Mac Antivirus Software Review
Why Use Mac Antivirus Software?
Why Use Mac Antivirus Software?
Mac Antivirus Software ReviewsMac Antivirus Software: What to Look For
The process of discovering the best virus protection for Mac is not difficult if you focus on protection, features, and help and support. Let’s zoom in on each of these categories.
Effectiveness
Antimalware attempts to detect and prevent viruses, spyware, rootkits, keyloggers and Trojan horses from infiltrating Macintosh operating systems. However since no security software will always prevent infiltration, it must also be able to seek and destroy any malware that successfully infiltrates and establishes itself. Please note that viruses are not the only threat. Therefore the best antivirus applications for Mac also protect against phishing attempts that trick you into dangerous behavior. Fortunately, most of the Mac antivirus software in our review includes antiphishing. In the process of ranking the protection abilities of the best Mac antivirus products, we have confidence in the performance test results from independent software lab AV-Test. AV-Test measured Mac security software in August, 2014, and published results on how well they detected Mac malware samples and whether they slowed system performance in the process.
Protections
Each Mac virus protection product in our review can scan for viruses during times when you do not need to use the computer. Furthermore, each can scan single files or folders and automatically check external drives when you attach them. Only a few of the entry-level products include parental controls, a feature much more likely to be included when you step up from antivirus software to internet security software. Read our reviews for an accurate picture of each product’s capabilities because the feature lists that vendors provide online sometimes miss included features that we discover as we install and test the products.
Help & Support
In addition to good performance and useful features, the best virus protection software for Macs include help and support. We suggest you evaluate help and support by asking questions such as: How good is the in-context help while you navigate the product? What do you think of the online knowledgebase and tutorials that the vendor hosts on its website? Do product managers ever visit the community forums where users discuss issues? The best products let you chat online with technical support as well as calling or emailing representatives. You may also want to consider whether the company offers 24/7 support. By researching up front how and when vendors intend to support you, you minimize unpleasant surprises.
In the course of our reviews we looked at ease of installation, ease of navigating between modules, ease of accessing help from within the application and ease of uninstalling. What we found is that ease of use is not an issue for any of these products because they conform to the generally accepted practices of the Macintosh applications development community.
Although they are not infected quite as often as Windows PCs, Macs are certainly exposed and vulnerable now that there are enough of them to divert criminal attentions from the Windows user base. You will make the best Mac antivirus purchase decision if you focus on protection, features, and help and support. We hope that our Mac antivirus software reviews help you pick one.
