If security is a concern, tmp files should not be created with the default umask but should be created with the most restrictive permissions possible unless explicitly specified otherwise. Maybe I’ll give Thunderbird a try when they finally release a more native-interface release version like Firefox 3 is.ĭoesn’t matter. If I was *really* concerned about security I’d also dump Mail.app in favor of Thunderbird or better yet Mutt or the like, but Mail.app is such a good mail program to use in Leopard that I can’t bear to be without it’s usability. I also run a program that scans versiontracker to see if my programs are up to date, as well of course as regularly running Apple Update for important things like Quicktime, Safari (even if you don’t use Safari, quite a few other programs do! The situation’s not as crazy as IE on Windows, but a lot of programs do use WebKit to display HTML and the like as well as the Dashboard, etc…) and the OS updates. (Which does more than just selectively filter javascript domains.) What I do is harden my system as much as possible, by running an ipfw firewall (you can use a graphical front end to it like NoobProof or Waterroof) and little snitch, and using Firefox with the NoScript plug-in rather than Safari. Even on Windows, signature-based virus scanning is not very effective anymore even where viruses are a threat. I don’t actually run an antivirus, viruses per-se aren’t the main malware vector for Macs and they take up a lot of resources. By now, the Mac OS has a large enough market share to be vulnerable. When I used BeOS, I had “security through obscurity” because the common “teenager hacking software” doesn’t understand BeOS. I’m the only one who’s touching my own MacBook but just to be safe I did install iAntiVirus and MacScan.

Malwarebytes for mac os x 10.5.8