Catalina and Norton Anti-Virus

I've used both PCs and Macs for a long time. It was at least 20 years ago now I had Norton in Windows for one year (that's how long the automatic definitions updates lasted with the purchase). It never found anything and slowed the computer to a crawl when active.

I have never used AV software since then on any computer I've owned. It's all about good computing habits:

1. Never download software from untrusted sources.
2. Never even think about download anything from P2P (peer to peer), pirate, or other file sharing sites.
3. Never believe any site that says you need to download a Flash, Java, codec or other software directly from them. It is a lie 100% of the time. Anything you install from such prompts will be malware or adware.
4. You can't even trust legal software aggregate sites. They all include adware that installs along with the freeware/shareware/demo software you download.

For number 4, what I do is use those to look up certain kinds of software I'm looking for. I then take their list of possible software I would like to try and look up the web site of the company who actually writes it, and download it directly from them.

Beyond that, there are no Mac viruses. Literally. None. Viruses are software that self replicate with no need for you to do anything to help that along. These do not exist, so there is nothing for AV software to look for.

There are tons of Trojans. That is any adware or malware that requires YOU to you to download and install it. It can't get on your Mac on its own. AV software cannot, and will not stop you from installing them. Making AV software, once again, completely useless.

FWIW, I disagree with Kurt on two points…

"Norton is the absolutely worst choice you could have made."

In order to pick the worst choice, you would have to test them all. In my opinion they are all equally bad.

"You can't even trust legal software aggregate sites. They all include adware that installs along with the freeware/shareware/demo software you download."

I've used Softpedia for years and have never had adware installed.

Basically Kurt is correct however. 😎

Apple get your act together...

I quite agree about the pointlessness of AV software and in particular note the legendary unreliability of Nortons anything on Macs.

But there is another issue here, and it's quite a common one. Lots of folks are blaming Apple for 3rd party software that is having issues. This is exactly backwards. Apple make the roadway, folks like Symantec make the cars to fit the road, not the other way round. To facilitate this, Apple run a long development cycle where the 3rd party guys have access to the betas of the OS as it is being developed precisely so that they can match their apps to the changes in the OS. It's says a lot about Symantec that they can't manage to do what the other developers do, no?

In order to pick the worst choice, you would have to test them all. In my opinion they are all equally bad.

True, but someone will always be the worst of the worst. 😁

I've used Softpedia for years and have never had adware installed.

Do you have an account there? I ask because MacUpdate.com is like that. If you login, even with just a free account (your only "cost" is occasional emails from them), anything you download is adware free. Download that same title without being logged in, and it's about a 50/50 chance it will include adware.

Otherwise, I'm going to have to bookmark that one. Nice there's an aggregate choice that doesn't generate some of its income by driving their own visitors nuts.

Heck, I already found one! I love the little utility unpkg, but the only places I could find it only had a 32 bit version. Got an updated 64 bit version at Softpedia. … And checking just now, the author has since added the 64 bit version to their web page.

etresoft looked into MacUpdate once to see how their adware engine worked, and I tried it afterwards to confirm. If you're not logged in, you could download the same software title three to five times in a row, and a random number of them will download an adware installer instead of the directly linked app. Sometimes, none of them.

Apple has got their act together with AV solutions, so much they don't share the internal securities with their own employees let alone 3rd party software developers who outsource programmers for $9 an hour.

If you feel the necessity to run a 3rd party AV solution I suggest you run Windows XP, otherwise your are looking to introduce far more issues with stability and security by running them on macOS.

It was Softonic, not SoftPedia that Thomas Reed flagged:

https://www.thesafemac.com/continue-to-boycott-softonic/

I got called out on that once or twice and have to think "which 'Soft....'." Apparently Softpedia is paying for Softonic's sins.

Softonic I knew was bad. So is downloads.com and download.cnet.com (downloads.com is the old name and redirects you to download.cnet.com).

Both used to be so bad, I stopped going to either years ago. Testing again just now, it's difficult to get a download that includes adware. After trying randomly chosen apps at both, not one did. Maybe they've both cleaned up their act.

But there are still some things they do that make them somewhat untrustworthy. Such as, Softonic has a link to download Flash from them. There's no way I'd trust getting that from any third party site. And I can't remember which, but one of them tossed a big popup on the screen to try some sort of useless AV software, with a small link at the bottom to decline and only download the chosen software.

All in all, I couldn't get either to download an adware installer after about a dozen attempts at both sites.

No anti-virus software of any kind it necessary on a Mac, and Norton is the absolutely worst choice you could have made. Do yourself and you Mac a huge favor by removing that garbage.

Uninstall Norton by following the instructions v134746139

Kurt Lang is right: no antivirus is needed on a Mac. If you suspect once you got malware on your Mac, you could use free Malwarebytes to remove malware

Actually I have an account for MacUpdate and Softpedia although I rarely log in. I don't use MacUpdate nearly as often so I'm not sure whether they still bundle apps without an account or not.

I know that happened in the past. It was the only reason I created an account. I don't know if it still happens or not.

Tell Kurt not me. 😎