Best anti virus software for a mac?
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free would be best.
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What for?
I mean there is malwarebytes… but macs in general are safe. If you run VM's isolate the VM.
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The first thing Apple did when I brought my iMac in to the store was remove the Anti Virus Software. They say its not needed and creates more issues.
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I agree with the previous posters. Apple is a control freak so they do have the system pretty well protected. Having said that, Macs are not 100% shielded from viruses or malware. About 6 months ago, a Mac friend received an E-Mail about his bank. He wasn't paying attention and thought it was legit as he had an account with the bank. Ayep, it installed a bunch of software and messed up his Mac. He couldn't use Safari or Firefox to access the web as it was redirecting him constantly and displaying popups. I can't remember what the other software it installed. He ended up calling Apple's tech support and they were able to remote into the computer and clean up the virus. I am not a fan of anti-virus software because they greatly slow down the computer and the current anti-virus software wants to install so much additional stuff on your computer, slowing it down even more. The greatest defense is being smart. Don't open up every E-Mail you receive. Tread cautiously when you visit a new web site. If you visit a site and something unexpected happens, don't be curious, shut down the web browser. Many will display a "click here" to close. Never use that. Close the browser like you would close any program (be it Apple or Windows). Worst case, hard reset the computer. If you receive an E-Mail and can't tell if it is legit and you have an account with the business, don't click on anything in the E-Mail, call the business and confirm. Please don't use any information in the E-Mail, including telephone numbers. If you don't know the business' phone number, use a search engine. Trust your gut. Usually the trigger will be something unexpected. When you notice it, error on the side of caution, close the program or E-Mail. If not quite certain how, shut off the computer. If you are still prone to getting malware or viruses, even on a Mac, you should get some protection. True anti-virus software will have a slight impact on your computer but that would be a small price for the protection. At work this week, someone's computer had the cryptolock ransomware. The headache of having to deal with viruses, malware, or ransonware is too frustration and time consuming. Best of luck and be safe.
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I concur with the above
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Just turn on firewall, keep a password on, make backups to an external drive, and use a vm for anything you might think is dangerous.
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I'd say the majority of Mac users, myself included, don't use anti-virus.
But when Apple says Macs "don't get PC viruses"–sure, that's true (if you take PC to mean Windows). But they do get Mac viruses.
For anyone who's prone to make security mistakes I absolutely recommend Sophos for Mac. Free and a great product.
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Macbook viruses happen people.
It’s no longer that PCs get viruses and Macs don’t. Macs are just as exposed to those little nasties. They are no longer a special breed that is invincible.
In fact, in personal tests (yes, for testing purposed only of course), I downloaded the same torrent on a PC and a Mac. Both got infected, but the Mac was infected more severely and took more actions to remove the virus. Plus, I got a pop-up to call a supposed virus removal specialist to remove it. That was obviously a Mac hacker attempt that I laughed at.
What’s the take-away here? When a Mac contracts a virus, it gets hit hard!
>:D
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I use Avast
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Just turn on firewall, keep a password on, make backups to an external drive, and use a vm for anything you might think is dangerous.
I assure you that this is a rather terrible idea… A firewall alone will not protect from certain kinds of malware, especially if it supports UPnP. While it may be sufficient to prevent most internet based exploits, it does not take into account that some of them take advantages of other loopholes in the system, not necessarily limited to just exploiting things like UPnP to be able to establish a Trojan Horse style attack, but also certain other hardware exploits that do not necessarily need the internet to be able to do their harm. Such examples include ransomware, which can encrypt your sensitive information and critical system components, or even worse, in the case of one Mac virus I was hit with back in the late 1990's, it actually did physical damage to the internal hardware of the system, which effectively destroyed the entire computer beyond repair.... A simple firewall in this case would not have been sufficient to be able to save me from this attack, as the particular computer in question was only equipped with a 56k DIAL-UP connection, which was not even established at the time. Believe it or not, simply by inserting a 3.5" floppy disk into my computer that was infected with the virus was enough to take everything down.... The down side of hardware that is designed to automatically read whatever media is inserted the moment that it is inserted...
