Q: what is the best antivirus for my mac?

Yes, I would like to know how some that does nothing at all but use resources can help a lot.

Allan

Sophos also have a free scanner which is based off of their corporate version

http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-ed ition.aspx

It has the advantage of being free, but the disadvantage of using resources for no reason.

It has the advantage of being free, but the disadvantage of using resources for no reason.

Unless you've actually used it, don't judge it.  Sophos is surpisingly low-key, and caused absolutely no performance issues whatsoever when I tested it.

Not that I'm saying anyone must use it, of course.  That's a personal decision.  But if you're going to install AV software, Sophos is one of only two that I would recommend at this time.

Well, I'm sure that the resources it uses are small, and that's a plus, but you're in the realm of harm reduction at that point - the case that you're making is that intalling Sophos doesn't cause any practical problems, which is good. Of course, since it doesn't help the value proposition is still negative.

Sophos is great. I used it with Lion and I never saw a decrease in performance from my MBP, the resource use was small. However, the Mountain Lion version of Sophos is buggy at this moment and I'd recommend waiting for an update before installing Sophos for Mountain Lion.

Or even better, not install it at all.

Yeah...that's an old wive's tail. Macs simply have fewer viruses than Windows OS because there are simply so few Macs compared to PCs. Having used Macs since 1984 and having lived with the Mac OS X linux system ever since, I know first hand that security software works on the Mac. It's saved my butt on more than one occasion.

The more important protection provided to Macs however is against malicious attacks. (Just had two yesterday that Norton blocked.) So don't let folks tell you to run your Mac unprotected. If you don't think you get viruses then simply disable that part of the program.

The problem with any of these companies is that they have their own agenda and it's not protecting you.

And what, specifically, did Norton protect you from, pray tell?

Wow.  Folks, the original question was valid (I asked the same of Google and ended up here, so at least ONE other person was asking it!).  Before you all start lecturing me about how to run a network, or what I need - I've been an IT professional for well over 30 years.  Only recently did I change my hardware platform to Apple (running VMWare Fusion to develop in Windows).

The answer that you don't need AV protection on a Mac was flippant at best.  Of course you do - just because OSX hasn't been targeted with any significant viruses YET doesn't mean it won't.  The fact that there are some pretty significant protections built into the OS doesn't mean they will stop everything.  The fact that I base my livelihood on my Mac NOT getting a virus dictates to me that I should take every precaution possible.

Note that the original question was not "Do I need AV on my Mac", but "What is the BEST".

So, let's amend the question a bit.  First, lets assume for the sake of argument that we DO need AV on a Mac.  Let's also assume that we also need Anti-Malware (which nobody seems to be arguing). 

Now then - let's ask the question this way - "What is the best AV and Malware package available for Mac, either free or paid?"

Is Sophos the answer to this question?

Message was edited by: BillRichardson  (small corrections)

No

Allan

That about sums up what I was going to say.

Thank for your great endorsement.

Allan

You speak of dangerous things! Saying that anti-virus software is necessary is a sure way to start a major "religious" war here. Technically speaking, it is not yet necessary, as there is nothing that anti-virus software could protect you from that the OS isn't already protecting you from. As for future threats, anti-virus software can't protect you against those until some time AFTER they appear, so you can't rely on that to protect you.

Now, all that said, provided that you plan to use anti-virus software appropriately (ie, you don't rely 100% on it protecting you and throw all other safety measures to the winds), there's nothing wrong with running a good anti-virus program. The trick is finding a good one, because there are a lot of junky ones. The only two that I currently recommend are ClamXav and Sophos. Both are free, and excellent, so paying for some other anti-virus software that will be inferior is not wise.

I'm sure I must have posted this elsewhere on this topic, but just to cover the bases again, you can find all this info and more on my Mac Malware Guide.

So, here's my take on it.

You know when you're sitting at your computer, not doing anything, maybe on a call or waiting on an email, etc... and you hear your drives being accessed?  Most folks just assume that it's housekeeping going on, or one of your apps is checking for updates, etc.

But what if it's NOT?  What if you've downloaded a virus that allowing others access to your computer?  How would you KNOW?  If it's a known virus, a good anti-virus program will find it (same as for mal-ware).  Of course, there are viruses that aren't yet known... and of course, you can get those at any time, and by the time your AV program's definitions get updated to find that, it's already done it's damage.  Nothing can defend against that, except for the built-in installation protection.  I use that judiciously.  And of course, there are times when you provide your password thinking that you're installing a valid app.  If you have AV, hopefully it finds the virus attached to the installer.  But if you don't, you just installed a virus (or mal-ware) while thinking you're fine.

Those who want to make a religious war out of the question of whether we need AV have, in my opinion, entirely too much time on their hands... and probably don't use their Macs to make a living.  To me, the only answer is to take EVERY precaution to protect my computer.  Anti-Virus/Malware is one of the many precautions I take, along with consistent backups of data, drive imaging, use of cloud storage for critical data, etc.  But then, I maintain a large Sharepoint farm for a very large company - so loss of even one server (or client machine) can be very costly.  I treat my dev computer the same way.

Thanks, Thomas - for your take on the entire thing.  You appear to want to answer the question, and while I understand your stance that it is not technically necessary - I don't want to become infamous for being the first Mac users to be infected by any new virus   I've downloaded and installed Sophos... maybe it won't do anything for me, but maybe it will.