Antivirus applications - Do you need them?
I am a frequent visitor to an Apple centric community on orkut where I try to help new Mac users find their way around Mac OS X. A few days ago, a member posted a query about his new iPod, wanting to know whether the viruses on his (Windows based) computer could infect the iPod. The first person to reply warned him that it was possible and the second one posted a link to the story about the small number of video iPods shipping with a Windows virus to back up that opinion.
When I replied that both of them were wrong and that “iPods don’t get infected by viruses”, this guy asked me to “grow up” and posted a link to our own Devanshu Mehta’s article about “the iPod Virus” as a proof that iPods could get infected with viruses. I countered him, one thing led to another and we were soon discussing the security of Mac OS X and whether Mac users should bother with antivirus applications or not.
There are several theories that discredit the security of Mac OS X. The two most popular ones are that the the tiny market share of Macs is the only reason that malicious hackers and virus writers have been ignoring it so far and the other one is that if there are no viruses for the Mac platform, why does it have antivirus applications written for it.
I don’t intend to counter the first opinion in this column. It has been discussed and debated over endlessly and beaten to death in the blogosphere and overzealous Mac versus Windows cold wars. Instead, I want to tackle the second theory that the existence of antivirus applications for Mac OS X must mean that there is something to worry about.
The Internet, as you might know, is full of malicious websites trying to entice you to click on various links so that they can sneakily slip you an infected ZIP archive full of files that can harm your computer. Downloading something from the Internet is a voluntary activity and is completely unrelated to the operating system being used. So a Mac user is just as likely to download a batch of corrupted files from the Internet as a Windows user. After an infected file has been downloaded, however, it needs to find a match, the system that it was written for, the files that it can work its dark magic on so that it can harm the computer. What will the parasite cling to when there’s no plant in sight!
When a Mac user downloads a virus, it finds itself in an ocean without a raft and can do no harm. But sometimes, it gets swept up in a fishing net and thrown in a pond, an environment which it knows how to infect and then it becomes dangerous. There is antivirus software for Mac OS X, dear readers, but it is there to protect the virus from entering the pond, not to protect the ocean where it can do no harm. The antivirus applications on Mac OS X only seek to prevent you from sending infected files to your Windows using friends. These applications have definitions that enable them to detect Windows viruses and flag them down, not prevent them from harming Mac OS X.
The other end of the argument is that since Macs are rapidly gaining market share now, it is only a matter of time before they become just as much a target to viruses and other forms of malware as Windows is today and one can never be too prepared. Though I do agree that it is not impossible for Mac OS X to have its own dedicated fan following of viruses in future, installing an antivirus software in anticipation of that eventuality is a bit like suiting up in an armor and waiting in your home just in case you were attacked by a sword equipped ninja some day. It just doesn’t make any sense. The only researches I’ve seen so far that advise you to invest in antivirus applications are those that are funded by companies that sell such products themselves. Go figure!
So, the gist of the matter is that while one can never be too secure and we should not take security lightly, Mac OS X is one of the most secure operating systems out there in the present day and that is a gift. Mac users shouldn’t give up this huge advantage they enjoy in a fit of residual paranoia from their Windows using days. Windows has changed our mindset. It has forced us to accept it that a constantly running antivirus application should be part and parcel of any computer. We should free ourselves from that mindset and constraint. We have the freedom to visit any website we want, download anything we chance upon, click on any link we wish to, use any media that we can lay our hands on and yet walk away unscathed. Let us enjoy it while we can. If the Mac platform is seriously plagued by the problem of viruses and malware one day, you’ll know that the time has come and you’ll be prepared. Don’t worry.
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Comments
Excellent analogies. And it is definitely something I tell my Windows using friends considering the move to the Mac; that they do not need antivirus software and can save themselves that up-front and monthly cost.
It’s also important to tell anyone using a computer, regardless of operating system, that there are some general rules about internet usage. One of them is don’t give your admin password to ANYONE or any program unless it’s a trusted program from a trusted source. Some people dish that info out and still expect their computer to be 100% secure from all evils. And of course the OS maker gets blamed.
As a side note, if viruses do show up someday, there’s still a free option: ClamX AV. Free download, free updates, and it doesn’t run unless invoked, like any other application you have in your Applications folder. I’ve got it and have used it once to scan an email attachment going to a ton of Windows users. Otherwise, it sits there in the folder, idle, wasting no processor cycles, waiting to be called upon again.
As a relatively newly converted Mac user, I have to say it makes me uncomfortable to surf the web without virus protection in the traditional form with a PC.
I think what you have said makes sense but I wonder about the hackers out there. They are smart, relentless, and determined to do harm. And, I have to believe that it would be considered a major score for a hacker to ‘break’ Mac OS. If someone can hack the iPhone, what about Mac OS?
Of course, as anokajim points out, browse the net intelligently in the meantime. And, ClanX AV is quite easy to use.
you are well meaning but you fail to answer you own question.
If you use your Mac or Mac based network for business, especially if you exchange files with other -emails are files ya know- then you had better have your Mac protected.
While you will not suffer the effects of a Windows virus, the person you pass it on to may and boy I’d hate to be blamed for infecting a client’s network because THEY did not have adequate protection.
Your server and clients should be scanned continuously and be removing all infections, even Windows based ones…..
Windows has changed our mindset.
I do not use virus protection on either my Windows Vista machine or my Macs. Haven’t gotten a virus on my Vista machine in the year that I’ve had it, and obviously none on my Macs. The vast majority of viruses and spyware are spread via user carelessness, and there’s only so much virus software and the operating system can do to protect you from yourself.