I have a mac 10.5.4. and i want to know if a mac can get a virus. What are signs that mean you have a virus?

Question

I own a mac 10.5.4 MacBook. And i want to know if your Mac can be infected with a virus. I do not have antivirus things. If your computer has a virus on a mac how do you know that you have one? wHat are signs

And finally can Macs even get a virus?

BEst and thorough answer gets full credit

Answer 1

Macs can get viruses.  Everything can get a virus.

You will be able to tell the same way you tell when humans get a virus: they become slow, unresponsive, sluggish, and will not be able to function!

Also, popups could occur, files won't open --

h**l, could be anything...

Get an antivirus program.  Very important.  

Answer 2

yes macs can get viruses but because of the small user base and some might argue because of the superiority of the basic operating system (unix) that there are many many fewer mac viruses and unless you happened to willy-nilly download things from sketchy p**n sites you should be ok for now but if you want an antivirus program a good one that is free is ClamXav. same signs as with windows. if your system is running slowly open activity monitor and look at cpu usage. just use spotlight to access activity monitor quickly.

Answer 3

It's pretty simple to understand why there are more viruses on Windows than on OS X: more people use Windows than OS X. Hackers generally target the biggest nail in order to reach a much larger audience.

There is no such thing as a "perfect" operating system. As more people move to mac computers, so do more hackeres exposing the security flaws. Every piece of software is going to have some kind of exploit, but there are several things you can do in order to keep yourself safe no matter what PC or operating system you use.

1. Be careful what type of sites you visit. There are many unscrupulous websites out there that will readily infect your machine with a virus or adware.

2. Instead of downloading music, go to the store and buy the CD or buy the MP3’s from legit sites. Not only will you avoid any financially difficult legal situation, you'll also avoid any website that promises free MP3 downloads but only delivers viruses and adware.

3. Instead of looking for software cracks or serials online, look for coupons. The "crackz" scene is filled to the brim with malicious websites. You're not safe when you're visiting these "seedier" websites.

4. Do not run in Administrator mode. You should only run in Administrator mode when you're installing hardware or software, but running in a lower security mode you'll avoid a lot of the more invasive attacks.

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/compute...