AVG announces LinkScanner for OS X

 

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Posted on 16 Jun 2010 at 12:13

AVG Technologies has unveiled LinkScanner for Mac OS X, which the company says is its first free anti-virus product for Apple’s operating system.

LinkScanner works by scanning links for malicious content before you click on them, allowing you to surf, search, email, shop and use social networks “with the confidence that the pages you visit are safe” said a company statement.

According to AVG’s research, “99 per cent of all malicious threats are delivered through the web and cannot be stopped with traditional anti-virus software”.

These threats can come and go within hours without users ever knowing. They can live on familiar, big-name websites and even third-party applications on social networks such as Facebook. AVG says the latter is becoming an increasingly popular way to quickly spread malware across a large number of machines.

“Mac users have traditionally been less vulnerable to virus threats and attacks because of their lower market share, but that is quickly changing and no operating system is immune, as these attacks are leveraging the web to deliver malware that target web browsers and application vulnerabilities,” said J.R. Smith, CEO, AVG Technologies.

“LinkScanner for Mac takes the first step to ensure customers are safe and won’t end up losing their money, identities and precious digital memories. In addition, this new product has been enhanced to better protect users from being scammed, phished and entering personal information into infected games, quizzes, surveys, etc. on social networking sites. We want to help you keep your private personal information private! And, because AVG believes strongly that security software like LinkScanner is critical, we believe it should be free.”

AVG’s move is a curious one, given that Macs haven’t been specifically targeted by virus makers in the past, but it signals that Apple’s continued rise in popularity might make machines running Mac OS X a more likely target. However, it's worth pointing out that link scanning applications, such as LinkScanner, still don't fully protect you as malware has become much more sophisticated. As AVG says, the malicious software can reside on popular websites for a matter of hours - or even minutes - so it's a huge task to keep lists of malicious websites updated every minute of the day.

You can download AVG’s LinkScanner for Mac from the AVG Free download portal. It’s designed for Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard, and supports Safari 3.x, 4.x and 5.x as well as Firefox 3.x and higher.

Author: Tim Smalley