Well, I will agree that Norton used to be an awful, horrendous resource hog and would slow down any machine. I tried it several times since it’s inception and always would end up removing it. But regarding more modern renditions of it, over the last 5+ years I’ve had nothing but good use out of it on my PC and haven’t noted any sluggishness, resource hogging, etc. it isn’t the same crappy product of yesteryear. That said, we used to use it on all machines at work for years and have moved to just using Windows defender now. I think maybe Norton improved it for real use perhaps at a time, unfortunately for them, when it’s just less needed. I can’t say how the current version works on Mac M1s, or if needed, but I always read these antivirus debates about Macs with great interest.
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Antivirus on a M1 Mac - Is Norton Antivirus any good?
- Thread starter Marty_Macfly
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I don’t know, if I need to use something to scan my mac, I’ll probably use ClamXav if it’s still available for mac. Or Malwarebytes.
EDIT: woops! Turns out ClamXav is no longer free! Pity.
EDIT: woops! Turns out ClamXav is no longer free! Pity.
For malware, I just make sure I clean my cookies and cache every so often as they like to put to those there. Most of the time it's just to gather your browsing history.
Where do you go to check that? I had no idea it updated like that!
I've been using Macs for 15 years, much of that working as tech advisor/sys admin/network admin for a university Computer Science department. We had an inventory of 300 Macs used by Computer Science students. We never, ever had any virus/malware issues. And we relied solely on the built in firewall and anti-malware capabilities of the Apple operating system. Now, we also had 300 Windows machines. That's another story, virtually constantly putting out fires.
As has been stated anti-malware features are baked into OS X. Between that and the built in firewall you are well protected. They are both active by default and work superbly.
As has been stated anti-malware features are baked into OS X. Between that and the built in firewall you are well protected. They are both active by default and work superbly.
Take a look here: https://eclecticlight.co/lockrattler-systhist/
I don't know about now in M1 world but back in late intel world Norton was WELL KNOWN bloatware that slowdown any Mac it was installed on! This doesn't temp me to install that bloatware!
I just bought BitDefender Total Protection for a year. Here in my country. The official distributor sell it for about 13usd . For that price I got a year with 5 devices active at the same time. I used it for my Mac , windows, and android . 2 more for my family
On avtest website the review is quite good and well it's a no brainer for the price. Yeah, Mac has its built in Anti Malware etc but having redundancy is nice and knowing that if it's already in the BitDefender database before Apple's I can be sure that it Will catch it.
The last thing I like with having a third party av is that it detects windows viruses too. So if I plug in my family's USB, and it contains windows viruses it can clean it so that when they use it on their other computers. It won't be affected.
On avtest website the review is quite good and well it's a no brainer for the price. Yeah, Mac has its built in Anti Malware etc but having redundancy is nice and knowing that if it's already in the BitDefender database before Apple's I can be sure that it Will catch it.
The last thing I like with having a third party av is that it detects windows viruses too. So if I plug in my family's USB, and it contains windows viruses it can clean it so that when they use it on their other computers. It won't be affected.
About this Mac > System Report > Software > Installations and then scroll down until you find the XProtectPlistConfigData installations.
I would contact Norton and ask them if it works or would it be best to wait for the MACOSX update.
Yes, Macs get viruses, keyloggers, trojans. Those geekers who have been causing grief for Windows people have branched out and going after Macs for their jolly times. You do need a virus protector. I use bitdefender security suite paid version. It has a low background memory gobble. I like that. In the meantime, I'd use Safari with its protection and perhaps firefox. Malwarebytes helps, but I would definitely get protection.
True Apple does do updates, but not that frequent to keep up with the modification and glut. Also, back up your important files to an external drive or someplace like backblaze and if you do use something like timemachine? do get a protection that protects that too.
But do talk to Norton, but you can do better than Norton, it does come with headaches. go with bitdefender
Yes, Macs get viruses, keyloggers, trojans. Those geekers who have been causing grief for Windows people have branched out and going after Macs for their jolly times. You do need a virus protector. I use bitdefender security suite paid version. It has a low background memory gobble. I like that. In the meantime, I'd use Safari with its protection and perhaps firefox. Malwarebytes helps, but I would definitely get protection.
True Apple does do updates, but not that frequent to keep up with the modification and glut. Also, back up your important files to an external drive or someplace like backblaze and if you do use something like timemachine? do get a protection that protects that too.
But do talk to Norton, but you can do better than Norton, it does come with headaches. go with bitdefender
Speaking as an extremely technical user, I would never run something like Bitdefender. Or Norton. Or whatever. None of these third party AV suites are substantial improvements on the built-in anti-malware in macOS or modern Windows.
In most cases, the "cure" is far worse than the disease. You're literally paying money to make your computer slower and less secure. Yes, really. You know how the fancier packages like to patch into the operating system to monitor absolutely everything, in the name of identifying "suspicious" activity? Doing that makes the anti-malware software a critical security component of the operating system. Any security flaws in it are now also gateways into the kernel. That's bad news, because AV software vendors have an extensive history of being absolutely awful at writing secure software.
That's mostly because they make money through convincing you that they're good, and there's a bunch of perverse incentives which make it much easier to do so by doing a bad job in a flashy way. It's a bit like the USA's Transportation Security Agency. The TSA is very ineffective, but because they're out there visibly and energetically harassing everyone who goes through an airport, it looks like they're doing something, right?
Yep, this nails it. Adding anything on top of the native security features of OS X is asking for trouble.
I'd just like to point out that the concept described here is as misleading as it gets.
Cookies are tiny pieces of text that web servers (the things that websites run on) ask you to store and send on your next request (next click, basically). They can include session tokens ("I'm John Doe, I gave you my password and you told me to show you this: c7b6d32c on my next visit") or personal preferences that the website doesn't deem important enough to store in their own database ("I prefer the white+blue color scheme and I want the sidebar hidden by default") and other stuff like that.
Whatever is written in a cookie is never executed, i.e. it's not code or instructions to be interpreted or fed to the CPU. You could write the equivalent of "delete all files" in any programming language or directly in machine code into a cookie and nothing would happen.
Cookies exist because the protocol we use to browse the web (HTTP or HTTPS) is stateless, which means that every click and every new page visited starts on a clean slate, there's no persistent connection between you and the website. It's always a request (click) and a response (new page shown), goodbye. It's never a longer conversation and neither the server nor your computer can refer to "the thing I said three minutes ago". With cookies, the exchange is now:
Browser: "Hi, I'd like to see the article "The Golden Age of Ballooning" and this is my cookie."
Server: "Okay, here's your article, and put this in your cookie."
And so a simple one-sided conversation can go on with the "state" frozen in time and stored in a cookie.
So that's what cookies are, harmless little text files. The only thing even remotely dangerous about them is that if someone manages to "steal" your cookie (e.g. intercepts it somewhere on the way from your computer to the web server), they can start impersonating you and making request in your name. And because the cookie is the only thing that encapsulates the whole "state" of your dealings with the server, the server has no idea it's not you anymore.
But with HTTPS and encrypted cookies and other security mechanisms, this is something that the user shouldn't worry about anymore, because if a new vulnerability appears, it will be deep inside the browser technology stack or deep inside the server stack, way out of the realm of simple precautions like "cleaning my cookies every couple of days".
Antimalware makes a lot of sense in a corporate setting where there are active adversaries. In a home or small business setting I would still feel pretty confident with passive security only: Keep firewalls on, don't use an administrative account as your main one, run a reputable ad blocker, and think before you click.
On- and off-site backups, and, importantly, offline or write protected backups should be enough to handle a possible breakthrough.
On- and off-site backups, and, importantly, offline or write protected backups should be enough to handle a possible breakthrough.
This is it. Just to add points, AV will increase disk read/write and battery usage as well.
I used Mac since 2009 and none have virus. Even my father in law, 80 years old, still enjoying Mojave on his MacBook Air. Almost never ask me for help on his laptop.
This is true. However, "I installed Norton (or any antivirus software) on my Mac and I never had virus" isn't evidence for the efficacy of the antivirus software either.
What is the efficacy difference between Norton and internal protection of the OS? I stopped using any antivirus software on my Windows machines too. I have not seen any evidence that third-party antivirus softwares are more effective in protecting hacker/malware than Windows' built-in malware protection and firewall.
Just to be "that guy": I semiregularly get reports of malicious activity that has been stopped on our corporate devices by one of our multiple security layers. People clicking links to scammy impostor sites, email containing such links, email with malicious javascript payloads, boobytrapped documents, etc. Nobody writes "viruses" in its original sense anymore. But promise something too good to be true, or depend on the boredom of daily work, or on a certain percentage of people to live on the bottom end of the bell curve, and people will execute your malware for you. At that point the only thing that will save you is a good security suite that catches on to what's happening, or working offline backups.
As I wrote earlier: for most people passive security should be good enough, but with enough people involved it stops being a question of if and starts being one of when.
A lot of the current malware preys on senior citizens, children, and adolescents. Those are the more vulnerable groups when a piece of malicious code relies on social engineering to infect a computer.
I would wait until Monterey has been out for a few weeks, just be careful where you go and what you do. Norton is a memory hog and keeps popping up with all sorts of offers. I use Bitdefender after looking for low resource hogging. I did a lot of looking and comparing on the internet on what anti-virus and internet security suite works well with mac. What I found is not much really does all this wonderful stuff that their Window side does and it is frustrating. So Bitdefender works in the background, so far so good. I use the paid version, but definitely wait a bit before jumping on something so that the developers can sort out complaints from their subscribers on what doesn't work.
I did use Norton and it was easy to get rid of, but as I am getting ready for Monterey I see it left here and there a lot of files, and other crud that I have to get rid of. the problem is, did it replace something I might cause myself headache if I removed. I guess we will see how that plays out.
Be well.
I did use Norton and it was easy to get rid of, but as I am getting ready for Monterey I see it left here and there a lot of files, and other crud that I have to get rid of. the problem is, did it replace something I might cause myself headache if I removed. I guess we will see how that plays out.
Be well.
I used to use Clam, but it never found anything, and so I just stopped. I’ve never had an issue. This is not to say that there are not potential issues out there.
Once again, there is virus/malware protection running natively on Macs in the background the gets updated regularly. Between that and the excellent firewall there is no need for 3rd party malware protection. These programs add nothing and sometimes even cause issues. Keep your Mac up to date with OS updates and you'll be extremely well protected.
Although I agree personal anecdotes are not reliable, I think it very telling there is no Antivirus Forum on MacRumors. Given that MR posters are very ready to rant endlessly about the most minor of issues, there seems to be a deafening silence here about viruses on Macs, other than people asking if they should install AV software.
Seems to me most people install AV software on Macs largely due to FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt), and the notion that "it can't hurt."
Well, it can and does hurt.
Seems to me most people install AV software on Macs largely due to FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt), and the notion that "it can't hurt."
Well, it can and does hurt.
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