yes antivirus is no harm as long its free even you have mac or linux still you have no right to download virus torrent stuff put it on pendrive and infect other pc when you have IIS (internet security suite) kinda stuff and visit virus site it give you a OMG look on pretty face pity that never happen on linux or mac site run ok even you can download stuff form them innocently
Nope. In this neck of the jungle, there are many ways for Windows boxes to get infected. Here is my guess, she either got it from her camera's memory card, her USB memory stick or the computer repair shop she visited. Just two days ago I went to get some images developed, my stick got infected. Not an issue, it was harmless in Linux (and OS X). Even my sons PSP gets infected when we visit the shop for more games. That said, none of my Windows machines would have been infected either. I've been doing this for even longer and have never been infected.
agree windows virus are harmless on mac or linux but how do you know it infected ans you scan them somewhere thats the point you need to scan atleast the files/pendrive....etc you may feel suspected whether online or some antivirus on your system and nothing harm in it.
I stand corrected. I was sure it already existed. Mind you, by the time I can afford a Macbook it should be not only ready, but well tested!
My answer would be the same regardless of the OS these days... No. There are other, better alternatives these days. Sandboxing/virtualization, or simply restoring an image in the rare case in infection happens. I ran real-time AV for 5+ years and it never found anything. I've never actually had to restore an image either for the same reason, but if I do get crippled that's how I'll remedy it from now on. Because you used the word "necessary", my answer is no, it's not. However, in your case I would use one. There's no telling what your daughter might do, or if some of her friends use it too. And would she know how to use a program like Sandboxie, or how to answer alerts from an outbound firewall or HIPS? For my friends & family, the answer to those questions is no, they couldn't. So I just make their setups as simple as possible: inbound only FW, paid AV configed to default deny, and tweak the OS enough to eliminate some attack vectors without the threat of something breaking later on. But I will personally probably never use a real-time AV again.
Looking at Mac's current security record, and AVs being programs that can improve it, I'd say yes, mainly for newbies.
