what is the best antivirus for my mac?

Sirport is not Airport but even so you can still have internet with out the airport on.

Thomas A Reed wrote:

That's a crap study. AV-Comparatives is paid by the anti-virus companies. You can't trust anything they say.

That may be a bit harsh. It's true that companies must pay a fixed fee in order to have their product tested since contributions don't cover all the lab expences, but they are a registered non-profit and don't accept advertising as many other reviews have been doing.

GreenMantis wrote:

Sirport is not Airport but even so you can still have internet with out the airport on.

Sirport is a typing error, go check for yourself.

That may be a bit harsh.

I don't think so. I found and read this study a while back. It claims that MacKeeper recognized 100% of "477 Mac samples (most of them belonging to the FlashBack and FakeAlert families)." I cannot see any way that that is possible, as I don't believe that there are anywhere close to 477 discrete samples of Flashback and MacDefender (aka FakeAlert). In addition, these are two of the most prevalent Mac malware families in existence. They were among the most widely recognized malware families in my recent testing. (Note that my testing shows MacKeeper near the bottom of the heap, especially with regard to recent malware.)

I see a couple possibilities here. First, this study could have been biased in favor of certain "sponsoring" companies, such as ZeoBit, or it could have been influenced by someone who would benefit from exaggerating the effectiveness of MacKeeper. Second, it's possible that the folks who did this study simply didn't have access to a decent set of samples and used samples that were very common, leading to artificially high detection rates. (After all, even in my testing, MacKeeper detected all variants of Flashback and MacDefender. Its problems lay with currently active malware.)

If that's not enough to cause you to question AV-Comparatives, here's an interesting tidbit that someone pointed me to, when I made the above comments on a private forum here:

http://www.melih.com/2011/11/27/av-comparatives-org-bullying-censorship-and-fina ncial-deals-with-anti-virus-vendors/

I was only referring to your statement that "AV-Comparatives is paid by the anti-virus companies." compared to their stated policy on this.

Thomas A Reed wrote:

That may be a bit harsh.

I don't think so. I found and read this study a while back. It claims that MacKeeper recognized 100% of "477 Mac samples (most of them belonging to the FlashBack and FakeAlert families)." I cannot see any way that that is possible, as I don't believe that there are anywhere close to 477 discrete samples of Flashback and MacDefender (aka FakeAlert).

Don't forget that there were random names being applied to what amount to the same files. That includes both the Trojan Downloaders and multiple payload files that were being scattered around and injected into Safari, etc. That was especially true of the Java drive-by variant in the spring. They could well be counting identical files with different file names here.

this study could have been biased in favor of certain "sponsoring" companies, such as ZeoBit, or it could have been influenced by someone who would benefit from exaggerating the effectiveness of MacKeeper.

According to their funding statement, all companies pay a fixed amount for testing and I wouldn't necessarily refer to them as "sponsoring" companies as far as AV-Comparatives is concerned, more like sponsoring themselves to be rated. The e-mail trail you pointed us to leads me to believe that amount is not as "fixed" as I imagined it to be.

Second, it's possible that the folks who did this study simply didn't have access to a decent set of samples and used samples that were very common, leading to artificially high detection rates. (After all, even in my testing, MacKeeper detected all variants of Flashback and MacDefender. Its problems lay with currently active malware.)

I think that's clearly the case, although I'm not sure why, if they were able to get their hands on that many Flashback/MacDefender samples, they couldn't find any others.

If that's not enough to cause you to question AV-Comparatives, here's an interesting tidbit that someone pointed me to....

Yes, that does give me pause.

Sir,

Can you proove this theory? Have you ever tried MacKeeper?

Cheers.

That's "prove."

And even if there were 477 successfully removed virueses, the concern is the NON viruses that it removes, like system files.

Yes, this whole discussion reminds me of:

Q. What's the best tool to use to key my car?

A. Best thing is not to key the car, you'll ruin the paintwork.

Q. But if I really want to, what's the best tool?

A. Well, if you really must run something sharp down the side of your paintwork, the best thing to use is something soft that doesn't really do anything.

Q. But someone told me a chisel is really good.

A. That won't do anything positive - just ruin your paintwork.

Q. But someone told me it was really important to run a chisel down the side of my car.

A. It's not. Don't do it.

Q. But if I did, what would be the best thing to do it with?

Ad infinitum.

Excuse me,

the main point is that if someone does ask for a question, they would prefer to get a direct answer. Not advice. That is how something like the example you presented reflects this discussion. The question innitially asked was not open for discussion. It was open for response.

Cheers.

No, you are wrong. They don't want a direct answer. They want a correct answer. But in the case of "What is the best..." there is NO correct answer. Everyone will have their opinion. The only issue is when someone's opinionated advice is dangerous, i.e. the recommendation of MacKeeper. And some people have chosen to beat their opinion into the ground over and over in a trollish manner. ^^

Excuse me,

How would the person asking the question know if the answer they recieve is correct? By asking the question, they are asking for feedback based on their question. I gave feedback and yet I recieved comments. How I am coming over in a trollish matter? Im just defending my past statements that of which I still completely agree on. Lastly, opinions (in which the asker was looking for) are not correct. Facts are. Opinions are based on prior knowledge. Maybe out opinions are different because we obtain varried background knowledge. Who knows. I suggested what I suggested. A simple 'I prefer *name of antivirus software*' That would have resulted in a helpful comment. Now, the poster has to deal with these absurd comments that of which is no help. I reccomended MacKeeper do to my prior knowledge that of which was from the past thus cannot be changed. period.

Cheers.

There are some questions that there is no direct responsible answer to.

What is the healthiest way to kill yourself?

If I want my car to run well, what's the best kind of sugar to put in the gas tank?

What's the safest way to feed my child carbon monoxide?

What sort of antivirus software is best for the Mac?

These questions all have no direct answer that is responsible - the only responsible thing is to point out that the way the question is framed implicitly contains false assumptions. It should be clear to the poster the answer to the question ' what is the best antivirus for my Mac?' Is 'none at all - at best antivirus software does nothing on the Mac, more commonly it causes inadvertent problems, often it is active malware.'

I don't normally use antivirus with my mac, as long as you are not doing anything dodgy or illegal on it ;)

I think this question has been answered about every way possible.