[Macworld]

Post your comments for Do you need antivirus software? here

[solitario]

I do use antivirus software, and the reason why I use it is the following: I am living in a world where many of my friend and family are using Windows. I don't want to be responsible for spreading a virus if I forward files I receive from one to another.
In other words, my motivation for using antivirus software is being a good neighbour.

[pgamble@mac.com]

My company and myself are Mac only. We have found you MUST have anti-virus installed. If you do not would be the host to many problems for your windows counter-parts. We used to not use anything but found that if we get a virus, it does not affect us, but when we send out that same file to a windows person it will infect them. This does not make for good client relationships. My recommendation is to use it so that you do not infect your windows friends and clients.
Cheers!

[garyi]

Thats all well and good, but what exactly to you suppose you will pass one from one to another? How do you anticipate this occuring?

[Chris Breen]

pgamble@mac.com said:

>when we send out that same file to a windows person it will infect them. This does not make for good client relationships. My recommendation is to use it so that you do not infect your windows friends and clients.

I might suggest as an alternative that you not forward files you know nothing about.

[Chris Breen]

garyi said:

Thats all well and good, but what exactly to you suppose you will pass one from one to another? How do you anticipate this occuring?

Can you try this again? I don't understand what you're asking.

[pgamble@mac.com]

These are files we know and use. Like bids for services or screeners for focus groups that come into our offices. We just have to place it safe. I feel running with out something is putting our clients at risks. I think its bad advice to not recommend using AV for business users. The complaints were so numerous before we had AV that we had to do something. I was hugely against AV on Mac but now its a necessity. Here is a blog post I did a while back of one that did infect us as well as most of our clients.

http://tinyurl.com/5tfrq5

Cheers!

[solitario]

To give you an example: I am planning a trip to Canada together with my parents and my brother. I receive proposals from travel agencies as Word documents. If one of them is infected with a virus, it won't harm me, but if I sent that file to my brother or my parents they will get infected (unless their anti-virus software catches it).

[solitario]

Chris Breen said:

I might suggest as an alternative that you not forward files you know nothing about.

The problem is, even though I know that a file I receive, for example, from a travel agency is legitimate in its information, I don't know if it is clean from viruses unless I scan it. Since my parents live 130km away and my brother lives 400km away e-mail is the most convenient way to pass on information, so I have to forward the document.

[Chris Breen]

solitario said:

I receive proposals from travel agencies as Word documents.

Previous versions of Word have a macro virus protection feature. Turn it on and you'll be alerted to macros attached to Word documents. On the latest version of Word, just save as or copy the text you want and send that.

[xStep]

solitario said:

I do use antivirus software, and the reason why I use it is the following: I am living in a world where many of my friend and family are using Windows. I don't want to be responsible for spreading a virus if I forward files I receive from one to another.
In other words, my motivation for using antivirus software is being a good neighbour.

If my neighbour is running Windows, should they not already be running antivirus software? If so, why should I run it on my OS X system? If not, then they are likely an educated user who believes they can avoid the problem.

[solitario]

[quote name='xStep']

>

solitario said:

I do use antivirus software, and the reason why I use it is the following: I am living in a world where many of my friend and family are using Windows. I don't want to be responsible for spreading a virus if I forward files I receive from one to another.
> In other words, my motivation for using antivirus software is being a good neighbour.
If my neighbour is running Windows, should they not already be running antivirus software? If so, why should I run it on my OS X system? If not, then they are likely an educated user who believes they can avoid the problem.

Being a good neighbour means doing what can reasonably be expected of you to keep people you interact with out of harm. With computers, it is my opinion that running antivirus software is a small burden that I should be taking onto me to prevent the spread of harm. If you don't feel like that, then that is your call. But at least I won't be getting the angry phone call if someone opens that file that was infected with a virus.

[XMattingly]

Hahaha... Windows virus protection = prophylactic utility. I'm single, so I get the punchline. :)
I'd say at this point in the game, whether or not you'd recommend virus protection to a Mac user would play on your gauge of their stupidity. Susceptible to downloading an unknown "plugin" from a porn site? Sucker for those "urgent action required on your PayPal account" scams? Or, just plain love to transmit 1's and 0's to PC's.
Most ordinary users with heads on their shoulders are probably fine for the time being.

[folklore]

I guess it makes sense for businesses to have AV software - the potential cost is great.
But if your concern is sending and receiving viruses attached to emails, doesn't it make more sense to put AV software on your mail server than to put AV software on each Mac? I'm not a IT pro - at least, not anymore - but wouldn't that resolve the potential "Ooops, we infected our customers with ."