Re: Macs never get viruses
 

Just out of Interest has anyone with a Mac on here ever had a virus.

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

I have one. It never has. It has never had any AV software on it either.

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

Since you don't have any av how do you know? not alll viruses causes wierd system behaviour.

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

Which documented Mac virus do you have in mind?

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

Can't name specifics but I don't see that being relevant. Most trojan or back door viruses and their variants Are designed not to cause system disruption until used, as any abnormal system behaviour would alert the user and that is counter productive.

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

Used to get a few old Duobooks coming in with a virus problem back in late 90's but not had much experience with MACs since

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

It's very relevant. You suggest I don't know I've never been infected, and postulate that my system could be infected by malware that wouldn't cause abnormal behaviour, such that I wouldn't know it was there.

Your entire reasoning is based on your assumption that such malware even exists for the Mac. Hence my request that you justify that assumption.

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

I don't see how it is relevant as I'm not claiming your system is infected I'm just pointing out that not having av your assumption that your system is clean is a pretty big stretch.
And again though I couldn't name specific examples I did name a category of virus that by its very nature does not disrupt a system because it is counter productive to the viruses goals and I can assure you that there are plenty of examples of that particular group on the mac.
However, if a name will really make you happy The Backdoor.OSX.HellRaiser virus is quite effective and it does exactly what I said earlier.

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

That's a trojan, not a virus.

---------- Post added at 16:15 ---------- Previous post was at 16:14 ----------

BTW, I've never had a virus, trojan or any other kind of malware on any of my computers, Mac or Windows.

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

You detect them with av so my point is still valid ;). Just not necessarily in line with the OP.

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

Just to point out if someone claimed this about a Windows machine you would have extremely strong doubts. Claiming a machine that has never had AV software on it has never been infected by anything is a stretch regardless of the OS it runs.

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

Not if there is very few viruses documented for an OS it isn't..

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

Nope still most unwise to assume anything, even if the balance of probabilities is in your favour. What's assumption the mother of Damien? ;)

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

I think you can say your pretty safe. Otherwise you would be doing far more than is needed on the small off chance that you happen to be infected with an as yet unheard of viruses. Mac OSX has a the firewall on be default, a lot of people even on windows run without a anti-virus because of the performance hit. As long as you act sensibly you would normally be ok.

Don't get your last sentence.

Re: Macs never get viruses
 

well said plus its pretty nieve to think that its safe to use the internet without AV.