanks guys that's what I thought. For a sec there it was 'yeah legit freebie!' but I can see the real-time scanning driving me mad and probably forgetting to manually run it anyway 

[neo]

LOL most "virii" these days are in fact exploits of security weaknesses in Windows...

[kraekl]

I heard today of a recent Trojan that takes photos of users via the built-in iSight... classic
it could happen to YOUUUU

[Jester_Fu]

RB - you can still run an auto scan so you don't forget... but you need to trun off the real time stuff. The scheduled one will just run once a week/day etc. depending on how you set it up.

Still, it's a pain in the arse... although having a photo of yourself posted on the web by some geek in turgistan who's sent you the iSight trojan is pretty scary ;D

[rhythmboy]

Cheers jester, spose there's no harm in giving it a try.

Actually my work machine got hit with a virus a couple of weeks ago, as did a few around the campus. Blue screen of death  :dead: Thank god for full time IT support who know what they're doing - got me back in action same day  :-*

[Luka]

ive had lots of malware try phish me lately (that is where they send those pages your computer is infected, then the subsequent 4 popups whne you try close the page init?) but i think thats cos ive been downloading from some dodge places. (please dont judge me!! hehe, just trying some software for my industry before paying $2000000 for it)

but ive used virus check and im clear
i thought i had a virus the other day, but it didnt do anything, i think i just inheritied a windows virus from some sample packs, but it wasnt able to launch in osx. virus check found that, then removed it

i use clamxav, its free, really deep, so much that you cant hit your whole computer at once
i did a big search round the interwebs and this is what the linux kids recommended, it is some other package wrapped in a osx gui

[maya12]

I have a user that tried to install the SAV 10.2.1 for Mac on an RC version of Snow Leopard v10.6 (10A432). In his words:

"I've installed the latest version that's out on the file server, 10.2.1, and receive the following error message windows (5 of them, actually) after either logging out or rebooting; this after installing a fresh version (see attached "SAV 10.2 Error.jpg"). I've tried updating SAV, then rebooting and these error windows still appear. Also, if you open SAV, you cannot 'Enable Symantec Auto-Protect', under the 'Symantec Auto-Protect' menu. "

Anyone experiencing the same issues? Is there a new version of SAV for Mac due out for this latest release of the Mac OS?