Anti-virus - what is the best free option today?

[[AK]StitchJones]

AVG has been a great program and has worked like a dream for me up to this point.

[[AK]Squidly]

OS X

[[AK]Clay]

OS X

I sometimes wonder about that. The claim is that Apple is virus free, because it's a different OS. The counter claim is that because it has such low market share, no one bothers to write a virus for it. If that counter claim is true, that's not a comforting position. All it takes is for someone to decide he doesn't want to be a me-too virus writer, but really make a name for himself and stand out. And so target Apple.

I'm not sure how these things work though. The way virus' propagate, maybe they basically can't propagate if something has a low market share - because there's not enough "hosts bodies" out there to keep the strain alive.

[[AK]StitchJones]

With an Unix based OS you cannot drop files onto a machine and have a process that runs it cause the virus to spread and do it's damage. This is the beauty of an OS that is locked down and executes processes based on interaction from the system directly and the user that requests it. RUNDLL32 is a whore of a plague on Windows.

[[AK]Abaddon]

I switched to Microsoft Security Essentials too -- got tired of nag screens. Seems to be working fine.

[[AK]Squidly]

OSX isn't virus proof, but times have changed. Most infections these days are written by criminals who are trying to grab credit cards, set up file shares, or bots for spamming or launching denial of service attacks. The days of some disgruntled Eastern European kiddie writing something to delete your hard disk and nothing else are mostly gone.

However it's accomplished, Mac users don't worry about viruses or spyware.

Whistling through the graveyard maybe, but there it is.

[[AK]Bribo]

As a Mac user I don't really worry about viruses, but I do run a free Mac anti-virus software package to be on the safe side. It's very innocuous and keeps a low profile. Only pops up once a month and asks me if I want to do a full system scan. It's probably overkill and I probably don't need it but it makes me feel better to know I've got something running adding an extra layer of protection.