Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Antivirus - Do you use one?

conamor

conamor

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 27, 2013
364
21
Hi,

I have been using Mac's forever and I always used an antivirus. I currently use Avast and from time to time scan with MB.

I sometime reverse engineer JS and other type of files and they are obviously infected. I move them to VM's to analyze them. I like to have my Mac tell me what happens and then I can whitelist depending on what I want to do.

Some websites, very regular, day to day website, I had Avast pop-up for webkit viruses.

Anyway, do you use one, which one and your experience on the findings!
 
  • Like
Reactions: madrich
ClamXAv is handy for checking if Windows users have sent you a virus-infested email attachment (so you don't send it on to other Windows users). It can be set up to automatically scan your email attachments and downloads folders when items are added. No subscription is needed for updating virus signature files.
 
I also use Avast across all my Macs, with my office Macs being set to run a full system scan once a week every early Sunday morning around 1am.
 
It's been my experience over 30+ years of using computers that the worst thing you can do to a computer is:
  • Install a virus detection program
  • Install a disk 'optimization' or other 'easy fix' program
When I DID have those types of apps installed (way back in the day), I had nothing but problems.

Once I removed those types of apps from my Mac and paid a little more attention to what I was doing, I've never had a virus. Never had adware. Never had malware. Never had a disk crash (other than when a drive failed due to the hardware). Never lost any data. I basically almost never have any problems of any kind.

All you have to do is exercise some common sense and restraint. Those apps tend to cause more problems than they prevent or fix.

That's been my experience, but YMMV.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KGB7, davidmartindale, ProTruckDriver and 5 others
We use Bitdefender and it catches at least one Windows virus or malware a day in emails. This matters because most of my colleagues are on Windows and I don't want to forward anything infected.

Our Synology NAS uses ClamAV (a Synology version) and it catches things often, too. Never a "MacOS" virus; always a Windows problem.

When I'm teaching classes, about a quarter of students end up submitting infected documents. The labs are infested, constantly, with problems. They use free antivirus software; I wish they'd use Bitdefender or something similar based on my experiences.

As for a Mac virus? Not since System 9.2. Nothing. Ever. And I remember when you needed Norton Antivirus because so many floppies were infected in the Mac community. OS X changed everything.
 
No. I have MalwareBytes installed, but have only run it twice since I installed a number of years back ... no AV program... don't go to shady sites... and don't click on stuff that I am not familiar with
 
I don't use anything. I have been a Mac user since OS X 10.3 and I have never had problems.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Billrey
No... on any of my Macs, work or home.
Yes... on my one Windows10 machine at work. I use the default antivirus that comes with Windows10.

This is why. As a researcher, it is much easier to hack the antivirus than the OS. The way antivirus integrates itself into the OS makes it a valuable target.

Avast:
https://betanews.com/2014/05/27/avast-hacked-400000-user-details-stolen/

Kaspersky:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33083050
http://gizmodo.com/russia-arrests-top-kaspersky-hacking-investigator-for-t-1791606694
 
  • Like
Reactions: Naaaaak
I recently changed from Intego to Norton (simply because I got a good deal).

I haven't experienced problems on my Mac in 30 years' usage, but my daughter (a fellow Mac owner, who didn't use AV software) recently passed some files to be me that contained Trojans. These were instantly picked up and disposed of by Norton.

Personally, I wouldn't risk not installing AV software on my Mac.
 
Most are system hogs with elevated privileges that I don’t trust.

That being said, I teach at a university and all Macs connected to the network are required to have a real-time monitoring antivirus program.

I honestly don’t remember which I chose, but I researched which had the least impact on system resources.

If you practice safe habits, there’s really no reason to have one.
 
conamor said:
Anyway, do you use one, which one and your experience on the findings!
Click to expand...
I have been using Sophos for years and find it works well. It has only ever found things in email messages and quarantined them.
 
Don't forget that antivirus usually have admin rights to function, which makes them another attach vector.

(I also advice everyone running macOS to stay away from file-sharing sites, even if you're poor. The apps either need admin rights to install, or need to disable gatekeeper to run the apps, both of which is very bad since you don't know if the file has been modified. You really don't want to risk getting ransomware nowadays)
 
I use Bitdefender because it is the lightest on resources...it's needed if you are working in a mixed OS environment.
 
  • Like
Reactions: willmtaylor
BitDefender is probably best real-time (paid)
Sophos is good real-time (free)
Malware bytes is good to run on the spot if you think you have issues.
 
  • Like
Reactions: bernuli
Don't use anything on my mac but then I never download things from random places anyway.
 
hehe, answers are all different! It's great to see everyones point of view. Again, I kind of have to have one because of my type of work... What I SHOULD be doing is doing my reverse engineer / analyzing files onto another machine not connected to my main network... Easiest option! but I guess I got lazy there.
 
While not an AV, Littleflocker was good for checking on what had access to your file system. The creator now works for Apple.
 
No.

conamor said:
Hi,

I have been using Mac's forever and I always used an antivirus. I currently use Avast and from time to time scan with MB.

I sometime reverse engineer JS and other type of files and they are obviously infected. I move them to VM's to analyze them. I like to have my Mac tell me what happens and then I can whitelist depending on what I want to do.

Some websites, very regular, day to day website, I had Avast pop-up for webkit viruses.

Anyway, do you use one, which one and your experience on the findings!
Click to expand...
 
I've used MalwareBytes one time in my years of owning Macs, but other than that, I don't use anything. Never had a problem other than briefly with my first MacBook Pro, but it wasn't related to a virus.
 
I'm using bitdefender. Most of the time unnoticable.
If you look/wait around you can get it very cheaply
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back