is firewall like a antivirus?

adolfo280 wrote:

is the firewall like a antivirus?

No. They have nothing to do with each other. A firewall is a greatly misunderstood. A firewall is a useful tool for a systems administrator to block access to certain services, while allowing access to others. That's the key point. A firewall facilitates access to services, it does not block them. If you want to block all services, just don't make them available on the internet or just don't turn them on. A firewall is useful for when you want to allow public internet access to your server, but disallow public shell access to the same server. You only want shell access to come from the local network. There is no legitimate reason to allow shell access from the internet. That's when you need a firewall.

NO.

Your mac has its own built-in security.

Installing a third party antivirus does nothing to improve security, and causes conflicts with the normal operation of your mac.

Besides, all the malware that might affect your mac would not be deterred by these programs, because it requires you to install it. Don't visit dodgy sites, don't click links in e-mails, and don't install software except from the proper sources. All of this is just using good common sense, which "antivirus" neither possess nor can provide.

adolfo280 wrote:

is the firewall like a antivirus?

A quick google search:

What the difference between Anti Virus Software and Firewall ...

If you are behind a router— the router has it's own firewall.

Mac has its own built in Security—ref: macOS - Security - Apple https://www.apple.com/macos/security/

Use a firewall to prevent unwanted connections on Mac ...

Change Firewall preferences on Mac - Apple Support

adolfo280 wrote:

Thank you so much for the information, do you recommend me to have it ON?

I don't know. Are you running a network server for some organization?

If not, then you probably don't need any sharing services at all. If you don't have any sharing services turn on, then you don't need any firewall. By default, a firewall actually allows connections. Just turning it on does nothing except give you a false sense of security.