Should I install Norton on my iMac?

Gentlemen, the blanket condemnation of Norton Antivirus falls under what I'd consider to be "urban legend". People have over time conflated the problems with Norton Utilities, which were very real, to unfairly tar Norton Antivirus with the same brush. I ran, and supported, Norton Antivirus on a number of Macs and never had a problem, though again I consider it unnecessary.

If you can point to concrete information that shows that Norton Antivirus is indeed chronically problematical (beyond just the normal sort of interference any antivirus can cause), I would welcome seeing it and will publicly state that I'm wrong and that your advice to avoid NAV is well taken. But again, that's not been my experience. We've had far more problems with Sophos or McAfee.

Regards.

Dave Sawyer wrote:

If you can point to concrete information that shows that Norton Antivirus is indeed chronically problematical

Dave,

a bit old i admit but ...

Norton Anti-Virus makes Mac OS X less secure?

Mac OS X anti-virus software: More trouble than it's worth?

i have no first-hand experience since i never installed anything Norton (or Symantec) on my Macs.

Those are indeed quite old, and the two issues raised have long since been addressed. I haven't seen anything since to indicate that there have been chronic problems, and again I worked quite a bit with Norton AV with no issue encountered or reported.

Again, Norton AV is probably unnecessary, but I think the massive negative reactions are mostly a misplacement of memories about Norton Utilities.

Regards.

I've never run it except in the old Performa days (I think it was Norton) and then the system was crashing so frequently anyway, you never could tell what was responsible. I've always accepted what I've heard about Norton being a destroyer of Macs, but somewhere in the back of my mind I always wondered how it could be possible Symantec wouldn't respond by cleaning up its act, at least with the newer releases, since it was getting such a bad rep.

I have heard the enterprise version of Symantic -- not sure what it's called -- is problem free.

I would assume you wont' get a straight answer here, or a straight answer directly from the horse's mouth, but you might want to at least check the Symantec Community.

Norton for Mac

You can (should) make a backup (bootable clone) of your system if you want to test new software. Then use it just on the clone, or put the backup off line while you try it out.

Reviews tend to be overly positive (don't want to anger the vendor, your relationship) was done with a Preview copy, or on a well maintained system, not yours, while most feedback is from disgruntled people, meaning the person on Amazon etc that had trouble with the install and perhaps other problems.

Security suites can be annoying if nothing else, telling you they are doing XYZ (update, scanning, locking PSWD MGR). All have made strides to be lighter on system resources and not interfere with other operations (downloads, system, other foreground and background tasks).

Sophos, Kaspersky, BitDefender, Intego also have Mac products and offer 30-day fully functional demo. And there is ClamXav.

IT departments can of course mandate the use of AV/Security Suites, even if they are a "Mac shop" and thankfully proactive and ready to limit a problem should it arise (rather than wait for disaster and then deal with it).

No

No, no, no! You should never install an antivirus on a Mac! As you read above, is not secure to install something like an antivirus, the cause: pure virus ferocity. You never know WHEN your Mac is going to be attacked by trojans or somewhat. If you want to kill your Mac as I did in the past, it's your own risk.

Good luck!

I haven't run Norton anything in a very long time... mostly because the last time, the very last time, I got a false positive which ate a system file on my system and prevented my from booting. I have also had it eat email. I simply do not trust it. Period. (Note: Virex is as bad or worse.)

The enterprise version is the version which generated the false positive on my machine...

No.

Macs rarely get viruses (OS X is built UNIX). I don't see why you should get an AV if Macs rarely get any virus at all.

Mac might not get viruses but, you can send a virus to a window user by way of (forward) email. There is nothing wrong with running AV on a Mac. It's up to you if you want to do so. If you feel you want to make sure that what you send to a window user does not have a virus attached to it run the AV program.

Dave... I've lost track of how many Safari users have had problems as a result of having Norton a/v installed.

And not just Safari.

https://discussions.apple.com/community/mac_os/search.jspa?peopleEnabled=true&us erID=&containerType=&container=&spotlight=true&q=norton%20symantec

Carolyn if you notice I never mention Nortons AV, but then again I guess it was implied. I have ClamXav (free) on my Mac and never had a problem with it. I guess it all depends on which AV program you have installed on your Mac if your going to have problems or not. As for anything Norton, going by their track record for the past ten years on a Mac running OSX, I wouldn't install anything Norton.

I want to know whether Norton or for that matter any AV is needed for Mac. I have Mac Pro running El-Captain and have been using Norton on my Windows Pc's and note books and never had any problem, but I switched recently from Windows to Mac and need an answer for this question too.

I have gone through these discussions here and found that Norton Interference with the system is mentioned often, but as a previous windows user, I would tell you that Norton has changed significantly and their software is very light on the system in Windows, but how far is it on Mac I do not know.

Any advice is needed....and Thanks.

FWIW, you posted to a 5 year old thread. You could have started your own. But to answer your question, you don't need to install Norton or any anti-virus programs on a Mac.