Do I need anti-spyware, firewalls and anti-virus programs for the new mac I am planning to buy? I have an old PC and I really want to switch to ibook. But I am not sure about the above programs. So far I can only find Norton and not other brands for macs. Any comments/suggestions?
Mac OS X already has a nice firewall built-in. Just turn it on in the system preferrences -> network sharing menu.
The new macs on Tiger seem to live fine without antivirus but there are always other options. Norton works fine with my PB but when I upgraded to Tiger, I lost my antivirus. There are several threads here on anti-virus. Just go with whichever you're comfortable with. I'm currently using a Power Book and have started to get a lot of "virus emails". My mail keeps sending me "undeliverable mail" or "mail deliver failure". At the end of each mail, I'm informed that there's a virus. It's always a windows virus so it doesn't affect my system but it does get annoying. I just used my wife's powerbook to scan my computer as I set it to target drive. Seems fine right now. Bottom line, it's always good to have anti-virus! Hope this helps...somehow...
The new macs on Tiger seem to live fine without antivirus but there are always other options. Norton works fine with my PB but when I upgraded to Tiger, I lost my antivirus. There are several threads here on anti-virus. Just go with whichever you're comfortable with. I'm currently using a Power Book and have started to get a lot of "virus emails". My mail keeps sending me "undeliverable mail" or "mail deliver failure". At the end of each mail, I'm informed that there's a virus. It's always a windows virus so it doesn't affect my system but it does get annoying. I just used my wife's powerbook to scan my computer as I set it to target drive. Seems fine right now. Bottom line, it's always good to have anti-virus! Hope this helps...somehow...
For now, my suggestion is save your money and don't bother with anti-virus/anti-spyware for the Mac, there's no need for it.
