Does the I-Mac come with antivirus software?

That is because Mac OS X is currently unable to contract viruses, you don’t need any anti-virus software.

See the page about this at Apple.com

OS X is vulnerable to viruses the same as any operating system (or any BSD-based system), but there are very, very few in the wild.

You’re significantly safer on Mac OS X without virus protection than you are on Windows Vista with virus protection.

that is not true bluemukaki. your computer is not safe from malicious software just because its a mac. last week there was a contest to see which computer os could be hacked first. mac lost to vista and ubuntu. you may not need active anti virus apps like avg or norton, but you need to be responsible for what software you open on your mac.

also to answer the question mcafee has a mac virus scanner. apple used to give it away as part of .mac.

@Jamms. You don’t need a virus scanner to prevent a computer from being hacked. No point buying a virus scanner because you’re an idiot opening files on your favorite seedy porn site.

Check the details of the Mac getting hacked, nothing about Viruses there. Mac OSX has adequate security features in place already.

There are definitely valid reasons for having a virus scanner on macs or linux though there are almost no viruses in the wild. Having a virus scanner helps prevent the transmission of viruses (you could download a infected file, run it without ill effects, and send it to a friend), and also allows you to scan viruses in other operating systems. If you only run osx tho…then I wouldn’t really bother unless you think u engage/u r friends with those who engage in risky behavior. if so, then consider using a virus scanner to scan outgoing email to prevent the transmission of a virus (imagine sending one to ur boss!)

I’m not encouraging anti virus software, I stated that there is anti virus software available and apple used to use it as a selling point of .mac.

It takes two minutes for a person using Safari to browse to a webpage and have a person take root control of a mac. Thats hardly adequate.

I’m a mac user and I’m tired of hearing the lies of this iron clad security. Leopard was released with the built in firewall off by default. Apple needs to focus much more on security.

@jamms: Because they have so much trouble with security and all. You really need to check the details of the hack you keep mentioning, all the hacker did was open up a file he had already coded. It didn’t actually take him 2 minutes it took him ages, and only after no one could hack it on the first day, it only took a short while because he set it up so it could be used quickly.

Again it only worked because the judges were dumb enough to open the file.

Mac or PC if you get a virus it is really only your own fault. I have only ever received emails from people I don’t know directly or indirectly a couple of times, so getting viruses that way is highly unlikely, and if you find a website with a virus on it, you’re definitely somewhere you shouldn’t be!

And the claim that Mac OSX is only so unlikely to get a virus because no one would bother writing a virus for a platform that less people are on is crap, someone somewhere must have tried to shut us Apple fanboys up by sending us a working virus at some point. Seems unlikely that no one has tried.

You should listen to this week in tech from last Sunday. Day 1 no one hacked any of the computers because you could as you could not use any software. Day 2 you could only use software installed with the os. Safari has many well publicized vulnerabilities and apple has not fixed them. Neither vista or ubuntu were hacked with their system software. Day 3 vista was hacked using independent software other than what comes with windows.

You keep blaming people for being dumb. I don’t feel its dumb to not trust that merely navigating to a webpage (read: not downloading or installing an app, just browsing) will damage your computer. Apple needs to fix safari, there are many known flaws in both the mac and windows apps.

Sure, some people are tech literate and will keep their OS updated, be aware of the latest vulnerabilities and infection vectors, but what about those who aren’t? Antivirus software is one way to help those people out. (I personally use backups more, but it seems that I’m one of the three people in the world who backs up religiously)

@jamms: Well now the internets are lying to me. Damn cnet.