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I have found a great new use for my Mac Mini - a new machine for my wife!

But before I put it online do I need to worry about viruses ? It'd feel very strange to send it into the world absolutely "naked".

Are there any good free Mac OSX apps to use ?

thanks for any advice

i don't think there really are any.....yet...macs don't really have a virus problem that i know of. there are a lot more windows machines to write for....

What, Mac users aren't at risk from malicious scripts, spyware, worms, trojans etc ? That's curious.

afaik, it's because symantec's original templates were for pc.....



....just kidding...

So you seriously think it doesn't need *anything* ?! I've been so conditioned by PC security I don't know that I'll be able to get used to that...

There's such a thing as a false sense of security

If you've got your DAW un-wired & a separate system online, who cares.

Although i'm intrigued by the thought of secure hardware so feel free to extrapolate.

I never had one single virus or whatever attack on my totally unprotected mac.
For years and years
I don't use any firewalls or anti virus software

But since a few years I have a router (to feed my pc also), it seems to protect of it's own (dynamic adress or something).
Spirit, just try it, there's very little chance things go wrong, and it's not your main machine
cheers

You can still get antivirus stuff for mac, the products are out there.. I've just never heard of anyone using it. I guess security holes do exist, but it seems like not too many people are exploiting them. Dunno, maybe because macs aren't corporate backbone material or something.

Anyway, it's nothing to freak out about. My 2 powerbooks that I've owned, and my wife's ibook has been virus free and we've been downloading all sorts of stuff on them. That's over a span of about 3 years.

Incidentally, my pc's been virus free for over 10 years with no antivirus... so I think there's also a false sense of danger. Of course, I also have a keen sense of the dos and don'ts of strange files because I used to experiment with viruses and trojans as an anarchist middle schooler. lol

It all just seems so odd to me, like someone says "oh, just take all your clothes off, this is a nudist area". Well, yeah, but, ah...

Thanks for the advice

On 2005-08-28 06:57, stardust wrote:
Here is a Mac addict biased article that might give some insight.
http://www.macobserver.com/editorial/2003/08/29.1.shtml

thanks Stardust, nice reading
so Spirit, not one virus found for OS-X, what are you waiting for?

OK, I'll do it. But I'll come running back here all redfaced and sobbing if I get infected. Assuming I can tell if I'm infected

The main threat is those online romances.

Spirit, this is an old tip against specific worms (virus?) using your email adress book to spread.
Make sure your first adress in the alpfabetical list is named something like 000!!!, followed by an 'empty' email adress.
The virus can't get thru then, they say
It's my only protection, in favour of my friends pc's that is

Thanks for that tip Hubird.

By the way I've been doing a lot browsing with the Mac - the web sure looks different on a Mac. Most of all I'm amazed at how many sites display incorrectly ! I've tried ie for Mac (not good) and Safari (maybe a little better), but both give a poor result.

Looks like a hell of a lot of web developers never bother to check compatibility for Macs...

I've decided that those sites can't be interesting...
It depends where you go...specially some pc oriented online shops show badly or act terrible.

Internet banking the same, OS9 was often not equally supported (like no international paying), and updates for OSX always come later I guess.
I have a pc upstairs for emergencies
Maybe the switch to Intell will improve things automaticly, but I could be completely wrong with it

Device: You cant have it all

PS. the tip came originally from At0mIc, if memory serves

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2005-08-29 20:34 ]</font>

Spirit,

Most of all I'm amazed at how many sites display incorrectly !

A lot of people haven't realised or contemplated that most HTML web pages are not XHTML compliant & need to be ported into a more stripped down & structured form. There's plenty online validators which will check code & point out the errors needing fixed for XHTML 1.0 compliance.

I've tried ie for Mac (not good) and Safari (maybe a little better), >but both give a poor result.

Safari should view all XHTML compliant pages perfectly.

Looks like a hell of a lot of web developers never bother to check compatibility for Macs...

It's a headache when you think that by the time evryone's caught up with XHTML, there will inevitably be something new brandishing it's own set of headaches. Ah, such fun


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: BushBasher on 2005-08-31 06:32 ]</font>

Since this is a sort of Mac-browsing-blog now, thought I'd report great success using Firefox for Mac. It has some of the "feel" of IE (which I happen to prefer over safari), and also seems to be a lot better at displaying poorly coded sites.

It's growing on me. And I moved it into position for my wife today the improvement over the very sick old laptop she used to have means she's thrilled. Or maybe more accurately, she didn't really notice much difference except for the bigger screen & keyboard ....

Mozilla seems to be handling XHTML much better than IE at the moment.

I'm working on an XHTML project & IE6 is displaying total garbage while Mozilla, Safari Opera etc are displaying the code perfectly.

After more tha 15 years on a Mac, the only virus I had was a Microsft Word Macro.... (Cap.A) ...A long time ago.
E.

Meanwhile I have just reinstalled on my main PC web machine: Norton Internet Security, many XP security patches, Hijack This, AdAware and Spybot