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Antivirus for OS X

M

Mr.Pooya

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 30, 2014
50
16
Hi !

Recently my anti virus had some problem causing kernel panics. As you can guess it was Eset CS Pro so i unwillingly uninstalled it.

But now that the new stable release of the software has come out i am in two minds about installing it again !

There is this sentence which says osx does not need an anti virus and they are all advertising and don't do any good but i think an anti virus is must be running on my OSX 10.9.4.

Now the question is that is it really necessary ? as I surf the internet a lot i'm really worried about viruses and junk files.
 
Macs are not immune to malware, but no true viruses exist in the wild that can run on Mac OS X, and there never have been any since it was released over 12 years ago. The only malware in the wild that can affect Mac OS X is a handful of trojans, which can be easily avoided by practicing safe computing (see below). 3rd party antivirus apps are not necessary to keep a Mac malware-free, as long as a user practices safe computing, as described in the following link.
​
Read the What security steps should I take? section of the Mac Virus/Malware FAQ for tips on practicing safe computing.
 
Trust GGJStudios. As long as you follow that general guide you're fine. I have never used one and have never had an issue, but I don't torrent or anything.

Edit: Out of curiosity I tried one for about 5 minutes and noticed a large system resource impact so I uninstalled it.
 
I have never used AV even on Windows and have never gotten any malware. The stuff you can't defend against by being a smart user is not going to be caught by an anti virus either.
 
Anti virus is unnecessary with OS X as has already been stated.

With Windows the optional free MSE more than adequate.

Use common sense while online and you'll be fine. And no, Porn and Downloading torrents do not qualify as Common Sense.
 
It's not very well known, but OS X has a built-in AntiVirus software called Xprotect. It gets updated by Apple automatically in the background max 24 hours after a new threat has been discovered. It currently protects you against 37 threats and you don't need anything else.

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Traverse said:
Edit: Out of curiosity I tried one for about 5 minutes and noticed a large system resource impact so I uninstalled it.
Click to expand...

This is one of the advantages of buying a Mac : you can use 100% of its potential, you're not blocked down to 80-90% because of some anti-virus software.
 
There is no need for AV software on a Mac.

I've been using my MBP for nearly 3 years now and i've installed AV software before and all it does is slow you down.
 
PsykX said:
This is one of the advantages of buying a Mac : you can use 100% of its potential, you're not blocked down to 80-90% because of some anti-virus software.
Click to expand...

That's what I love. Other systems lost notable amounts of RAM and CPU activity due to constant-on AV software. Constant scanning is needed in some systems (like business infrastructures), but comes at a price.

The one I briefly tried was Avast AV, it seemed fine, but used 5%-10% CPU constantly and built up a few GB of inactive RAM for no apparent reason.
 
There are ClamAV free open source for Mac.. and other free, or paid software out there for mac, most assume these would clean a mac, but all they do is scan and clean windows files your sharing over network.

Kind of a mis-conception.... to the who "Mac needs Antivirus software" syndrome, but its there if you want it.

I've never used these myself... but the description of the prouducts tell you.
 
Tech198 said:
There are ClamAV free open source for Mac.. and other free, or paid software out there for mac, most assume these would clean a mac, but all they do is scan and clean windows files your sharing over network.
Click to expand...
That's not true. ClamXav detects both Windows and OS X malware, even though the latter is relatively rare.
 
Is Eset CS for Mac a known problem for Mavericks? I'm getting random reboots.
 
I never knew we had a built in AV in10.9.3. That is interesting. I run the Kaspersky AV solution- however it is an on demand scanner only and does not have any background processes that linger when it is not scanning. Anyone here tell me about the built in solution, how to use it, (CLI or.....?) and what processes to look for in process monitor when its running? First I have heard that there is a built in AV solution.

As a final note I ve had Kaspersky discover a number of things, all windows garbage that was part of e mails that landed in the Spam folder on Thunderbird....never anything else.


Thanks

Expat
 
As mentioned above I have an on demand scanner that I used for occasionally downloaded content or to scan something someone sent me for windows malware but I have no full AV. And I have never once picked up anything.
 
expat42451 said:
I never knew we had a built in AV in10.9.3. That is interesting. I run the Kaspersky AV solution- however it is an on demand scanner only and does not have any background processes that linger when it is not scanning. Anyone here tell me about the built in solution, how to use it, (CLI or.....?) and what processes to look for in process monitor when its running? First I have heard that there is a built in AV solution.

As a final note I ve had Kaspersky discover a number of things, all windows garbage that was part of e mails that landed in the Spam folder on Thunderbird....never anything else.
Click to expand...

OS X has a bult in malware list called XProtect that is uses to watch for malware and trojans. It is not really a full fledged AV system. You don't do anything to use it, it just monitors file downloads in the background and also scans downloaded applications as you try to open them.

A bit of a flaw in it is it only works with Apple applications like Mail and Safari for example and some third party apps. It does not work with all third party applications. I don't know if it works with Thunderbird or not. The app needs to flag the downloaded file as "quarantined" for it to be scanned on launch.

XProtect will not catch Windows viruses, so if you are concerned about passing along Windows viruses to your friends, you may want to run an AV solution on your Mac.

Couple good articles that explain it here and here.
 
janitor3 said:
I use Sophos on my macs, my work have it installed on any mac they have. Just contacted IT department and was sent the dmg with set up details.
Click to expand...
I recommend avoiding Sophos, as it can actually increase a Mac's vulnerability, as described here and here. 3rd party antivirus apps are not needed to keep a Mac malware-free, as long as the user practices safe computing, as described in the following link. If you need to perform a scan for some reason, ClamXav (which is free) is one of the best choices, since it isn't a resource hog, detects both Mac and Windows malware and doesn't run with elevated privileges.
 
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