OS X virus protection

i dont like norton cause it requires yearly up grade and as far as i know it only quarantines.

does apple or mac have an anti virus/trojan/spyware removal.

on serch most of them seem xtra generic.

my systems seem to pause when opening programs and webpages. Programs switch to not responding before they open. Today i did a google search and i was re-directed to this exe scanner.

email studders also.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

There aren't really any virus programs for the Mac because there aren't any viruses for the Mac. Once in a very great while you'll hear about somebody who demonstrated, in the lab, that a Mac virus could conceivably work, but there haven't been any reported in the wild since Mac OS X was released.

A Trojan horse is something else. That's when you download and run a program that poses as something legitimate but actually does something you don't want. But those can't affect your computer unless you specifically run them.

Basically, no, you don't have a virus or anything like that. If you've got a problem, it's something else.

you probably just need to do a house-cleaning. backup, reformat, reinstall. if youre not doing that at least once a year, im surpirsed youre not having MORE problems...

but as a side note - id bet money that you have some cheap, freebie, client-provided or web-downloaded font. that in my experience is a VERY frequent enemy of general happy-mac performance.

also, have you cleared your P-ram lately (or ever)?

the problem is mostly in opening programs (FCS2, Adobe...ect) and my browser takes about 30s or so to open the forum.

Macpro quad 3.0 / 7gig ram / x1900 v-card

the cpu is new (3month) and i house clean after every project.

House cleaning habits:
deleting unsed files
consolidating file type to a single folder with project named folders inside.
repair permissions
verifying disks

i did a pram rest about 2 months ago.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

BTW i dont really worry about fcp opening fast i have an ass of plugs : all natress, fx factory, paul crisp, indutrial rev., coremelt, ..... and at least 10 more. Same goes for motion.

fcp takes about 2-3 min to open.

adobe takes longer with no know plugs.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

that plug-in load may also be part of the problem. if you fill up your truck bed with 2000lbs of lumber, its not going to perform as well either. do you really NEED all that?

and trust me, if you have a bunch of knock-off, free (and poorly managed) fonts. that will slow down ALL your applications

Not so fast folks - there are indeed viruses for Macs - this is one that's been around:

[www.sophos.com]

and I recently had to download MacScan to get rid of a trojan horse virus (can't remember it's name, but it takes over your email and slows down apps opening, etc.)

The MacScan download is a free demo for thirty days.

[macscan.securemac.com]

As far as I know, Leap A was thought to really be a 'proof of concept' malware, because it worked so poorly as a virus, and in fact some guys who did some extensive testing on it found it very hard to infect each other. Here's their tests : [www.macworld.com]

And here's some stats (last updated in 2007) from [www.macworld.com]

OSX.Leap.A
Risk Level 1: Very Low

Threat Assessment
Wild

* Wild Level: Low
* Number of Infections: 0 - 49
* Number of Sites: 0 - 2
* Geographical Distribution: Low
* Threat Containment: Easy
* Removal: Easy

Damage

* Damage Level: Low

Distribution

* Distribution Level: Low

It's been 'in the wild' for two years now, and still less than 49 infections reported. Probably way less than 49. So not really a thing to be freaked about.

The problem with a lot of these virus reports is that they are written about in doomed tones by the same guys trying to sell you the software to get rid of them. Oh, the head of Sophos says you should buy virus protection? Imagine that.

By the way, I'll never say that no threat is possible, because for sure it will happen, one day. Right now, though, the cure is worse than the problem a lot of the time.

Leap A isn't even a virus. You have to manually open and run it. It's roughly equivalent to sending an email message to all your friends that says "OMG, you totally have been infected with a virus! Please delete all your files now!"

"OS X virus protection" is an oxymoron. There's no such thing as an OS X virus. Anyone that sells anyone OS X virus protection software probably has a few hundred plots of swamp land in the Everglades to sell as well. Great scam



When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I am not really worried about the cooties, its more about the trojans and spyware.

i did run that Mac Scan and it found 33 spyware apps.

Trojans i am unsure if they would be effective on a mac.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

I just downloaded and ran MacScan and it found nothing. It also helpfully managed to 'clean' five applications I don't actually have. Two applications I don't have it said it couldn't clean.

Maybe you need to go to less... interesting websites?

The thing is, don't open or download anything you don't know and trust. The world is full of idiots who think it's an achievement to make your life miserable.

For sure there is a twisted munt out there somewhere right now cackling evilly to him or herself about what destruction they will wreak on OSX as they type code all day. Our only hope is that they'll get on some chat and discover cyber before they finish debugging.

Actually, how did you get 33 spyware apps detected when it lists no spyware threats in its own dictionary? From what I can see, it lists ten trojans, 22 keyloggers and 3 remote admins, and some of these are OS 9 versions.

I will be looking into it more, but it seems a bit buggy, especially if it thinks you managed to get infected with every possible threat.

yeah I thought so too.

I took a look at the list and they are some weird looking names. I have no trojans but about the same key-loggers.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

I just ran Macscan and it found nothing -

Porn sites are the usual sites that infect windows PC -

When I used a PC a friend of mine would use my computer and
go to porn sites and would Crash my PC every time-
Finally I told him Not to touch my PC anymore -
solved the problem--Jay-

Quote
Jay Beeson 1
When I used a PC a friend of mine would use my computer and go to porn sites and would Crash my PC everytime-

Ever notice how it's ALWAYS a friend?

I'd avoid having softwares remove/"repair" machines that are operating fine. And yes, I tend to embrace abstinence on my edit suite.

PCs are a porn's best friend... and better yet, call up a girlfriend if inspiration is what you crave.



www.strypesinpost.com

we watch together for adventure sake. She started it.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

Just to drag the thread back to the original question....

I run MacJanitor on all the machines here, but you can do it manually in a terminal window.

sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

That cleans up all the monitoring and logging files that OS-X maintains. If that pile gets big enough, it can slow down your machine. If you never do this, it can take a while the first time.


Another thing that can slow your machine is too much storage. If your System is running on a bigger-than-all-outdoors hard drive, that will whack you big time. The system and applications should be installed on a small, fast drive and the data/videos/music can live on the big honker drives or attached storage.

But I agree loading a bazillion attachments, extensions, and plugins will kill you.

Koz

Yep it is truly a friend- Porn dose nothing for me -
Its like watching a video of stacks of money -
Cant spend it-- Cant touch it - -Jay

I had 178 warning fonts and 57 corrupt fonts.

that Mac Scan is not the answer.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"