Antivirus for Macbook Air (M4) 2025

MacOS is the most secure operating system on the market. Privacy is at the very core of all Apple products and services.

I would advise against installing anything that interferes with that.

Don’t be fooled by clever marketing advertisement tactics that rely on fear to sell you a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

All the best! 👋🏼😉

Only install that stuff if you want your computer to run like it's 1995 all over again.

Your Mac requires no always-on, third-party anti-virus or anti-malware software.

Apple has built these protections into macOS and they are updated regularly.  

• App Security Overview - Apple Support

Always-on anti-virus apps often interfere with the performance and operation of macOS and are not recommended.  

For more info, please see these support documents:

• Effective Defenses Against Malware - Apple Community

• Avoid phishing emails, fake 'virus' alerts…and other scams - Apple Support 

[Edited by Moderator]

Hey there,

macOS have very sophisticated anti-malware solutions built-in by default:

Malware defenses are structured in three layers:

1. Prevent launch or execution of malware: App Store, or Gatekeeper combined with Notarization

2. Block malware from running on customer systems: Gatekeeper, Notarization, and XProtect

3. Remediate malware that has executed: XProtect

Source: Protecting against malware in macOS (Apple)

On top of them, many 3rd party AV solutions could harm your system by conflicting with the built-in solutions or by deleting/blocking necessary system files/processes.

I haven’t used an antimalware program other than Malwarebytes freeware scan application in more than 10 years. In that time Malwarebytes has found 2 suspicious things - both that were installed when I wasn’t paying attention to what the installer was offering. So my vote is to let the MacOS do the security for you