Best Mac Antivirus Software
You need an antivirus program on your Mac. That statement may cause some Apple users to stop listening and walk away, but with the amount of Mac malware on the internet today, this is no longer up for debate.
In 2012, there was the Flashback Trojan that infected 600,000 Macs. In 2013, a targeted attack hit OS X developers at Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Apple itself. In 2015, the XcodeGhost attack poisoned hundreds of OS X and iOS apps. And in early 2016, the first known piece of encrypting ransomware for Macs appeared.
After evaluating six free and paid Mac antivirus products, we've chose Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac ($40 per year) as our top pick. It offered lightning-fast scans and had a minimal impact on system performance, and was the only solution we reviewed that caught all malware.
Sophos Home for Mac is our favorite free option, as it provides very good malware protection and an easy-to-use interface while resulting in only a small performance hit.
How We Tested
To evaluate ease of use, interface and performance impact, we installed each AV program on the same late 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina Display running OS X El Capitan 10.11.4. It was powered by a 2.6-GHz Intel Core i7 processor and had 8GB of RAM and 23GB of data stored on a 512GB SSD.
We conducted our own tests in May and June 2016 based on how much each antivirus product affected our laptop's performance. To do this, we used our custom OpenOffice benchmark, which matches 20,000 names and addresses in a spreadsheet. We timed how long it took to run a quick scan and a full scan while the laptop crunched numbers in the background.
We assessed how easy each program was to use and the number of useful extra features it offered (including free add-on software). To gauge how effective each package was at stopping malware, we used the results of evaluations conducted in June 2016 by AV-TEST, a well-regarded independent product-testing lab in Germany. AV-TEST tested the Mac anti-malware engines of each brand to see how well each detected malware during active scans (which AV-TEST calls "on-demand" scanning).
Of the six Mac antivirus products we reviewed, only the paid Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac offered perfect malware detection. Bitdefender makes it easy to start on-demand scans by placing the Scan front and center in its modern, streamlined interface. It also topped the competition in system performance, creating no noticeable impact during passive use and recording low scores during active scans.
Editor's choice
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac
Best Mac Antivirus
With its unobtrusive interface and low system-performance impact, you'll barely realize Sophos Home for Mac is there until you need it. Anyone with young children at home will find Sophos' parental controls useful, as they allow for remote scans and checks and block sites by category. Sophos even keeps a log of when users try to reach banned pages. Its malware-detection rate was just a hair shy of perfect.
Sophos Home for Mac
Best Free Mac Antivirus
Kaspersky Internet Security offers both the lowest system impact and the most robust set of extra security features, including parental controls and options to lock down your webcam and stop websites from tracking your browsing activity. If you're willing to pay to protect your Mac from malware, Kaspersky Internet Security is a very good option, although Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac detects slightly more malware.
Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac
Norton Security Deluxe costs $20 a year more for a single user than Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac and Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac. You'll get always-on-call customer support, but Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac offers that too, plus better malware detection and a much lower system impact.
Norton Security Deluxe (for Mac)
Avast Free Mac Security caught as much malware as did Sophos, Kaspersky and Norton, while not charging a dime. But a lack of extra security features, combined with a dip in system performance during full scans, gives us little reason to recommend it over Sophos.
Avast! Free Antivirus
Last year's winner in the Mac antivirus category took two steps backward as all of its competitors surpassed it in terms of malware detection. Avira Free Antivirus for Mac also fell behind in system-performance testing, with two of the three worst marks recorded.
Avira Free Antivirus for Mac
Summary
Got a non working activation key in return. And i had to delete my free 1 years trail of Kaspersky which worked just fine!
I also use Malwarebytes anti exploit (protection against zero day attacks) and Zemana anti logger to minimise effectiveness of key loggers in case they get through the defence. All of these programs are free.
I would not pay for AV and find there is no need to pay as long as you have a good backup strategy in place just incase you get something nasty on your PC. Another couple of things that will reduce your chance of infection are:
1. Install adblock plus on your browser.
2. Disable javascript on your browser (you can switch it on briefly if there is something on a site you really need to see)
3. Uninstall Java from your computer, this is known to be the biggest vulnerability that hackers use.
4. Uninstall adobe reader and flashplayer as they also contain vulnerabilities that hackers use.
5. Make sure your windows and all other programs are upto date with patches and that you are running the latest version.
PS: The upshot is I Googled "Top Rated Antivirus Programs" and found this article expounding on Avira. What's a body to do? I think that I will keep my Malwarebytes and go back to Windows Defender as Avira is just so difficult.
Have been using Kaspersky ever since, and it has never let me down. Plus it is very cheap where I live, I got an Internet Security license 3 years, 3 PCs for $25.