Remember this ad?

PCs, but not Macs? Apparently not so anymore.

Much hay was made yesterday as Apple quietly slipped the following notice into one of its on-line support forums:

Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities…

The notice then goes on to recommend three anti-virus utilities currently available, and it provides links to the online Apple Store where you can order those tools.

So is the Mac safe? Sure. Why not? The problem isn’t the computer hardware as much as it’s the user’s wetware. Viruses work because people do foolish and stupid things. That can happen on the PC and it can happen on the Mac.

The Mac is safer out of the box than the PC. Its Unix-based operating system, OS X, has better security than Windows does, but the weak link in the chain on both systems is going to be the user. That’s you.

I’ve received PC Virus e-mail attachments on my Mac. I don’t open them, of course, but even if I did the virus wouldn’t work because it’s a Windows program, which won’t run on a Mac. Even if I got the same virus on the PC, as long as I didn’t open the thing (or run the attachment), I’d be okay. It’s when people do run those attachments, download unknown files, run weird things, that they get infected.

Right now, my guess is that Macs are okay out there without anti-virus software. Even so, it pays to be vigilant. Just as with a PC, avoid behavior that attracts the bad guys: Don’t visit sites that offer free versions of commercial software, free movie downloads, hacker tools, porn, and so on. Be a smart computer user and you’ll most likely be safe.

Oh, and backup! Backing up your data is the best way to protect it.