Even Macs Need Antivirus Protection

Best Virus Software For Mac Free
Best Virus Software For Macbook

You heard it on the TV—Macs don't get viruses. And like much of what you hear on the TV, this isn't true. Sure, macOS is intrinsically more secure than Windows or Android, but Mac-centered malware totally exists. The time to think about protecting your Mac is now, not after you've lost all your important documents to ransomware. If you're picking a Mac antivirus for the first time, don't worry. Our reviews will help you make an informed choice.

The best mac antivirus software packages of 2018 are Kaspersky Lab and Symantec. Both Mac antivirus software gives users 100% protection from malware and put a negligible load on the system. Bitdefender and Intego all recorded perfect scores in malware detection, but their system loads were higher than the programs above. Best Antivirus Software: Many Windows-PC users think that they don’t need a paid antivirus protection for their PC and most of the Mac users think that they don’t need antivirus software at all. Despite having built-in Window Defender protection, Windows is considered as the more targeted and easy to breach operating system as compared to. Mac viruses might be rare, but they do exist. If you decide to protect your Apple device, these are the best tools for the job. The best free antivirus for Mac Avast Security for Mac Avast Security for Mac is one of the most popular security suites available, and it’s easy to see why. Best free antivirus for Mac: Avast Free Mac Security Many antivirus suites provide a decent level of protection, but a few rise above all others by providing the very best in performance.

As with Windows antivirus tools, the most common price is just under $40 per year for a single license. ProtectWorks is unusual in that a single $29.95 payment lets you protect all the Macs in your household, with no subscription needed. McAfee goes beyond that, with a $59.99 per year subscription that protects all your Macs, PCs, Android, and iOS devices. With Sophos Home Premium, $60 per year lets you install and remotely manage protection on 10 Macs or PCs. At the high end, you pay $99.99 per year for a three-license subscription to Intego Mac Internet Security X9.

You may have heard that macOS Mojave, the latest macOS, advances the platform's privacy and security. Safari on Mojave automatically blocks ads and social media trackers. The built-in password manager does more than ever. And when AppleScript apps try to access internal macOS features, Mojave makes them wait until you give permission. But nothing we've seen suggests that upgrading to Mojave will obviate the need for an antivirus utility.

Free Mac Antivirus Protection

There's another angle to the variation in Mac antivirus pricing. How about paying nothing at all? Avast Security (for Mac), AVG AntiVirus for Mac, Avira Free Antivirus for Mac, and Sophos Home Free (for Mac) are totally free for personal use, although Sophos technically limits you to three devices, macOS or Windows. AVG also offers free antivirus for Mac, but until its phishing protection improves we can't recommend it. The best commercial products offer more protection but if you can't afford the best, at least install a free antivirus.

What's Not Here

Every macOS antivirus that earned 3.5 stars or better appears in the chart above. Another half-dozen managed a decent three-star rating, but there isn't room for another six products. I chose to favor three products that originated on the Mac platform, ClamXAV and Intego Mac Internet Security. Everything else being equal, there's surely some virtue in loyalty to macOS.

Avast Security Pro (for Mac), ESET Cyber Security (for Mac), and Malwarebytes for Mac Premium also earned three stars, as did the Mac-specific ProtectWorks AntiVirus. However, ProtectWorks, ESET, and Malwarebytes don't have any lab results at present, and with Avast, you might as well use the free edition, because you don't get a lot more by paying. These four didn't quite make it into the chart. The names Avast, ESET, and Malwarebytes are well known in Windows circles. If you're using a Windows security product from one of these companies, it makes sense to do the same on your Macs.

Best Virus Software For Mac Free

Malware Protection Lab Certifications

When you go to select a new washer, refrigerator, or other appliance, chances are good you research it first. User reviews can be helpful, as long as you discard the very best and very worst of them. But actual test results performed by an independent lab give you more reliable information. Best voice recorder app for mac. Two large labs include macOS antivirus products in their testing, but the slate of products for testing is variable. When we first rounded up Mac antivirus products, all those in the chart below had at least one certification, but at present, many of them don't appear in either lab's test results.

The researchers at AV-Test Institute evaluate Mac antivirus products on three criteria: protection, performance, and usability. A product can earn up to six points for each. Protection against malware protection is essential, of course, as is a low impact on performance. A high usability score reflects a small number of false positives, legitimate programs and websites identified as dangerous. Several products achieved a perfect 18 points, all six points for all three criteria.

In the macOS malware test by AV-Comparatives, most charted products scored 100 percent. This lab, too, included a test using malware aimed at Windows. Yes, these samples can't affect a computer running macOS, but they could conceivably escape to Windows machines on the network. Scores in the Windows malware test ranged from zero to 100 percent, which is quite a span.

Best personal finance app for mac 2017. Results in macOS-specific tests have a much smaller point spread than in tests of Windows antivirus utilities. It's good that many products in the chart received at least one certification for Mac protection, and even better that some received two certifications.

Hands-On Phishing Protection Testing

When we test malware protection on Windows, we use live malware inside an isolated virtual machine. We've coded a number of analysis tools over the years to help with this testing. Little of that testing regimen carries over to the Mac.

Phishing, however, isn't platform-specific, and neither is our antiphishing test. Phishing websites imitate secure sites, everything from banks and finance sites to gaming and dating sites. If you enter your credentials at the fake login page, you've given the phisher access to your account. And it doesn't matter if you are browsing on a PC, a Mac, or an internet-aware sewing machine.

Almost all the products in the chart below include protection against malicious and fraudulent sites. With ClamXAV and Intego, this just isn't an included feature. Malwarebytes and ProtectWorks also lack an antiphishing component.

The wily malefactors who create phishing sites are in the business of deception, and they constantly change and update their techniques, hoping to evade detection. If one fraudulent site gets blacklisted or shut down by the authorities, they simply pop up with a new one. That being the case, we try to use the very newest phishing URLs for testing, scraping them from phishing-focused websites.

We launch each URL simultaneously in four browsers. One is Safari or Chrome on the Mac, protected by the Mac antivirus that's under test. The other three use the protection built into Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge. Discarding any that don't fit the phishing profile, and any that don't load correctly in all four browsers, we report the product's detection rate as well as the difference between its detection rate and that of the other three test systems.