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.
Even Macs Need Antivirus Protection
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 can read about the best antivirus suites for PC on our sister site, PCWorld. Latest antivirus for Mac news More than $1.1 million was lost to cybercrime every minute in 2018.
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.
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. 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.
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.
Most of the products in this roundup beat the combined average of the three browsers. Kaspersky and McAfee top the list with 100 percent detection, while Bitdefender's score of 99 percent comes close behind. All three of these winners scored precisely the same when tested under Windows.
Ransomware Protection
The scourge of ransomware is on the rise. While ransomware attacks are more common on Windows devices, Macs have suffered as well. Of course, any antivirus utility should handle ransomware just as it handles spyware, Trojans, viruses, and other malware types. But since the consequences of missing a ransomware attack are so great, some security products add components with the sole purpose of preventing ransomware attacks.
We've observed a wide variety of ransomware protection techniques on Windows. These include blocking unauthorized access to user documents, detecting ransomware based on its activity, and recovering encrypted files from backup. Of the products listed here, Bitdefender and Trend Micro offer a ransomware component that blocks unauthorized modification of protected documents.
As with Bitdefender's Windows edition, the Safe Files feature prevents all unauthorized access to your documents. On a Mac, it also protects your Time Machine backups. Trend Micro offers multiple layers of Windows ransomware protection. Folder Shield, which, like Safe Files, prevents unauthorized document access, is the only layer that made its way to the macOS edition.
Sophos Home Premium includes the same CryptoGuard behavior-based ransomware protection found in its Windows equivalent. Our Windows test sytsems are virtual machines, so we feel free to release real-world ransomware for testing. We just roll back the virtual machine to a clean snapshot after testing. We don't have the option to do that on the physical Mac testbed, so we just have to figure that since it worked on Windows, it probably works on macOS.
Spyware Protection
Any kind of malware problem is unpleasant, but spyware may be the most unnerving. Imagine some creeper secretly peeking at you through your Mac's webcam! Other types of spying include logging keystrokes to capture your passwords, sending Trojans to steal your personal data, and watching your online activities to build a profile. As with ransomware protection, we've observed more features specifically devoted to spyware protection on Windows-based security products than on the Mac, but a few products in this collection do pay special attention to spyware.
Under Windows, Kaspersky's Safe Money feature opens sensitive sites in a secure browser that's hardened against outside interference. The Safe Money feature on the Mac doesn't do that, but it does check URLs to make sure you're on a legitimate secure site. Kaspersky offers an onscreen keyboard, so you can enter passwords with no chance of capture by a keylogger. Its webcam protection isn't as configurable as it is on Windows, but you can use it to disable your Mac's webcam whenever you're not using it. It even includes the ability to block advertisers and others from tracking your online activities. If spyware is your bugaboo, you'll like Kaspersky.
![]()
Sophos Home Premium offers protection for the webcam and microphone that's more substantial than Kaspersky's. You get a notification any time an untrusted program attempts to access either; you can allow access or stop the program. There's also an option to whitelist a program, so you don't get a popup every time you use your off-brand video chat tool.
Bonus Features
Many antivirus tools on Windows pack in a ton of bonus features, packing in everything from tune-up utilities to VPNs. That behavior seems less common on the macOS side, though Norton now includes a VPN with no bandwidth limits. Even so, some vendors don't have a standalone Mac antivirus, opting instead to offer a full security suite as the baseline level of protection, and a few others include suite-like bonus features in the basic antivirus.
A typical personal firewall component blocks attacks coming in from the internet and also manages network permissions for programs installed on your Mac. Intego, McAfee, and Norton each include a firewall component, while Kaspersky's Network Protection comes close.
Parental control is another common suite component. With Sophos (free or premium) and Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac, a content filter can block access to websites matching unwanted categories. Kaspersky goes beyond that, with content filtering, screen time limits, and control over apps used. An additional $14.99 per year unlocks all the features of the powerful Kaspersky Safe Kids.
Protect Your Mac
Most of the products covered in this roundup earned certification from at least one independent testing lab; some managed two certifications. There really are no bad choices here, as far as basic antivirus protection goes. Even so, a few products stood out. Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac not only achieved certification from both labs, it earned the maximum score in every test, and took the top antiphishing score. Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac also earned high scores. It offers a full suite of Mac security tools, at the same price competitors charge for basic antivirus protection. Symantec Norton 360 Deluxe (for Mac) is also a suite, and its features include a no-limits VPN. These three are our Editors' Choice winners for Mac antivirus protection.
Look over the reviews, pick the product that suits you best, and get your Mac protected. Once you've done that, you should also consider installing a Mac VPN. While an antivirus protects you, your devices, and your data locally, a VPN extends that protection to your online activities, protecting both your security and your privacy.
Editors' Note: We are aware of the allegations of Kaspersky's inappropriate ties to the Russian government. Until we see some actual proof of these allegations, we will treat them as unproven, and continue to recommend Kaspersky's security products as long as their performance continues to merit our endorsement.
In spite of persistent rumours circulating online about Mac OS’ supposed invincibility as opposed to Windows systems, the truth is a completely different sordid tale. On the contrary, Mac OS is just as vulnerable to malware attacks as Windows 10 or its older versions are. Also, the argument that more malicious malware is coded with Windows users in mind because Windows OS is a more common platform, doesn’t hold much water either. In fact, Apple’s trademark Mac operating system witnesses regular threats online, so it’s pertinent to have a solid Antivirus solution. Of course, there are paid Antivirus on the App Store, but who wants to spend precious money when there are some of the best free Antivirus for Mac 2019 waiting to be downloaded in a jiffy?
Best Antivirus For Mac
The only problem is collating and reviewing these fantastic anti malware solutions. Fret not, we have compiled a list of seven of the best free antivirus software for Mac users in 2019 that will give your Mac a steady booster against the latest ransomware, adware and virus online. So, are you ready to find out what are the best free Antivirus for Mac 2019 that will eradicate vicious phishing scripts, and trojans for once and for all? Let’s get started-:
1) Avast Free Mac Security [Best Antivirus for email scanning and phishing protection]
One of the most renowned antivirus security suites for a while now, Avast is quite effective in quickly performing full-system malware scans, malware removal and seamlessly sifting through various web activities such as javascripts, downloads, web pages, etc. So much so, it can even scan specific email threads, and attachments without affecting your workflow.
In fact, Avast also proffers phishing protection, and an intrinsic drag-and-drop scanning for individual files. Of course, you can scan attached volumes and external drives for potential infections.
Moreover, you won’t be overwhelmed by this free application’s interface which comes across as quite straightforward and modest thanks to a navigation pane on the left comprising a real-time graph that encapsulates Avast shield’s activity. Avast also consists of five primary buttons that allow users to swiftly check the summary of security stats of their Mac.
2) Bitdefender Internet Security [Best Antivirus for deep scans and auto-updates] Best mac lip colors for medium skin.
Avast Antivirus For Mac
With a gamut of scan options at its disposal, Bitdefender Virus Scanner proffers quick deep scans of your entire system, and can even target specific locations. Adorned with a streamlined and sleek interface, Bitdefender can also be initiated to scan critical locations such as the entirety of your system library as well as your Mac’s launch agents thanks to its triple scanning modes. This is a great relief for those users who want to bypass lengthier scans when facing shortage of time.
But, the real novelty factor that injects Bitdefender into our lineup of the best free Antivirus for Mac 2019 is its nifty update download mechanism. That is, Bitdefender automatically updates hourly malware definitions, so as to give your system a prior edge should it get infected with malware before a scan even commences.
Not to mention, this helps in providing a quick fix for blacklisting specific locations from system scans. Moreover, Bitdefender is endowed with the ability to swiftly search for malware inside various archives and file types such as ZIP, RAR, PDF, PKG, et al.
3) MalwareBytes Anti-Malware [Best Malware remover]
The Mac iteration of Malwarebytes initially rolled out as an adware removal tool, but as of today, it’s also doubled up as a prolific application for safeguarding your Mac against malware. Now it is an exclusive malware removal tool. You won’t have to fiddle with any extra controls on the UI which comes off as quite simple and decluttered. Just launch MalwareBytes, hit Scan button, and MalwareBytes will populate a list of possibly infected files and weed them out.
Further, MalwareBytes is one of the best free Antivirus for Mac 2018 if you want to quarantine pernicious MacOS malware (such as Fruitfly) off your system and perform deep scans in a jiffy.
Best Antivirus For Mac 2018 Reddit
Besides, this free anti malware solution doesn’t interfere with other Antivirus programs and can also work as a complementary program for tracking down malware in real-time. In fact, MalwareBytes is not an always-on solution, so it doesn’t really exhaust your Mac’s resources. However, the only downside is that MalwareBytes only tackles Malware, so it can’t give real-time protection against any other forms of security loopholes.
4) Sophos Antivirus [Best Lightweight Antivirus]
Don’t be swayed by Sophos Antivirus’ slow scan speeds, this free Antivirus is a beast when it comes to quarantining unknown files that merely exhibit dubious behavior. Also, Sophos incorporates real-time online protection features that come in handy against all sorts of trojans, virus, phishing scripts, et al. Not to mention, Sophos is pretty lightweight, doesn’t hog system resources and can non-intrusively perform crucial background checkups.
Coming on to the interface, at first glance it comes across as fairly compact considering how easily Sophos managed to cram in robust features in one program. Also, navigating the menu is a cakewalk as users can seamlessly initiate a full-system scan directly from the top of the main menu, and even configure exemptions. All in all, Sophos doesn’t disappoint wee bit in tackling malicious malware.
![]()
5) Avira Free Antivirus [Best Antivirus for Spyware and adware protection]
If you are seeking an antivirus that strikes a fine balance between quick access to advanced utilities and ease of use, look no further than Avira. It takes a centre-stage on many fronts, for instance, Avira is equipped with standard spyware and adware protection and can effortlessly block tracking as well as intercept harmful websites online. Best photo album software free.
Moreover, you don’t have to worry about updating Virus definitions since they are updated in a timely fashion. Plus, Avira comes bundled with 5GB of free online storage and offers one-click deletion of malicious files which make it one of the best free Antivirus for Mac on the market.
This free Antivirus solution has also got you covered if you want to check scan history or initiate automation, that is, smoothly carrying on with your activities while it scans the system in the background without interrupting your workflow. Overall, Avira makes rendering full system scans just as simple to execute as file-specific and scheduled scans.
SEE ALSO: Best Free Video Editing Software for Mac
SEE ALSO: Best Free Karaoke Software for Mac
6) AVG Antivirus [Best Antivirus with smooth interface]
Beneath AVG’s simplistic design lies a robust security engine that detects and eradicates Mac-specific virus, spyware and malware in real-time. It works like a charm for eliminating threats on your iPhone, too. In fact, considering how pioneering AVG AntiVirus has been over the years, it not only helps protect important system files on your Mac, but also prevents you from inadvertently infecting friends on other devices.
Moreover, the Resident Shield of AVG is quite formidable as it runs quietly in the background. How? Well, every file that you run, copy, or save gets automatically scanned quickly by AVG without nagging users with pop-ups.
We were also impressed with the drag & drop functionality proffered by AVG for easily singling out specific suspected files or folders. Of course, you can get automatic online updates as well as run thorough scans of your entire Mac with a single click.
SEE ALSO: Best Free Data Recovery Software for Mac
7) Comodo Antivirus [Best Antivirus for real-time protection against trojans]
Rounding off our lineup of the best free Antivirus for Mac 2019 is Comodo which personifies comprehensive virus protection. In fact, Comodo is a proactive Antivirus which provides foolproof protection against Trojan horses, virus, and worms in Mac OS X systems. Thanks to its state-of-the-art virus protection, you can avail an on-demand scanner, frequently updated database of known viruses and an always-on real-time protection.
If you were thinking this program is a stripped down version of a premium product, you would be sorely mistaken. In fact, Comodo Antivirus comes loaded with some goodies such as in-depth reports on viral activity, superior protection against zero-day malware in any drive or file and the ability to even scan compressed .zip files, where virus often take refuge.
On the UI front, at first glance you would be awestruck with how easy it is to drag and drop objects onto the dock for a quick virus analysis. Moreover, you are also entitled to get automatic online updates for up-to-date virus protection. All in all, Comodo boasts a pretty attractive user-friendly interface.
SEE ALSO: Best Free Photo Editors for Mac
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
November 2020
Categories |