Mac.LTL

I usually hear two sides of the argument for installing or not installing anti-virus software on your Macintosh.  Usually I hear from Mac enthusiasts, “Macs don’t get viruses.”  And usually I hear from I.T. guys mostly working with Windows, “When a virus for the Mac is released in the wild, I want to be ready.”

I think there’s some good points to both sides, actually.  Users interface with the Macintosh in a way unique to Windows, and you don’t want to muddle that up with a disruptive and distracting anti-virus application.  Mac people don’t want their computer to run slower from scans, receive update alerts, and have additional icons clutter their menu bar and dock.  Macintosh users do not want a Windows experience on their Mac.

However, if you’re in I.T. and supporting Macs in a business, security is a concern.  No matter how much security you have, you can always have more.  So it’s important to do a risk assessment when securing your I.T. infrastructure.  (I’ve found risk assessments are rarely done among the average I.T. crowd and when you ask them about why they switched to stronger encryption or strengthened the password policies, they really can’t justify it.  But that’s another topic.)  Macintoshes are probably at very low risk of being infected by a virus and so you have to decide what kind of benefit you’ll get from investing the man hours and purchasing software to deploy anti-virus on a hundred Macs when there really aren’t any viruses for the Mac that they are in danger of being infected by.  However, there is something to be said for the common argument I hear, “I want to be prepared for when a Mac virus is released.”

Well, regardless of those two arguments, I think there’s one particularly good reason for running anti-virus on your Mac.  Pretty much all computers are networked and on the internet.  Macintoshes have to interact with Windows PC’s and other platforms.  Keeping anti-virus software on your Mac helps prevent the spread of viruses to other platforms that are more vulnerable to viruses (Windows).

Imagine receiving an E-mail with a Windows virus.  You receive the E-mail on your Mac.  You don’t have anti-virus and so you don’t realize a virus was sent attached to the E-mail.  You then forward the E-mail to a friend or colleague.  At best, you’re embarrassed by sending a virus to someone once their anti-virus detects it and they tell you.  At worse, they get their computer infected by a virus that you sent them.

I’ve used Symantec, Intego, and ClamXav for anti-virus on a Mac.  If you’re going to use anti-virus on your Mac, I would suggest trying ClamXav.  It’s not very disruptive to the Mac experience and it’s free.

In the name of full disclosure, I do not run anti-virus on my Mac