Our con- federates at PC World recommend Symantec’s $70 Norton Internet Security 2008, the $80 Kaspersky Internet Security 7.0, McAfee Internet Security Suite (three-seat license $70), and BitDefender Internet Security 2008, which costs $50 for three PCs.
If you do run Windows on your Mac, you should install a Windows antivirus program on your virtual PC. But if you don’t run Windows and you don’t mind passing along virus-laden e-mail attachments to your Windows friends, you don’t need either one. (It’s striking how many of the security experts interviewed for this article are Mac users.)īoth Symantec and Intego sell Mac antivirus programs: Norton AntiVirus 11 ($50 ) and VirusBarrier X5 ($70 ), respectively. Antivirus Programsīy buying a Mac, you’ve already taken the first and best step toward keeping malware off your computer. And while your Mac might not suffer any ill effects from virus-laden e-mail attachments, you could pass those dangerous files to your Windows-using friends.įinally, some malicious hackers have turned their talents from writing viruses to setting up phishing sites on the Web, where they hope to dupe you into handing over your credit card information, Social Security numbers, and so on. Running Windows on an Intel-based Mac-in either Boot Camp or with virtualization software such as Parallels Desktop or VMware Fusion-exposes you to the same security risks as if you were running it on a Dell. Its no-nonsense approach for a free suite makes it easy to navigate and understand, and, most importantly, it gets of your way to do its job allowing you to do yours.But that doesn’t mean you should keep your guard down entirely.
It offers excellent security, and protection from viruses and the worst kinds of malware. If you don’t want to pay for an anti-virus suite then Avira Free is a great option. The only one worth pointing out would be the Modules section that allows you to turn on or off certain features including real-time protection, protection cloud (checking the “fingerprint” of suspicious files with Avira’s cloud database), firewall, and the USB Scanner (not available in Avira Free).
The rest of the items in the navigation pane are pretty straightforward.
The Quarantine section in Avira for Mac Pro. You can also drag-and-drop files into this area to scan it for any potential malware. At the top it shows whether your computer is currently protected or not, there is also a button to initiate a new scan with options to do a quick, full, or custom scan. This functions as a dashboard of sorts as well as the area to initiate a malware scan.
It uses the common left-rail and primary pane design. Interface and featuresĪvira’s interface is plain but effective. We’d advise users to install the add-on since the web is a primary vector for attacks.
Interestingly, when we installed Avira’s free browser add-on Avira Browser Safety there were four additional detections. Over on Wicar there were about 11 “no results” from these tests, which means we tried to open a malicious web-based attack and we ended up with a blank page. It detected a Trojan with no trouble as soon as we tried to unzip the folder, and the same went for Macransom ransomware.
Our own malware spot tests using the Objective See archive and were pretty good.