Mac AntiVirus Protection Avast Premier Antivirus Setup Online TKPrograms Don't forget to Rate, Comment and Subscribe.

Last year's winner, (Est. $50 per year for 3 Macs), still sails through tough tests at AV-Test and AV-Comparatives, flawlessly slaying both Mac and Windows malware. It also earns an Editors’ Choice award from PCMag, despite catching only 75 percent of Windows malware (in contrast, Avast for Mac caught it all). But more concerning, it misses three out of 10 Mac malware threats in Macworld (U.K.)'s test. And in Macworld (U.S.)'s test, Bitdefender catches browser-based malware just fine – but it lets downloaded malware sneak through.

By contrast, Bitdefender took only 31 seconds, winning the speed prize, while Sophos lagged behind, at 2 hours and 25 minutes. Clipgrab install. MORE: Avast's moderate system impact may be due to the fact that this program scans every file every time, unlike Bitdefender, which skipped unchanged files it had previously reviewed. The full-system scans of Kaspersky (which also scans every file every time) and Sophos took even longer to complete, but those longer times may have allowed the software to reduce system impacts. Interface Unlike other free antivirus software, Avast Free Mac Security provides a data-rich interface that gives users plenty of data and options. Its main window shows users a Protected status, as scans are enabled by default. Avast's main window presents users with their status — Protected or otherwise — and a New Scan button.

Think of them as locked in a little box from which they can’t escape no matter how hard they try. This means that you need specific Mac antivirus software - whether that be the very strongest paid-for protection or a free download that we've picked out at the bottom of this guide - that's been designed to work with the unique demands that macOS has, so read on for our top choices. Mac antivirus: which is best at detecting threats? The excellent regularly puts anti-virus programs through their paces, and their most recent tests took place in June 2018 on macOS High Sierra.

If a file is already present on your computer, as my malware samples are, Avast assumes it must have gotten past the earlier protection layers. Like AVG, Emsisoft, McAfee, and a few others, it checks those files one more time before they execute. To test Avast's malware-blocking chops, I opened a folder containing my current collection of malware samples and tried to launch each one.

They also evaluate each product's ability to detect Windows malware. While a Trojan written for Windows wouldn't run on a Mac, the Mac could serve as a carrier. Avast managed 99.9 percent protection against Mac malware. That's very good—better than most. However, Bitdefender and Kaspersky exhibited 100 percent protection.

Clicking Scan on the Protection page gets you more choices. The Full Virus Scan took a bit over two hours on my standard clean test system. That's about the same time as AVG's Deep Scan took, and it's well over twice the current average of 50 minutes. I recommend running that full scan at least once soon after installation, to root out any existing malware. After that, the product's real-time protection layers should fend off any further attacks. Like AVG, Avast offers a boot time scan, designed to eliminate pernicious and persistent malware that resists normal cleanup. Because the scan runs before Windows boots up, the Windows-based malware doesn't have any chance to defend itself.