'But wait,' you say, 'Macs don't have viruses'Sophos is one of the best known antivirus solutions for Mac OS X. Especially when it comes to technology.Sophos has created a home version of its popular corporate Mac antivirus solution, offering Apple users a simple and elegant way to stay virus-free. Security researchers from all walks have long argued that it was only a matter of time before the Mac became popular enough that virus, malware, and spyware makers would come calling, and the recent Flashback scare has only served as a reminder that overconfidence precedes carelessness. And although such a blunt statement may be a blow to the ego of some Mac users, it remains true. The evaluation will allow you to identify the good and bad points of each program, and choose which one fits you requirements better.So Mac invulnerability to malware is a myth, at least according to security researchers from Kaspersky Lab. For example, on this page you can find Avast’s overall score of 8.9 and compare it against Sophos’s score of 8.8 or Avast’s user satisfaction level at 89 versus Sophos’s N/A satisfaction score."Market share brings attacker motivation," Kaspersky Lab told the press last month, and Mac market share is definitely on the rise.Our free Virus Removal Tool scans, detects, and removes any rootkit hidden on your. Though neither incident ended up infecting every single Mac, they both showed that malware on the Mac is ever-so-slowly inching its way into our public consciousness. Sophos scans websites and blocks threats.The Flashback flare-up happened less than a year after another malware spike, which came in the form of fake antivirus app Mac Defender. It's a free product, and it blocks malware before it has a chance to infect the computer.Your mileage may vary, but here are our impressions of five different antivirus packages after installing and using each one. This means it will no longer receive product updates, or virus database updates.Is it time to begin installing antivirus software on our Macs? We leave that up to you to decide for yourself, but given the spike in questions we've been receiving about which antivirus software is the best, we thought we'd take a look at a handful of the most well-known apps out there for Mac users. The latest update for Sophos Antivirus for Mac Classic Home Edition will prompt a message informing users that the product is being discontinued, as it has reached its end of life.
Is Sophos Antivirus How To Fix ItYou can also have the software scan for a particular type of malware, so if you only want to look for trojans instead of adware or auto-dialers, you can do so. Like most antivirus programs, you can change your security level depending on how strict you want the scans to be, tweak notification settings for when suspicious files are found, and can even change the skin of the software (thank goodness). (This was remedied by updating to the latest definitions from within the app.)Aside from this, though, the software is relatively straightforward. The green button doesn't always stay green though—when I began using the software, it started out orange with a note saying "Databases are obsolete":I didn't find this to be particularly welcoming, and it might alarm a less experienced user upon first launching the program, as there are no instructions about what that means or how to fix it. The main interface (pictured above) is simple enough to use: push the big green button to begin scanning your stuff. The Sophos Home free antivirus includes some excellent features that help create a safe.Kaspersky's antivirus software was easy to install and pretty robust. Intego VirusBarrier X6Intego's VirusBarrier definitely wins the award for "The Most Buttons." There's just a lot going on when you launch this software, and for the average user, it might be a bit overwhelming. Everything worked as expected when we used this one, though depending on your personal needs, you may not want to pay $39.95 per year for it. Kaspersky's offering comes with an uninstaller on the disk image when you download it from the website, which is also easy to use if you should choose to get rid of it. Like Kaspersky's software, Intego's also comes with an easy-to-find uninstaller. VirusBarrier also has a "fraudulent website protection" option for cookies, and even offers a way to hide your browser info and last site visited from other sites trying to track your browsing behavior. AdvertisementAside from this, Intego's software scans new files in real time and puts a traffic indicator in your menubar if you're the type who likes to monitor incoming and outgoing network traffic. Just plain annoying.Regardless, we found F-Secure's antivirus product to be very straightforward and fairly simplistic—but in a good way. Then you have to click a link to confirm, which then sends you a second e-mail confirmation that requires to you to click another link to download. F-Secure Antivirus for MacFree trial: 30 days with campaign code AVMAGLF-Secure wins the award for requiring the "Most Hoops For Users" to jump through in order to download the trial—not only do you have to enter a campaign code to obtain the trial in the first place, you then have to wait for e-mail confirmation (the first one, that is). For $49.95 per year, it could be worth your while if you're looking for a very complete solution that lets you lock down on everything but the kitchen sink, but if all you want is simplicity, you aren't likely to find it here. Professional dvd authoring software for mac(One Mac Genius I spoke to even believed the SSD in my Mac had been corrupted because the performance was suddenly so poor.)The second time wasn't much better on a completely clean machine, installing F-Secure slowed things down noticeably and beachballs were frequent. I installed this software twice on two separate computers and had nonstop bad experiences—it completely debilitated my machine one time to the point where trying to open a Finder window was an hour-long task with nonstop beachballs. But I can't in good faith endorse F-Secure's offering given my experiences when installing and running it. The offering doesn't overwhelm the user and it's not hard to figure out how to use it. It also turns on your OS X firewall by default (though you can turn it off again in your settings if you'd like) and… well, that's pretty much it.After using Kaspersky's and Intego's solutions, F-Secure's seemed promising when it came to being straightforward and simple. F-Secure's software allows you to do basic tasks like scan for viruses, block and unblock network traffic, and look at your virus/spyware history. AdvertisementThis software is completely free—there's no yearly fee or registration required—so there's not much to complain about when it comes to its functionality (or lack thereof, depending on what you're looking for). You can customize your scans and manage the files that have been set aside in quarantine, but if you want network traffic scanners or skinning capabilities, this is not the right place to look. It really just does one thing: scan for viruses and malware, and it automatically downloads new virus definitions. Sophos Antivirus for Mac Home EditionSophos' antivirus software was the most simple of all the packages we tried. (The uninstaller can be found in Applications > F-Secure after you install it initially.) You may have different experiences with this one, but I plan to stay far away. We would categorize Avast's antivirus software as more feature-rich than Sophos, but still less complex than the first two (Kaspersky and Intego)—it might be roughly on par with F-Secure when it comes to breadth of functionality.Avast can scan your full system, local volumes, network volumes, just your home directory, or a custom mix of folders. Avast! Free Antivirus for MacAvast was the only antivirus software we tested that didn't involve using a "real" installer (it just requires drag-and-drop installation). If you're looking for the simplest antivirus software from a trusted company, this is probably it. However, we also don't think it's wise to pretend that OS X is completely immune to attacks. Infection numbers—even for Flashback—are still relatively low when compared against the global number of Mac users. ConclusionWe're not arguing that Mac users have to install antivirus software if they want to avoid the zombie malware apocalypse.
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