watch this......

é è á à look at me go!! now i know what the option key is...it only took the majority of the keys to get it!! I am using the firewall within os x tiger and thats it. I'm going to try some of the gems suggested and see how i get on...thanks guys

Pc's are gettin so passé!!:D

As I said before, you should use clamxav just to be safe. Unlike norton antivirus, it wont mess anything up.
By the way, do the os's animations (i.e. minimizing windows) run smoothly when you hold down shift on your mac mini.

As I said before, ClamXav only knows about PC viruses because there are no Mac viruses. I have ClamXav installed, but I almost never run it because I have no need for it and I feel no obligation to protect PCs. Quite the opposite. If my protecting PCs stopped one PC user from giving up on Windoze, I'd regret it immensely.

If (when?) a Mac virus appears, it will make the headlines. At that time, I'll download a new virus definition file and then begin running ClamXav on a regular basis.

On OSX and Linux, a bit of brain and not running an unpatched web application is enough to avoid viruses. Can't say that much of Windows...

mac mini
 

yeah everthing works like it should when i hold down shift.....i can't fault this mac mini at the moment....really chuffed to bits with it.!!:)

all that stuff in that little box...wow

i just was curious about the mini's speed.

mini speed
 

its a 1.2 gig machine..... fast enough for what i use it for, i just got broadband today so now its even faster....yes i am coming up the rear with connection speeds, i must be the last person in the uk to opt for broadband. All those waiting times are over.


Does anyone know of a free mac 0s x 10.4.4 firewall that i can use? I am currently using the one within the os but i like to be able to see traffic while i am surfing. back in the days of using a pc, i used to use zone alarm which was great....any ideas guys?

cheers thedr:)

you might take a look at Snitch

That will prompt you to allow/deny outgoing traffic. Before posting I thought it monitored incoming as well...but apparently not.

I think it's a good app for the paranoid ones.

For monitoring firewall traffic, I don't know if there is a tool built-in to OS-X that will allow it. I could be wrong, I'm pretty new to (but very, very pleased with) this whole Mac thing.

One thing I could suggest is Flying Buttress (http://personalpages.tds.net/~brian_...gbuttress.html) which until recently was called Brickhouse. I believe it allows logging and monitoring, in addition to being able to tighten up the firewall rules.

Tim

You could always just look at your ipfw.log with your built-in OS X firewall on :)

You can see every single packet fly by if so inclined:

tcpdump

on the commandline will do that.

Typically, a NATted Mac behind a DSL router will see practically no incoming traffic you didn't initiate. P2P apps and running services yourself excluded of course.
If you're connected directly to your DSL-modem, then you'll get hammered by loads of interesting packets most of which the Mac will happily ignore even if your firewall is off.

My border router keeps statistics about the amount of packets that hit the firewall, these days it's around three per minute...