Q: Avast Free Antivirus for Mac?
-
Sep 6, 2014 10:09 PMby Kappy,HelpfulDon't bother with it or any such software. It is not needed.
Helpful Links Regarding Malware Problems
If you are having an immediate problem with ads popping up see The Safe Mac » Adware Removal Guide and The Safe Mac » Adware Removal Tool.
Open Safari, select Preferences from the Safari menu. Click on Extensions icon in the toolbar. Disable all Extensions. If this stops your problem, then re-enable them one by one until the problem returns. Now remove that extension as it is causing the problem.
An excellent link to read is Tom Reed's Mac Malware Guide.
Also, visit The XLab FAQs and read Detecting and avoiding malware and spyware.
See these Apple articles:
Mac OS X Snow Leopard and malware detection
OS X Lion- Protect your Mac from malware
OS X Mountain Lion- Protect your Mac from malware
OS X Mavericks- Protect your Mac from malware
If you require anti-virus protection Thomas Reed recommends using ClamXAV. (Thank you to Thomas Reed for this recommendation.)
From user Joe Bailey comes this equally useful advice:
The facts are:
1. There is no anti-malware software that can detect 100% of the malware out there.
2. There is no anti-malware that can detect everything targeting the Mac.
3. The very best way to prevent the most attacks is for you as the user to be aware that
the most successful malware attacks rely on very sophisticated social engineering
techniques preying on human avarice, ****, and fear.
4. Internet popups saying the FBI, NSA, Microsoft, your ISP has detected malware on
your computer is intended to entice you to install their malware thinking it is a
protection against malware.
5. Some of the anti-malware products on the market are worse than the malware
from which they purport to protect you.
6. Be cautious where you go on the internet.
7. Only download anything from sites you know are safe.
8. Avoid links you receive in email, always be suspicious even if you get something
you think is from a friend, but you were not expecting.
9. If there is any question in your mind, then assume it is malware.
-
Sep 7, 2014 12:11 AMby MadMacs0,HelpfulRobert Winckler wrote:
comments about Avast, pro or con?
- Avast! seems to test out at or near the top of the list in it's ability to identify OS X malware. That's about the only pro I'm aware of.
- It also tops the list on identifying false positives, so make certain whatever it says is infected isn't part of your OS or an app. My colleague tested it on a fresh OS X install with nothing else on it and it found an "infection".
- It now comes with it's own adware: Avast installs adware.
- It has been pretty well established in the laptop forums here that it will run the battery down to zero overnight if it's not connected to the power supply, even when supposedly not scanning and put to sleep. Doesn't appear to be very eco-friendly.
-
Sep 7, 2014 11:20 AMby John Galt,Like most "anti-virus" programs, it's junk. Don't bother with such garbage. Let your Mac work as it was designed to work, without burdening it with worthless trash.
I installed Avast "free antivirus" on a brand new Mac containing nothing other than one minimally configured User account. It found hundreds of problems including "decompression bombs" corrupted archives, "too big to be processed" and "unknown errors". It also caused intermittent system unresponsiveness, and a popular benchmarking app (a crude but quantitative tool) recorded a 10% reduction in overall system performance.
If that weren't bad enough, Avast's most recent version installs adware.
Avast's best feature by far is its ability to uninstall itself using its uninstaller utility. It's the only thing it does well.
