spectra9

Q: what is the best antivirus for my mac?

Just wondering what the best antivirus would be for my macbook?

MacBook Pro

Posted on Feb 15, 2012 8:01 PM

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Q: what is the best antivirus for my mac?

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  • by Whitecity,

    Whitecity Whitecity Jan 2, 2013 8:25 PM in response to Jeff Kelleher
    Level 2 (340 points)
    Jan 2, 2013 8:25 PM in response to Jeff Kelleher

    Alicia is trolling you Jeff, but seriously, I would recommend DNSChanger rather than MacKeeper. It's a lot less likely to cause problems.

  • by alicia_muench,

    alicia_muench alicia_muench Jan 2, 2013 8:42 PM in response to Whitecity
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Jan 2, 2013 8:42 PM in response to Whitecity

    Whitecity wrote:

     

    Alicia is trolling you Jeff, but seriously, I would recommend DNSChanger rather than MacKeeper. It's a lot less likely to cause problems.

    Really?

  • by wchp,

    wchp wchp Jan 2, 2013 8:57 PM in response to spectra9
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 2, 2013 8:57 PM in response to spectra9

    Not to change the subject,

    I was taking this discussion about the "need" for AV and started researching various AV applications based on independent testers (e.g. AV-Test and AV-Comparitives on Windows, no detailed MAC reporting yet) this in turn led me to this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/technology/antivirus-makers-work-on-software-t o-catch-malware-more-effectively.html

    LOL and oddly enough I get a Mac-Keeper add on the page. Regardless... worth a read (the article, NOT the ad).

    I also use OPEN DNS in lieu of my ISP's default DNS servers. This does on occasion present issues when working with SA's on routers and other things but for the most part I view it as beneficial.

     

    Cheers

  • by alicia_muench,

    alicia_muench alicia_muench Jan 2, 2013 9:00 PM in response to alicia_muench
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Jan 2, 2013 9:00 PM in response to alicia_muench

    Heres to everyone who completely disagrees on my prospective,

             Many Mac users tend to be skeptacle when buying anti-virus software because many have been informed that Mac computers are vulnerable to such. While MacKeeper offers 50% off deals on their software, Mac users begin the hatred. They find these little imperfections and share to the world 'This is a scam it has to be. The program casues files to go missing' These are lies told by critics colsult this website if you proove me to be speaking in the false http://www.cultofmac.com/170522/is-mackeeper-really-a-scam/

     

    There are many views prasing this software (as also touched upon on the reliable site provided)

    These people researched MacKeeper and found no flaws. Read this quote

     

    Romo, who describes himself as a hard-core Mac user, said users voice similar complaints to those heard by Zeobit. However, he says the criticisms are like an urban myth — they are based on rumor and hearsay. “I ask them if they have used our product,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, they have not.”

     

    Yes MacKeeper and Zeobit advertize but that is only because they are competitive like any other company would. Many of you have said MacKeeper does not remove most malware which is false. MacKeeper does not deal with malware at all. This can only mean (referring back to the quote) that none of you have even tried MacKeeper and have only read the rumors which most of you have said to believe. I dont work for MacKeeper nor am I being paid but it is only common sense to give off advice if you have experience. What you hear is not always true. You need facts. Like on paper. Data. Personal feedback. Rumors and opinions are not good foundations. With that I say...

     

    Cheers.

  • by wchp,

    wchp wchp Jan 2, 2013 9:09 PM in response to alicia_muench
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 2, 2013 9:09 PM in response to alicia_muench

    RE: “I ask them if they have used our product,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, they have not.”

     

    I used it for 7 days. Didn't care for it at all.

    I find Onyx does what I want, when I want and stays out of my way the rest of the time. Personally, I simply found it annoying. That is my personal experience.

     

    Not to leave anything out, I have been having issues when using Chrome lately where it would just lock up, then when I tried to kill it the host would lock up.

     

    The one thing that stopped this from happening was to uninstall Sophos. Logs indicated a problem with scanning web pages.

    regardless, 72 hours with no hangs while NOT using Sophos. Now trying Avast. We shall see. No perceptible performance hit at this point, but will report back if anomalies present themselves.

  • by alicia_muench,

    alicia_muench alicia_muench Jan 2, 2013 9:13 PM in response to wchp
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Jan 2, 2013 9:13 PM in response to wchp

    May I ask,

          Do share what you didn't care for on MacKeeper

     

    Cheers.

  • by clintonfrombirmingham,

    clintonfrombirmingham clintonfrombirmingham Jan 2, 2013 9:25 PM in response to alicia_muench
    Level 7 (30,009 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 2, 2013 9:25 PM in response to alicia_muench

    I actually bought the product - and asked for and received a refund from Zeobit. I found it highly annoying, and even dangerous if you allow it to 'do' all those things that it is capable of doing.

     

    There are free or less expensive alternatives that accomplish all of what MacKeeper can do - and without all of the annoying popups. I used it for about two months and found it less than useful.

     

    As to the OP's question, I've been testing Sophos for Mac for about a month now. I'll soon uninstall it because I keep a clean machine and use my brains when I download and install any application. Take a look at Thomas Reed's Mac anti-virus detection rates - MacKeeper just comes out as 'crapware'.

     

    My 2¢...

     

    Clinton

  • by wchp,

    wchp wchp Jan 2, 2013 9:28 PM in response to alicia_muench
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 2, 2013 9:28 PM in response to alicia_muench

    Mostly what I viewed as a duplicity of functionality. Onyx, Shredder, App Store, Avast etc all do their respective jobs. MacKeeper just seemed like it tried to make the simple things simpler and dumbed it down to the point where I felt the app was simply putting lipstick on a pig. It didn't offer anything new and took up space on my SSD. I just didn't care for it and didn't find anything about it to be contributive to what I was already doing. This is my personal opinion and in no way is intended to influence others, only state my personal findings as it relates to my system.

  • by stevejobsfan0123,

    stevejobsfan0123 stevejobsfan0123 Jan 2, 2013 9:29 PM in response to alicia_muench
    Level 8 (43,853 points)
    iPhone
    Jan 2, 2013 9:29 PM in response to alicia_muench

    Why is it that you so vigorously promote MacKeeper? All you are doing is making yourself appear more suspicious. Let me remind you of what someone said earlier - these forums are here for Mac users to help other Mac users - and those of us voluntary helpers want to make sure that no users install harmful software or crapware such as the one you so vigorously promote.

  • by wchp,

    wchp wchp Jan 2, 2013 9:34 PM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 2, 2013 9:34 PM in response to John Galt

    John Galt wrote:

     

    Kernal panic when shutting down

    My Macbook Pro Late 2011 does not start up.

    avast antivirus wants me disable my e-mails SSL so avast can handel it for me, is this safe?

    Now running Avast on both Mid 2012 MBA and Early 2011 MBP with Mountain Lion on both.

    Will watch for items 1 and 2

    Item 3, I am using Outlook 2011 against Exchange server so not applicable to me, but were I using something else I would find that VERY annoying. Will keep in mind.

    Thanks for the heads up on your experience.

  • by babowa,

    babowa babowa Jan 2, 2013 9:34 PM in response to alicia_muench
    Level 7 (32,127 points)
    iPad
    Jan 2, 2013 9:34 PM in response to alicia_muench

    First, from your posts it appears that you work for that company. Are they paying you to advertise and defend?

     

    You asked another poster to share why they didn't care for it - I will be happy to tell you my reasons:

     

    Here is the short version of my experience with MacKeeper:

     

    It used a redirect while I was opening my Yahoo email account to its Russian site. It absolutely and completely rendered my iMac unresponsive except for several huge popup windows telling me that I had (with a counter) 8,264 viruses. But they would be happy to rid my Mac of such awful stuff if I would only click here and give them my credit card information.

     

    That was the only thing that seemed to be working on my Mac. I was unable to force quit my browser; I was unable to do absolutely anything. It was frozen except for the counting viruses and flashing click here button. The only way out: a hard shut down.

     

    As a sidenote, this was shortly after the Resume feature was introduced and no one had as of yet come up with a way to turn it off (and Apple had not introduced a way to turn it off) So, every time I booted up the computer, the Resume feature obligingly launched the browser and immediately loaded the Russian site with its payment demand flashing at me.

     

    Since there was no way out of the malware (yes, redirecting your browser and rendering it useless unless you pay them - in essence - a ransom, makes it malware in my opinion), I had to do a reinstall and, for safety, did a complete erase.

     

    It took me more than 5 hours to get my Mac back.

     

    No, I will not consider MacKeeper something that has a place on this planet (or any other).

  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Jan 2, 2013 9:57 PM in response to wchp
    Level 8 (49,654 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 2, 2013 9:57 PM in response to wchp

    You're welcome.

     

    Those are just a very few recent threads that I happened to recall. There are countless others. Like all such junk Avast is useless at best. Many of these programs appear to work fine, until users come back here complaining their Mac is running slowly, crashing randomly, or otherwise doing bizarre things that it would never do if they didn't modify their system with poorly designed junk.

     

    I prefer to just use my Macs the way they were designed to be used, but to each his own. If you prefer not to learn from the experience of others, it's your time, your money, and your data to lose.

  • by MadMacs0,

    MadMacs0 MadMacs0 Jan 2, 2013 10:46 PM in response to alicia_muench
    Level 5 (4,791 points)
    Jan 2, 2013 10:46 PM in response to alicia_muench

    alicia_muench wrote:

     

    Many of you have said MacKeeper does not remove most malware which is false. MacKeeper does not deal with malware at all.

    If that were true then you would be off-topic by posting in this thread that is all about Anti-Virus software. MacKeeper has always had an Anti-Virus (Anti-Malware) module. Or perhaps you are unaware that malware includes computer viruses, worms, trojan horses, spyware, adware, and other malicious programs. The term "Anti-Virus" is a holdover from the dark ages when that's all they needed to deal with. Here's what MacKeeper's Security page says about it:

    Antivirus

    We offer a leading Mac OS engine antivirus in case you need extra security, for example, when you work with Windows emulators such as Parallels or VMWare. With an easy real-time protection on/off switch you can turn it on, work with an emulator and turn it off when you're done.

    As I said before, I have tested MacKeeper until it became Intel only.  I've even spoken with their tech support folks about the initial A-V module they deployed.  It's certainly a much better product than it was initially, but I can't ignore the number of users who have requested assistance to remove it both here in the ACS forum and on Phil Stokes' site.  Those are all real users, not rumor spreaders, who had real issues they couldn't resolve for themselves.

  • by alicia_muench,

    alicia_muench alicia_muench Jan 3, 2013 3:58 AM in response to stevejobsfan0123
    Level 1 (20 points)
    Jan 3, 2013 3:58 AM in response to stevejobsfan0123

    For one,

         I am not inclined to promote any product for I am not going to do someone else's job for them while i get paid crumbs. I'm just standing my ground. Simply setting a new prospective on MacKeeper. For all of you who have said it to be a scam, why is it that I have had it fuly installed and running on my Mac and no harm is yet to be done? Why then is my mac running more efficiently and quicker than it did? Do proove your points in FACTUAL DATA rather than an opinion based off of an opinion. And to you sir......

     

    Cheers.

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