I have never have had a virus on my mac but with today's theives is it worth buying? I need to be sold!
I have never have had a virus on my mac but with today's theives is it worth buying? I need to be sold!
AntiVirus vendors make their money from people buying their software out of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
Is it necessary or worth it? I haven't been affected by either of the two Mac malwares that showed up earlier this year.
In fact, since I've had the software on my Mac in the last three years, it's only detected TWO (Windows) viruses (attached to malicious emails). So the "threat condition" has been nonexistent for Mac OS X.
The bigger problem isn't the malware, but the AntiVirus software itself. If you search the forum, you'll find many reports of bugs, most going back a year or more, that still aren't fixed.
Examples of these bugs include virus protection silently disabling itself (leaving your system completely unprotected), the software unactivating itself, and the scan engine not loading. I've even had to disable auto-protection to keep my system from locking up.
Another real issue is that people who surf with Safari are completely unprotected from phishing attacks and malicious web sites. Symantec's "response" has been to point fingers at Apple and blame them, but that approach certainly doesn't solve the real problem for their customers.
The real question should be if Symantec's software is worth it? If they can't fix bugs that have been around for a year or more, and the "solution" is to exclude scanning certain volumes or partitions, or worse, disable certain AntiVirus features, the price for their peace of mind is too high.
I'd been a happy Windows customer of theirs, and had never run into issues on the Windows side, but since getting my Mac in 2009, Symantec's AntiVirus and Internet Security software has been more of a problem for my computer than I want to deal with these days.
I'm not planning to renew my subscription when it expires. It's just not worth it for me, with all the long-standing bugs and missing or disabled functionality.
Your milage may vary, but I'd definitely say to use the trialware first for a month, to see if it works or not on your system before giving Symantec any money.