Migrating a ~2009 MacBook (viruses?) to new MacBook Pro -- for a friend

[SKYLANE]

A friend of mine in college has a MacBook which is in pretty good condition. I think he said he got it about 2009, it is currently running 10.5. He called me in a panic the other night saying that in rush he clicked on an unexpected pop-up window without really reading it. After that he said that his browsers (including FireFox and Safari) would crash on start, or just act odd. [He also said that strange messages were being posted on his FaceBook wall. Coincidence? I no nothing about FB, so don't know what he is talking about there.]

Before the issue sited above, I thought his computer was fine for what he was doing and offered to help put 10.6 or 10.7 on it. Figured maybe extra RAM wouldn't hurt. However, he has been wanting to get a new MacBook Pro. He finally pulled the trigger today using the issue above as an excuse to finally go out and make the purchase. He wants me to help him migrate data and software over from old to new.

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So, first of all, I have no experience with a Mac that apparently has a virus. (Does it?) What do you MacResourcer's recommend?? If I migrate his stuff over from the older computer, I am afraid unwanted crapola will come over with it (provided there is a virus that did indeed jump onto his computer).

Thoughts on how to proceed?

[JoeH]

Well, there are a small number of Trojan horse malware files out there, such as the one mentioned by Paul F. here - http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,1340824. Several anti-virus or malware scanners are available, some for free. I personally use the free for home use download from Sophos, http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/fre...ition.aspx. You could download one and scan the system before migrating from his old system. Others may post their choice of anti-malware software. Mostly useful for catching Windows or MS Office malware in files to not pass it on, but the occasional piece of OS X malware does get stopped.

[jdc]

Hes being paranoid. Either an ex-windows user or everyone around him is a windows user.

Best anti-virus software is OSX.

By "small number" I read "0". Read the rest of that post.

[JoeH]

jdc wrote:
Hes being paranoid. Either an ex-windows user or everyone around him is a windows user.

Best anti-virus software is OSX.

By "small number" I read "0". Read the rest of that post.

I suggest you reread that post and the followups. That includes the statement on the mentioned piece of malware not requesting a password. Small number means exactly that, and not "0". The effect can be limited, so logging in as another user may not show any problem.

As for the friend, yes he is probably being a bit paranoid. Especially with the Facebook bit, probably a totally unrelated problem. The odd actions of his browsers could point to a bad Java applet or such trying to run. Or just a corrupted file in his cache.

[decay]

during a 2.5 year stint at a publishing house help desk i cleaned many Word macro infections from Macs.

it made Word crash and was more of a nuisance than a system-killer.

but they do exist.