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Mac Anti-Virus

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Brooklands

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I know that there have been anti-virus discussions here before, but I do not remember any for the Mac OS-X. I just converted to an iMac and wondered if any other members here had any suggestions. I know that there are fewer problems with Macs, but even the Mac world has some malware, and then there is the fact that I could be passing PC Viruses to other Windows machines, or have a problem if I use BootCamp and run windows for a few programs that I still want from the old PC. Thanks for any suggestions.
 
If you are running Bootcamp (or VMWare/Parallels) to run Windows, you'll want to run the appropriate Windows virus software in those systems.

We run *a lot* of Macs here at the school district where I work and don't run anti-virus on them (we do on our PCs and our Mac servers). Viruses are just not as big an issue on a Mac.

In truth, with some careful web and email habits you don't need virus software on either platform. We have far more trouble with phishing scams then we do with viruses. It's this simple: why would a bad guy spend time doing complicated programming when they can just ask you for your password and have a reasonable chance that you'll just give it to them. We've had quite a few of our staff fall for that one.

One other thing to be aware of is the Microsoft Word/Excel macro viruses. These don't generally effect the Mac, but you can pass them on to PC users. So if you deal with a lot of MS files, just be careful.

Enjoy your Mac. I've used one for almost 20 years now and quite like it.
 
Thanks Drew,

You and my son agree...he uses his Mac in his job at a local college. I have not yet gone to BootCamp, so I am not installing any Windows software yet.

I used to block Excel Macros back in my work days, but now seldom receive any from others, just use them in in OpenOffice for my own files, but I will remain vigilant, and we still have two Windows machines in our local home network.

I am glad to be back in the Mac environment. I had an original 128K Mac and used Macs until about 15 years ago when corporate made them a luxury to own an extra computer.

I am trying to still figure out how to use my external backup drive to copy the files from the two PC's as well as backing up the Mac. I keep my documents on an external drive, so maybe I will move the backup drive to a PC and continue to run BounceBack for all the files. Do you have a better suggestion for me?

Thanks again.
 
Here's how I'm handling backups:

I keep all my stuff on the internal drive (both my work-issued Macbook and my Mac Mini at home). On both computers I attach an external drive and use Apple's Time Machine backup software (included with the OS). The laptop is plugged into the external drive all day, and is backed up consistently. The Mini at home uses Time Machine as well, but I only plug the drive in once a week or so. It will back up automatically then I just turn the drive off again.

I also use a service called Mozy (https://www.mozy.com) for backup on both these machines, and my wife's PC laptop. It's about $40/year per machine, and backs up an unlimited amount of data over the internet. The first upload takes some time (I had about 190gig on my home Mini) but then it's just incremental backup after that. I'm paranoid/religious about backups, so having a couple concurrent methods is key for me.
 
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