You may have already checked the other posts at this site that discuss the actual use or not-use of a virus protection program for Mac computers. You may have already decided whether you will install one or not and that is great. But whatever your decision is you should still follow some general rules of safe use, especially when browsing the Internet, downloading stuff and dealing with e-mail.
Surf the Web responsibly
Surfing the Internet is probably the most common way to get your computer infected. All it takes is for you to arrive to a website that has a piece of malicious code on it and without some protection, you may be in trouble. If you are surfing suspicious websites (you know, porn, gambling, warez, illegal program downloads, passwords sites etc.) your chances for catching something bad increase a lot. But the sad thing is you don’t even have to go to the dark corners of the web to be exposed. A perfectly legitimate site can get hacked – not in the way that says “we have hacked you n00bs” but in a much more subtle way. A piece of script may be included in the website and when you visit the website, the script tries to install itself on your computer. I have seen it happen with my own eyes on a respectable tech website.
Download only the files that you completely trust
Suspicious downloads are a very serious danger for any computer. You need to check any download and if you are not certain that you need it and that you know what it is, don’t download the file. There is a widely known security incident for Macs where you downloaded some video but when you wanted it to play the program informed you that you need a codec to view the video. If you went ahead and downloaded this so called “codec” you also downloaded malware that got installed on your computer.
E-mail is fun, just be careful about the attachments
There is not much chance (virtually zero) to get infected if you open e-mail, even if it’s suspicious (it depends on your mail client but nowadays a vast majority of them is secure in this regard). However, this can change once start opening the attachments. E-mail attachments are a huge vulnerability in terms of computer safety because users are just people. And if you see e-mail with attachment titled “Nude photos of Angelina Jolie” or “The cutest puppies in the world!” you may forget about the golden rule not to open suspicious attachments from unknown people and go ahead and click that file. Sometimes it’s not just puppies that have arrived to your mailbox.
Follow these basic steps and you should be relatively safe
To sum it up, if you are online (of if you get a USB key from someone), you are exposed to malware. There is no 100% security on any computer or operating system but whatever OS you are running these three simple steps can save you a lot of trouble. Surf the web responsibly, download only files that you trust and open the suspicious e-mail attachments only after you have thought about it first. For any Mac user this will go a long way.
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