How reliable is iAntivirus

Per SecurityNewsDaily, iAntivirus is the third best antivirus in mac.

http://www.securitynewsdaily.com/10-best-anti-virus-programs-for-macs-0822/4/

Why is there two copies of this thread? See the other thread for my answer.

He is asking for two different antiviruses in two Thread instead of one.

AV software is unnecessary and counter-productive on a Mac. Mac has plenty of built-in protection. At best your system will take a hit on performance and at worst it will muck up your system.

Save your money for better things.

According to the article that you link to, those antivirus programs are ranked by price, not which one is better than the other.

"iAntiVirus" is just as utterly worthless as all other commercial "anti-virus" software for the Mac.

So should I uninstall mine? How did I even get it to begin with? One of my family members must have done it....

Anti-malware software can easily be configured to have minimal impact on the system, and can be very useful for those who are uncertain about what malware threats mean and question their abilities to follow through on instructions to manually remove them.

For people who are not too technically savvy I recommend installing a basic scanner such as Sophos, ClamXav, or iAntivirus, and then configuring it to only do a scan of the system once a month or so. The scanner existing on the system will not hurt anything or slow it down, and as such can be used to manually scan systems on-demand instead of continuously scanning on-access (which can slow down the system).

Tiaan Korf wrote:

I have installed a app from the Internet by the name iAntivirus it look reliable enough to use... Does anyone know if it is worth it?

My understanding is that it hasn't been updated since 2009 and their Threat List doesn't include any of the current malware, so I must question it's worth.

Give this article a read Beware iAntivirus.

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Tiaan Korf wrote:

Thanks but someone mentioned that you don't get viruses for Mac and I hate to break it to him that you do

Actually, using the technical definition for a virus, there are currently none known that impact OS X, but there are certainly other types of malware that one should be aware of. Most of the Mac variety are Trojans and we are starting to see Backdoors.

Use Sophos. It's free and they have just released a new version.

http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-ed ition.aspx

I've been using iAntivirus before switching to Sophos. They're both reliable in my opinion.

As for devout Mac users who suscribe to the "we will never get a virus on Macs", better to be safe than sorry. I've been using the programs to stop me from spreading dormant viruses or malware to PCs unknowingly, as this often occurs when trading USBs during project work.

Not a bad idea to keep it there.

atomalbert wrote:

I've been using iAntivirus before switching to Sophos.

Hopefully that was the new Symantec version of iAntiVirus and not the one from PCTools which had not been updated since 2009. I'm told the only thing they have in common is the name, but Thomas Reed had an issue or two with both in the article I referenced previously "Beware iantivirus!"

Thanks for pointing that out. It was the PCTools iAntiVirus before Symantec took over the name. At any rate, I have been using Sophos on my mac since 2010. Apologies for not contributing much to the original topic!