What is the best 3rd party malware protection for macOS? Malwarebytes or AiroAV?

John's article is good.

I don't run an anti-virus app. I relie on apples built in security software.

Simple put,  Apple attempts to provide all the malware

detection and removal you need in Mac OS X.

"Effective defenses against malware and other threats" by

John Galt

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-8841

"Avoid phishing emails, fake 'virus' alerts, phony support calls,

and other scams"

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204759

"MalwareBytes Anti-Malware for Mac Removes adware and malware

Revives your Mac."  MalwareBytes has a more restrictive filter

for adware than Apple. MalwareBytes has come to be accepted as the

only malware detector you should consider.  For those pestered

by browser attacks consider MalwareBytes.

https://www.malwarebytes.org/antimalware/mac/

etrecheck

Run etrecheck.   The first five runs are free. Provided a

report on your machines hardware and software.  Great for

diagnosing your system.  Click on the download link at the

bottom of the screen.

http://etrecheck.com/

Apple on Security:

https://www.apple.com/business/resources/docs/macOS_Security_Overview.pdf

I've never heard of AiroAV either. But I would like to point out that EtreSoft actually pays attentions to this stuff, as EtreCheck looks for these things.

That being said, these forums trust MalwareBytes and EtreCheck for detecting adware mostly, and malware. Both were written by long time forum volunteers, and have earned their credibility with the other forum volunteers.

Malwarebytes is certainly good. So is Avast.

Etrecheck is a great easy way to get a rundown of Daemons to find out what is taking over your Mac.

Do not, I repeat do not download any optimizer, cleaner, or run any system cache cleaners. Most programs leave behind residue that can slow you down more than speed you up. One of the worst of these is Advanced Mac Cleaner, and one of the others is MacKeeper.

Norton while often bundled with other packages occupies a lot of memory, and is not often as effective as some others.

Apple has not provided “all” the malware detection tools.

To its advantage root account is disabled by default, and the firewall is in stealth mode, and the Security system preference has a

“Gatekeeper” of known apps.

But, Spotlight has no index free search for files hidden in the bowels of the system or library folders that could be memory resident installed viruses. For those you must first with Etrecheck or Malwarebytes or Avast remove as many as possible, and then any that aren’t removed by the latter two, use Devon Technologies EasyFind to remove. Mark Temple’s Find Any FIle works as well, but is no longer free.

I have found some Macs with over 700 viruses. And many people inflict themselves with Advanced Mac Cleaner, Mackeeper, Chromium, and worse, there are extensions that are hard to remove from Chrome.

The advice given to avoid viruses are good, but we should not assume Apple attempts to provide all. Future versions of Spotlight should be allowed to function index free to locate files anywhere on the computer. Otherwise cleaning out viruses that have not yet been added to the definitions of Malwarebytes, Avast and other virus security applications requires extra steps.

Can you tell us who said AiroAV was one of the most popular ones? I’ve never heard of that before.

See my post in the FHB in a couple of minutes...