I just bought an older (2008) Mackbook A1181 for my wife off of eBay. It was only $200 and if it doesn't work, I can get my money back from PayPal. No worries there. My question is, how can I tell if any malicious software was installed on it? Its coming with OS X Lion, OFFICE 2011, ILIFE 11 and IWORKS 09 so the suspicious person in me thinks that all of this "extra" software is so the buyer is hesitant to erase everything and start from scratch. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks Dave

In the first part of the conversation, I'll say that although there are instances of Macintosh Malware, the number of those are incredibly small. Like, around 10 per year or less. That said, Apple includes security updates periodically (just like windows) and one of these updates runs in the background and will warn you if the file you're about to download is dangerous. Or it won't let you open the app. This all started a few OSX versions ago. There is a bit of info on that here: http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202234 Here's a good site that can 'indoctrinate' you on Mac Malware. You'll find that they're usually 'annoying', but not really that harmful in the long run. http://www.thesafemac.com/mmg/ If you can, buy your software via the App Store. That serves a few different goals, one being certain that it's 'safe'. Another thing is the AppStore maintains a list of apps you've purchased, and automatically notifies you of updates and stuff. And when you get a new mac, you can easily access fresh installs of your apps, without having to hunt down your CD's. Not everything you will want is available in the app store, but most of it will be. With respect to 'loaded software', if you get the original DVD, that's where the OS as well as 'iLife' might be located; it comes with a lot of new macs, or used to. You can always reload at your convenience. Compared to 'Office Mac' I think 'iWorks' is 'iWasteOfTime', but thats just me. It's a lower cost alternative, but if you have Office, you're already compatible with just about everyone else in the world. If you have your Office Key, you can always nab a fresh copy of the install from here: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/office-2011-digital-download Hope this helps. Cheers! -- Smug

Thanks Smug. Appreciate it. Dave

My take on your question is that you are worried about trojans, virus's etc (malware). Sohos, AVG and AVAST make good free malware detection packages for Windows and also have free products for a Mac. They protect and detect, so if you try one, they should find something, if you have malware. Alan

Thanks Alan Dave

Little snitch, best mac program to install to make sure you have nothing calling out from your system that you do not want to call out.

Thank you Arubaman Dave