thedjjams wrote:
There are quite a few Mac virus / malware that has come out over the years.
A few. A total of 51 in all the years Mac OS X has existed. All of which are currently extinct, because they either won't work on current versions of Mac OS X or are blocked by the anti-malware features of recent versions of Mac OS X. There is no currently known malware capable of infecting Mac OS X, and though the possibility of unknown malware exists, anti-virus software can't protect you against that.
I personally have used Sophos AntiVirus for Mac for the past few years.
I used to recommend Sophos to people who insisted on using anti-virus software, but it is no longer as low-profile as it used to be. Sophos has been causing more problems for Mac users recently, and I no longer recommend its use.
I am including some links on the matter below.
It's important to keep a few things in mind with regard to those links. The Tom's Guide article is very light on actual information about how they evaluated the software they reviewed, and the site is littered with advertising, including some for anti-virus software. That review should be considered potentially biased.
Similarly, the AVTest site receives payment from anti-virus companies for the testing they do, so there's definitely potential for bias. Their testing of malware detection seems to be pretty close to my own results, so that's probably good data... but, it's only one data point. My own testing data has been routinely misinterpreted by people who believe that because Avast tops the detection rate list, that makes it good. (In actuality, I strongly recommend against Avast for a variety of reasons.) Paying too much attention to just detection, or just how fast a Mac can copy files while anti-virus is installed, and not to other issues is a very serious error.
The Intego article you linked to is a bad link, but if you Google it, you'll find that some of the information there is good, but other points are weak at best. One points out that some malware has gotten past the anti-malware features of Mac OS X, without mention of the fact that 1) that malware also got past anti-virus software at the time, or 2) those anti-malware features were still not entirely complete at the time. Another point is a straw man argument. (I've never seen anyone arguing that Mac malware doesn't affect "real people," so arguing that it does is meaningless.)
Now, let's consider something else... because both Mac OS X and anti-virus software are not strong against brand new threats, and because they are also not strong against things like adware (which is not really malware), neither one can be relied on for full protection. Yet the installation of anti-virus software is often treated by users as full protection, which leads them to behave in unsafe ways under the false belief that they are safe. Thus, running anti-virus software can actually be more harmful than good!
For more information, see my Mac Malware Guide.
(Fair disclosure: I may receive compensation from links to my sites, TheSafeMac.com and AdwareMedic.com.)
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