Snow Leopard Might Come with Built-in Antivirus Software

The latest version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, is quickly approaching its ship date, and already some interesting news is popping up. Several sources are claiming Snow Leopard will be packing antivirus software when it debuts, an interesting turn of events considering one of Apple’s biggest selling points in commercials is the fact that Macs don’t get viruses.

Let’s just get that misconception out of the way first. Macs can get viruses just the same as PCs. Yes, they are a little more secure, but nothing is unhackable. The reason Macs seldom get viruses is because there are far fewer Mac viruses than PC viruses out there.

Okay, back to the rumor. The image above shows a dialog box that popped up when Snow Leopard detected a Trojan virus in a downloaded DMG. It clearly indicates that Snow Leopard scanned the download. Adding antivirus measures to the Mac OS X isn’t a bad idea considering that Macs are gaining a much bigger market share, making them prime targets for hackers in the future. The only problem is that we don’t know how committed Apple is to keeping the antivirus logs up to date. If they don’t go into this full force then the antivirus capabilities will be worthless in a matter of weeks.

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