W/Mac securities? Is third-party Protection still needed?

You don't need any additional software to protect your MacBook Pro.

However, your MacBook Pro might need additional software to protect itself from you. Apple allows the end user to override most of the built-in security protections. People who are easily tricked and scammed into installing malware might override the security protections because some web site tells them to. If this is happening to you repeatedly, then you might benefit from an extra layer of protection that is more difficult to bypass.

Barney-15E wrote:

And causes you other problems.

I don’t doubt it. But for some people, that is simply not an option. Their choice is either malware or anti-malware.

One common malware tactic is a local network proxy that steals all internet transfers while slowing everything down. Ironically enough, some anti-malware tools do exactly the same thing. But who would you trust to see all of your network data?

then you might benefit from an extra layer of protection that is more difficult to bypass.

And causes you other problems.

No. 3rd-party AntiVirus/Firewall packages generally do more harm than good. MacOS by itself does quite a good job with them.