what is the best antivirus for my mac?

Sorry, the name of the Trojan is lost. If it happens again I'll come back and post more.

Please do,

I find that Sophos 9 significantly slowed down Safari in Maverick. I removed it but I am not sure what to replace it with.

I removed Sophos, not due to slowdown, but due to it not finding Malware that infected a few Macs.

I since then recommend avast! Free Antivirus for Mac.. It seems to do a great job and no slowdowns.

nealt2 wrote:

I find that Sophos 9 significantly slowed down Safari in Maverick. I removed it but I am not sure what to replace it with.

Are you certain that you need a replacement? Educate yourself with information such as Mac Malware Guide : Do I need anti-virus software? and other articles on this site, then make up your mind.

Although Avast! does well in most testing, it does have some drawbacks.

It sometimes falsely identifies files as infected, when they are not and may even be files needed by OS X or an application, so make sure to verify any detections it comes up with before moving or deleting the file.

It has also been implicated recently in several cases of drained batteries in laptops supposedly in sleep mode overnight. If you are in the habit of putting your laptop to sleep at night make sure it's hooked up to the charger. Those stories can be found in this Forum.

Replies like this makes me even more worried.

SilverFishing46 wrote:

I think we ALL get that buying a mac means you are LESS LIKELY to need anti-virus software.

BUT PLEASE just give the less technical people a stupid link to software instead of every possible confusing review and complex freeware application available!!!

Some people (like me) are just simple people. We want the peace of mind that comes from buying extra protection we know we may not need from a recognizable company. I KNOW I MAY NOT NEED THIS....but some of us just aren't as technically gifted as the rest of you.

This way if I ever get a virus/malware......I know who I can call up and yell at about the issue! 😁

Norton Antivirus 2012 for Mac

(P.S. please save the "that software *****....."don't waste you money" comments for someone else. I've read the reviews, I know this software is far from perfect)

I kind of feel the same way as this post with people always saying that I'm an idot for wanting antivirus software for my mac. I agree with many here though that Norton ISNT" the way to go. Has anyone had experience with this software: Intego Mac Internet Security X8 ?

YummyNerdsFlavored wrote:

Has anyone had experience with this software: Intego Mac Internet Security X8 ?

Not X8, but I do own X5 & X6 but never found a need for them. In the old days, Intego was one of the few Mac A-V vendors and was pretty clearly number 1 by almost any measure. Over the years they have somewhat lost their focus, in my view, putting more effort into turning it into a Security Suite in an effort to be an all-purpose protection company. I'm sure that's because there's a bigger market for Parental Control software than for A-V on the Mac today. As a result it tends to use a lot more resources than it used to, so if you have enough horse power in your Mac to do everything you want to do efficiently while it runs, then it's probably the best of the commercial brands available.

Both TheSafeMac and SecuritySpread rated X7 at #1 in their testing, with the latter putting X8 at #2. But note that there are several free scanners that were very close. Unfortunately they pulled their free Virus Barrier Express from the AppStore when it was arguably one of the best choices available in the free market. They've said it will be replaced with something different in the future, but no clues on what that might be.

Actually Mackeeper is a bad software! Stay away from it! it gives you malware and once you install it , you start getting pop ups saying Install Mackeeper! So i experienced it myself, and if you are experiencing pops-ups or un-wanted ads>>>>>> Download this https://getadblock.com

MLacKLeeper hilres peoplle likle Alicila, dont be fooled. Sorry folr the extra l illnllserts. IL am on an old MLacboolkl Prol until IL klnolw ilt ils safe to restart my MLac Ailr. I shult dolwnl whlille llllMacKLeeper was installilng. Doles anyolne here thilnkl that some of it might have been installled. I trashled everythilng in Applications that came with their downlolad. I am afraid that they milght hide stuff. Who klnolws?

IL read a rave revilew that solunded legilt. They are payilng pleolple.

i-and. wrote:

MLacKLeeper hilres peoplle likle Alicila, dont be fooled.

I'm not sure what prompted you to reply to me about Alicila. This discussion is two and one-half years old, way too long and totally out-of-date as far as most of the information in it is concerned.

I'm also sure that I know a lot more about MacKeeper and it's history than you do, having been introduced to version 1.0 even before this discussion started and the developer at the time was located less than four miles from my house. Since that time, the application has markedly improved in almost every way and ownership has changed (at least on paper). I'm very aware of their overly aggressive advertising tactics, compensation of users for posting reviews, offers to cash to at least one A-V software reviewer (a colleague of mine who contributes frequently here) as a consultant in exchange for a positive review and two class action law suits for misleading capabilities in their advertising.

I trashled everythilng in Applications that came with their downlolad. I am afraid that they milght hide stuff. Who klnolws?

IL read a rave revilew that solunded legilt.

It took them a long time to produce an uninstaller that appears to remove everything. Were you able to use that? It should have asked for your password when you moved the application to the trash in order to run. If you think it left anything behind then follow these instruction to double-check.

If you have any more issues with it please start a new thread in order to gather all the right people that have current information. Again, this discussion has gone on about two years or more too long.

No more issues and sorry to cause a problem. Your posts were on the defensive and I was just trying to give you some support since Alicia seemed to be “winning the debate”. And for good reason, since you have now retracted your former stance against Mackeeper. (I have reinstalled Intego and learnt my lesson)

Neither was I looking at dates... I was doing searches and scanning a page, here and there, intent on finding someone who could answer my question about “whether or not an application will install if the computer is shut down during installation”.

Apparently not. It seems my problem was solved by shutting down while Mackeeper was installing because there is no trace. I assumed that a predetermined outcome existed, if a computer was shut down during an install. Your answer, which directed me to the instructions on how to uninstall, indicates that you think an application will survive being interrupted during installation by shutdown, but I cannot find any trace and am not having any problems. (I have reinstalled Intego and learnt my lesson.)

I think that it may be safe to conclude that shutting down, during an install, may prevent the install altogether. At least, in my situation, as well as some recent reports about 2011 Mac Airs shutting down automatically while installing the EFI Firmware 2.9 update on July 15, with the same outcome... No installation. I was one day too early to use the information, and my searches on the 14th turned up nothing. But, those shutdowns were automatic, and related to the update, itself; they wanted to install, and continued to retry, but the shutdown prevented the installation.

In case you or anyone is interested in “whether or not an application will install if a Mac computer is shut down during installation”, here is a link to one of the articles: http://www.macrumors.com/2014/07/22/efi-2-9-update-issue/

O, and this is answered for Microsoft systems: the application does not install and, in the case of an update, you will be reminded to install at start up or just need to reinstall whatever was interrupted when you shut down.

i-and. wrote:

since you have now retracted your former stance against Mackeeper.

Then perhaps you have misinterpreted my comments. Although I have modified my impressions of MacKeeper quality over the years, my feelings about their aggressive advertising and misleading statements therein have not changed much at all. But even more importantly, I campaign against MacKeeper and all other "cleaner" apps whenever I can as more often than not they do more harm than good in the hands of an inexperienced user. People looking for a quick and easy, set and forget fix to whatever ails their Mac at the time can get in big trouble with such apps.

intent on finding someone who could answer my question about “whether or not an application will install if the computer is shut down during installation”.

In that case I'd have to say there is no one answer to that and I'll add a caution at the end.

It very much depends on the installer used and to some extent the developers use of it's scripting capability. It's true that Apple Installer installations are normally performed into a temp area and it is not moved into it's final location until after it's completely built from it's source. There may be some scripts run after the application is in place to make various adjustments to permissions, add LaunchDaemons/LaunchAgents, add the app to Login items, etc. But it's a bit more complicated when developers use their own or a third party installer which is much less predictable. The last time I checked out the one from MacKeeper it actually downloaded most of the application from the internet, so interrupting that process easily prevents it from being installed. For simpler apps, such as those from the AppStore and any that simply require them to be Finder copied to the Applications folder, it's almost instantaneous and interruption is either impossible or results in an incomplete installation that could cause issues going forward.

My caution regards how you went about shutting down your computer. If you simply choose Shut Down... or Restart... from the  menu, then that's OK, but if you "pulled the plug" either literally or by holding down the power button, that's only advisable when the computer is completely frozen and no other means is available. Doing so while the computer is still running will often cause a problem with writing data out from buffers to the hard drive, which could cause several different kinds of corruption and worst case won't allow you to reboot or log into your account.

Edit: One more comment.

A firmware update is way different from any other type of installation. It first puts the new firmware in a special place and then shuts the Mac down to launch a special process that uploads the firmware to the boot chip and doesn't allow anything else to take place until it's completed. Then it cleans things up and reboots normally. There is no comparison between what happened with MBA's and the 2.9 update (which has been pulled by Apple) and any other type of software installation.

Recently there has been a number of computers in my shop with numerous Adware/Malware threats. I have found Adware Medic, from thesafemac.com, to be effective. It does not have any realtime scanning so you just do a quick scan for known threats of you suspect an issue. I have also used Sophos for Mac on, it scans for, prevents, and assists in removing Mac and Windows based threats (you don't want to be carrier any more than you want your own system infected). These solutions are both free and I haven't had issues with them bogging down any of the computers I've worked on.