With dubious reports of a nascent malware menace threatening Mac OS X's current status as (for all intents and purposes) a virus-free platform, many readers have inquired about the need for installation Mac OS X anti-virus software.

Antivirus software can help protect you and your computer from unscrupulous individuals. If you use the Internet, your computer most likely connects to hundreds of thousands of other computers. And antivirus software helps to protect your computer. Some programs only deal with viruses, worms, and Trojans; others can also protect you against spyware, adware, and phishing.

CA Anti-Virus 2007 has a lot going for it. For starters, the license allows you to install the software on up to three computers in your home. In addition, CA offers up to $1,500 protection in the form of technical support or hardware replacement if your computer fails due to an infection after properly installing and maintaining CA Anti-Virus 2007 on your system.

F-Secure Anti-Virus 2007 may be one of the more expensive antivirus applications in our collection, but it also offers plenty of capabilities to help justify its price tag.

McAfee VirusScan Plus 2007 may have the highest number of security capabilities that we've encountered in a single application. Add in its low price, and McAfee is quite a bargain.

Panda Antivirus 2007 is one of the lowest-priced products in this category, yet it still manages to provide the major tools that many individuals need: antivirus, anti-spyware and anti-phishing. In addition, the license allows you to install the application on two computers in your home.

BitDefender 9 Standard is inexpensive, easy to use, and effective at detecting malware threats; as a result, it earned PC World's Best Buy distinction in "The New Virus Fighters" roundup of ten antivirus products.

In tests for "The New Virus Fighters," McAfee VirusScan 2006 ranked second overall among the ten products in the group because it performed consistently well without bombing in any particular category. It ranked fourth in overall performance, doing particularly well in our heuristics tests. Here, it ranked second, behind Best Buy winner BitDefender. It ranked third in our scan-speed testing and sixth in detecting the malware in our zoo collection of backdoor programs, bots, and Trojan horses.

In "The New Virus Fighters", Kaspersky was the only product among the ten we tested to detect our zoo collection's backdoor programs, bots, and Trojan horses better than 99 percent of the time. And it was the quickest company at responding to new security threats. For the period of eight months in 2005 that we tested, Kaspersky Labs released new signature updates less than 2 hours after it detected a major security threat, on average. Kaspersky ranked fourth in our heuristics tests.

When you look at various cost-effective antivirus solutions for client systems, you may be disappointed by the costs attached to the programs. Find out what you'll actually have to shell out when you purchase antivirus client protection.