Best anti-virus for Apple Mac OS X round-up
Traditionally Mac users have effectively been immune to malware threats. However, the tide is turning. With more people buying into the Apple brand, the likelihood of hackers targeting Mac computers is increasing.
With this in mind, now is the time to think about protecting your Mac from attack. Below we take a look at some big name security software packages for Macs. You’ll need to head to our security software reviews section to find out how they perform at killing viruses and malware, or go straight to our Best Buy security software.
Paid-for Packages
Trend Micro Internet Security for Mac – £50
Trend Micro
Good for parents who want to keep their children safe online as well as preventing security attacks.
The parental controls tool allows you to set age limits and restrict access to websites to prevent innocent eyes discovering inappropriate pages online.
Read our Trend Micro Internet Security for Mac review to find out how it dealt with malware and phishing attacks.
McAfee Internet Security for Mac – £32
McAfee
McAfee is a big name brand in the world of security software. Its Mac package provides anti-malware and a firewall to keep your computer safe from digital attacks. However, it lacks the extras usually found on paid-for suites.
If you want to control the security settings on more that one computer from a central hub, you can’t due to the lack of networking. And those with a young family will also be disappointed because it doesn’t have any parental controls.
To find out just how well it stands up against attack, read our McAfee Internet Security for Mac review.
Free packages
Avira Free Mac Security – Free
Avira
Avira Free Mac Security software claims to provide ‘effective, free antivirus protection that won’t slow down your Mac or cramp its style’.
However, it is a very basic tool which focuses exclusively on anti-malware. If you’re looking for extras such as parental controls, this isn’t the package for you.
Read our Avira Free Mac Security review to find out whether it lived up to the claims.
Avast! Free Antivirus for Mac – Free
Avast
This software from Avast! claims to keep your Mac safe without costing you a penny. Because it’s free, it lacks extra features.
But does it also fall short when protecting your computer from malware attacks? Find out in our Avast! Free Antivirus for Mac review.
How we test security software
We put all our security software through a rigorous testing program. We throw a collection of malware and phishing sites at each software package to see whether it will keep your computer virus free and protected from fraudulent sites.
We know that you want security sfotware to do its job quietly in the background without annoying interruptions – that’s why we also access how quietly it deals with threats as part of our ease of use testing.
- Security Software Reviews - all the latest reviews for Mac and PCs
- How we test security software - more detail on our security software test
- Best Buy security software - all the Best Buys from our latest test
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Gary
The subject of this post is clearly anti-virus software – you tell us that in the title: “Best anti-virus for Apple Mac OS X round-up”. Yet you bang on about parental controls, firewalls and other security related topics. In fact, your mentions of anti-virus capabilities in just two of the four packages seem almost an after-thought. Yes, these other topics are also security related, but they’re nothing to do with anti-virus.
Is this just more Which blog sloppy writing/editing? Or is it a basic lack of understanding of the area?
Dear heaven, it gets worse. You write “head to our security software reviews section to find out how they perform at killing viruses and malware”. Didn’t you check this page first? All I can see is a list of 10 PC-specific products.
Your write-ups of each the four listed Mac products have a link to a more detailed review. And each link is broken: “Apologies: The page that you are looking for could not be found in the Technology section”.
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde in The Importance of Being Ernest, “To publish one bad or broken link, Ms Moreton, may be regarded as a misfortune; to publish five looks like carelessness”.
Lest people accuse me of writing a purely negative comment and contributing nothing of any real value, let me offer something positive to other readers who might have come here looking to learn something useful – and, please note, on-topic. Check out the free consumer version of the Sophos antivirus product. Use your favourite search engine to look for “Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition”. It does exactly what it says on the tin. I’ve been an IT support professional for over 20 years, so I feel it reasonable to claim that I know what I’m talking about. I’ve been using this free Sophos product since it came out several years ago and have been generally satisfied with it.
Rich Parris
Hi Gary – thanks for letting us know about the broken links, that’s been corrected and updated so all full reviews of the Mac Security Software are now linked to.
Thanks also for the suggestion of Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac – this isn’t one that we were able to include in our test on this occasion, so it’s interesting to hear your recommendation and I’m sure other readers will be keen to hear a thumbs-up for a free product for Macs.
Regarding the review highlights above, we’ve focused a lot on some of the additional features offered by these products, on top of their anti-malware claims, particularly where you’re expected to pay £50 or £32 a year for a product which ought to give you more than just anti-malware for the price. As you rightly point out, when free products like Sophos out there which deliver exactly what they say, paid-for suites often need to come with some extra bells and whistles to justify their costs.
As part of our tests, we subject all Security Software tested against a range of malware infections from different sources (local drive, USB stick, download, network, Zipped file) as well as further tests like attempts to access phishing sites.
Morag
The threat to Macs from viruses is minimal. Have you been speaking to Graham Cluley again? (His name is a big clue that he’s clueless and is just trying to sell his own products to a bigger market.)
Lion and Mountain Lion both have security built in. As long as you keep your software up-to-date the vast majority of users don’t need 3rd party software which just slows your Mac down.
http://www.apple.com/uk/osx/what-is/security.html
If you really want some independent good advice about Apple and security then read this -
http://tidbits.com/article/13476
P.S. I’m a director of an IT Consultancy specialising in Apple and Linux so I also know what I’m talking about. ;-)
Richard
Why did you only cover two paid packages when there are so many others? Webroot, for example, connects directly to the cloud to scan your computer, freeing up space and resources on your machine. Details- http://bit.ly/wJx6Y9
As for everyone saying Macs are safe, there needs to be one area that we all need to remember. While your machine might be safe out of the box, without proper protection, your Mac could act as a gateway for a malicious file to access an insecure network and other computers. Think of how many free networks you access when travelling and then come home and reconnect to your network without much more of an blink.
Jessica Moreton
Hi Richard,
Thanks for your comment. There are lots of software programs out there which we would like to test. However, we had to get a balance between free and paid-for, Mac and PC which unfortunately meant restricting the number of programs we test in each category.
Thanks for the recommendation though – I’m sure other users will find it useful.
Jessica.