What is the best antivirus when running both OSX and Windows 10?

Mcafee, Nortons, AVG, etc....They are all okay. You usually get FREE antivirus software with your internet subscriber.

Comcast gives you FREE Nortons. Check with on your internet subscribers website for FREE antivirus software.

the forms have no shortage of posts by other mac users who installed a Mac Anti-Virus on their mac and experienced an issue ranging from slowness, to applications crashing on them to kernel panics. Avoid Mac AV, they are not needed, they cause problems, they have never encountered a single actual Mac virus in the wild and their effectivness has never been put to the test.

Windows AV has had decades to mature, far more developers working out the issues, far more users contributing to its stability and far more direct cooperation with Microsoft. Mac AV solutions have had none one of this and the findings on these forums is they cause far more problems than they perport to fix.

If you need Windows AV use Windows AV but do not use your Mac as a secondary gatekeeper, all you will do is destabilize your mac and use it for a purpose it was never designed to do. Your Windows AV is far more advanced than any Mac solution and far more capable.

You don't have to take my word for it, not for any reason but search these forums and you may realize what a huge potential mistake you could be making by using a Mac Anti-Virus

Please read Effective defenses against malware and other threats.

Do not install any non-Apple "anti-virus" software on a Mac. "AVG" may prove difficult to uninstall. Its uninstallation instructions do not work, a typical characteristic of garbage software.

Succinctly put, no AV on the Mac OSX side, pick your poison for the Windows side.

Ciao.

I'd go with Avast! it's multi platform and free for basic services.

Yes AV on the Mac side, not to protect the Mac, but to make sure your not a Typhoid Mary, passing on Windoze infections passed to you by your friends/family/coworkers trapped behind closed windows...

Your Windows AV is intergalacticly better at doing this than all mac AV products combined and all you are doing is crippling your mac and hoping it finds something Windows AV could detect and thwart in ways the Mac AV lacks the development to do. If you want the horse (Mac) to stay in the barn (Windows), shutting the barn door is a far more effective solution to break both the horses legs (Mac Anti-Virus).

The AV on the Windows side will do the 'protecting'.

Ciao.

Personally, I have had nothing but problems with 3rd party antivirus software and MS-Windows-7/8/10

I would stick with MS-Windows defender for trouble free antivirus solution.

For mac no antivirus is needed.

For malware on a mac you could use "malwarebytes".

https://www.malwarebytes.com/antimalware/mac/

And stay away from the black web.

Hi,

Let me re-approach and introduce myself, Hi I'm a principle security engineer for Fortune 100 companies with 30+ years in the IT industry. I do Social Engineering, Pen-Testing, Malware analysis, Attack Vector Analysis, Security Architecture/Engineering, and Risk and Compliance for a Living. So when I chime in on something related to security, most "C" level company presidents usually listen to what I recommend (CEO, CIO, CFO, Etc,.)...

For those that say AV and Anti Malware is not nessacary on your computers, Mac or Windoze makes no difference, I'm telling you your wrong. If your argument is "It makes my system slow", or "let the other guys cover their own Arse" then not only are you a detriment to society, but also, you are wrong. You are likely also the ones that look at things and say, "well someone else will fix it", or "that's someone else's problem", and walk away, something that has run rampant in our modern society...

Malware and virus propagation are EVERYONE'S PROBLEM. The BlackHat Hackers, Criminal Organizations, and Antagonistic Government Agents are winning, and we ALL have to do what we can to protect ourselves and our neighbors.

So yes, even on a Mac, run a third party AV/Anti-Malware, it may slow your system slightly, but you will be "mostly" protected, and you will both be helping yourself and your network stay a little cleaner. Noting "mostly" is referring to the fact, no one can defend against "zero-days", which in their definition are undetectable initially.

Also, for windows, please for the log of God, go with a third party product! relying on windows defender? You'd be better off uninstalling it as it's giving you a false sense of security. It's been tested as the WORST AV/Anti-Malware available...

Thanks,

Bob Hood

Hi Maureen,

I've been uncharge of the recent research at my company on updates to AV, Avast consistently rates on/near the top for endpoint protection, especially on the personal, non corporate level. Corporate I're make different recommendations (Cylance). I personally use Avast! on my Mac Pro, MacBook Pro Mac Mini and my Wife's Windoze 8 machine. She regularly watches tv broadcasts from out of country via the web and is regularly getting infections on the win doze machine, and I've begun the moment of her information to the Mac mini to help cut down on the risk.

So Avast! seems to be one of the best options...

Bob

maureen212 wrote:

I'm inclined to check out Avast! Is that a decent solution for both or would a malware solution on the Mac and an AV on the Windows side be a better combination?

In regards to AVAST, please read this discussion, specifically what Linc Davis has to say about it:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7379099?start=0&tstart=0

Ciao.

Hi Bob,

I am the head of Mac IT infrastructure for a European/North American fortune 500 company. I also have CEOs, CFO's, Presidents and VP's coming to me for advice, and the best defense at time for OS X is to keep the mac systems I support up-to-date from Apple Computer, have a policy in place, keep users on standard accounts, teach them about safe browsing and risks and secure devices coming into my network because Sophos or McAfee or Kaspersky or whatever else was recommended and tested is showing up in Kernel Panic log as the cause of the fail when my designers need to get projects out and the "security" on the Mac is thwarting the OS and wrecking stability which is key for production and deadlines are missed so I can sleep at night knowing some half baked offering that a freelance developer slapped together for Norton so they could sell snake oil to a Mac user who probably could have coded the app better than the idiot who spent 3 months (if that) asking on the web how to compile in OS X because they fluffed their resume' and now they have to run that ball into the end zone.

So while I'm a little less than a decade short of 30+ years I have worked with Windows specialist who insisted the Mac should be treated like a PC and have wrecked productivity with their shortsighted Windows-centric research. Read the forums, the state of Mac AV is horrendous and impractical in the workplace, it's outright damaging and if you have sufficient Windows/Unix infrastructure in place on a shared platform environment it's unnecessary at this time, and it has yet to prove itself in a real threat so it's effectiveness is unknown in that event.

Regards,

Jimmy