While what you say is accurate enough, I’ve been hearing this for years. Decades possibly.
When and if Macs start getting targeted with viruses, I’ll consider screwing around with an antivirus program for my Mac. In the unlikely event that my machine gets hit with one in the interim, I can restore a full backup from Time Machine with minimal loss of data.
You sir, are easily the most likeable Mac user that has ever been. Seriously.
If you want malware, get a PC, if you don’t, Macs will be without malware forever. Even after computers no longer exist.
Most malware these days has a profit aspect to it. Max profit comes from the biggest number of potential victims. In that case, making a Windows based program makes the most sense. However, the people that designed Apple software knew what they were doing. By strategically removing options from the customer’s control, greatness was achieved.
To this day, Windows users continue to do business with networks “totally prone to viruses and shit brah”. Apple users are immune though, as their products have zero problems at any time.
That’s right folks, Macs are absolutely magical and there has never been and never will be any exploits for them.
Believe me, I’m FAR more aware of Mac OS X threats than you are…
Okay then. In that case, stop swanning around like you’re superior, because we are all completely over it.
No, I don’t think I will.
When it comes to Macintosh expertise, there are very few people who have more than me, and those are the only ones I will defer to.
I absolutely understand this. I have mentioned it in other threads, that I’m sure my complacency will one day screw me. But until I get that very first virus, I’m fine with taking the risk. I fully understand OS X is vulnerable. But the fact of the matter is, I’ve never gotten a virus on any of my machines in over five years, while my old XP desktops managed to get viruses every couple of months, even though they were running anti-virus protection (Kapersky IIRC, updated regularly, as well as Windows Defender). So, until Mac viruses do finally hit the mainstream, I’m willing to risk not running anti-virus software.
I do think that Macs will become more targeted and we may one day have to run anti-virus protection with regular updates like Windows users. For the time being, though, I’ll enjoy surfing the web bareback.
I think “users of non-windows OSes need not reply” would have made this thread more useful.
I’m curious about the windows users who think they can just be careful. Do they not use email at all? Do they never click on hyperlinks? Never download any kind of file or software? What do they use their computers for?
I do run antivirus because I don’t trust the people who may lay hands on my keyboards, but I haven’t gotten a virus ever.
What do my mother and brothers do?
No virus scan or firewall here for several years. I do have a router so I am protected by NAT somewhat. I download torrents, I don’t run noscript, and open emails without acting like I am about to catch HIV. Never avoided something I wanted to do, out of fear of a virus.
You know, in my decade-plus of Windows use, I always had antivirus software running, and considered it a necessity, but in thinking about it, I don’t believe I ever saw it catch a single piece of malware. The one virus I did get was virtumonde, which sneaked right past Avast, and which I had to download special targeted software to get rid of.
I dunno, maybe my AV software was catching viruses left and right and just not notifying me, but in retrospect I wonder if maybe I could have done without it, for as much good as it did me.
Windows user here, running no anti-virus since (checks watch) 1995.
I download lots of stuff, including warez/pr0n/pirated stuff, through all kinds of potentially illicit channels like IRC, NNTP, and Bittorrent.
Never had a virus. I’ve always run a good firewall, always kept my computer patched (much easier now with automatic updates), never used a local email client (gmail scans for viruses, and chrome checks for potentially malicious links). That’s really all it takes.
I’m not encouraging anyone to surf bareback, but here are the rules of thumb:
E-mail infections come from downloading executable content from unknown sources, following links where the URL doesn’t match the text, or some passive danger in the e-mail text itself such as IFRAME. Look carefully at the URL before clicking, and use a non-Microsoft e-mail client such as Thunderbird (or stick to GMail).
Don’t use Internet Explorer. If possible, do your browsing as a non-admin or keep UAC turned on.
Turn on the status bar in your browser so that you’ll see most URLs before clicking on a link.
If you’re surfing outside your usual neighborhood (if you’re exploring a site about some Russian probe-and-drogue docking apparatus, say), be mindful of what you’re clicking. In general, avoid porn sites. The cheaper/cheesier the site looks, the less safe it is. If it has blinking lights or pop-up ads for casinos, beware.
Install software from reputable sources (commercial stuff or shareware or freeware from sites with some sort of virus-scanning policy, or open-source stuff from verifiable sources).
Oh, and don’t use Internet Explorer.
It’s all common sense, really.
I used Windows with no AV for a long time without disaster. To be honest, it was dual boot with Linux, so most of NY arseing about was in Linux, booting to windows only for Photoshop, games, etc. If I used the internet, not with IE. I am diligent about applying security updates.
At the time, AV software did not offer enough protection beyond common sense to make it worth the overhead. (After all, if I’m running Windows it’s because I need to use a CPU and memory-intensive app.)
Now I run MS Security Essentials, because it isn’t a resource hog at all and doesn’t nag me to upgrade to a pay version every six months, and also because I am no longer assured of being the machine’s only user, what with the family.
I don’t. As long as i am the only one using my computer there is zero issues. I have to clean the computers of my family members for viruses constantly and they all use AV software. I do use email, i do click links, i am on the computer practically all my free time.
If you don’t want to hear from all the people, like me, who’ve always had a Mac, never used AV software, and never had an issue, then you should have specified so in the title.
Because without that, the question seems designed to get such responses from Mac users, which seems to annoy you for some unknown reason. I’m just saying.
You can always tell when you’ve irritated a Mac user because you can see their soul patch bristling.
I have a Windows computer, and while I do have antivirus software on it, it’s not actually caught anything for years.
I use gmail for my email, and Chrome for browsing. For a virus to propagate to me through email, the writer would need to exploit Gmail itself and the browser and Windows. That’s not particularly easy to do, and even if it was accomplished briefly, Google’s likely to notice and stop it very quickly. I’m unlikely to be one of the very first people who gets such an email, before Google’s able to stop/filter them.
I click on links, but not blindly. Yes, there are exploits out there, but many of them are pretty unsophisticated. Just like most spam messages, they’re not hard to notice if you know how urls work.
I download things, but from reputable places. If you’re not going to random websites and executing arbitrary code, the danger is greatly lessened.
I’m not suggesting that any of this is ironclad. But, then, neither is antivirus software. Antivirus software generally protects you from only known threats. But so do all the other systems we use. One of the upsides of the walled gardens like Google and Facebook are that it’s much more difficult for malicious code to spread, because there’s a powerful engineering force with a huge incentive to keep things safe. Add that to the fact that more and more work is done in web browsers, and browser makers are getting better and better at sandboxing, and the risk certainly seems to be decreasing over time.
I know. I’ve been living on borrowed time since 1998, when I got my first iMac. 
A few years ago, my laptop got infected by malware, even though I paid a nice sum of money for a subscription to McAfee to ensure that I didn’t get infected. Their response was that they can’t catch EVERYTHING. After spending hours trying to get rid of the Malware, I finally just did a System Restore. Lost a lot of software, including MS Office (which I had downloaded instead of paying for a DVD version).
Instead of ponying up again for useless McAfee, I decided to take advantage of TimeWarner’s FREE security software (cNet?) when I bought a new tower PC. It slowed things down quite a bit, and it was a minor PITA, but worked fine for a few months… until then I got my daughter an iTouch for Xmas. She tried to update her iTunes software, but it refused to run. Hours and hours of time wasted, I finally found the issue. You guessed it: The security software was prohibiting it. (And the iTouch had been out for years, so it wasn’t like this was a new issue.)
When I got an iPad, I removed the security software so that I could update iTunes and download all my iTunes records without headaches. I had every intention of reinstalling it afterward. But, it was like a cloud had been lifted from my PC. It ran much quicker, and I no longer had to deal with the incessants McAfee pop-ups and security queries. Updates were no longer a PITA to install and run.
So I’ve been running without protection (except Microsoft Essentials) for over a year now. So far, so good. I also have a wireless router, which I believe has a firewall in it, but who knows?