We all love Mac and their operating system. It’s rather good and reliable – at least, during a few years of usage, refreshing and other operations it didn’t bring to me any troubles. But there is a solid minus in it – a lot of software must be bought, there are no in-built tools for elementary things like HDD defragmentation, antivirus protection, log cleaning and other things that are necessary in everyday life of a common Mac user.
I think we all know that stupid belief that “antivirus protection is not really necessary on Mac computers.” A lot of people used to say so, until one sunny day they discovered that their money from credit cards has gone somewhere. Only after that they understood what an antivirus program is for and decided to buy an antivirus application.
Here I present a set of 5 antiviruses that seem to be the best in price/functioning ratio. I used to test each of them, and I can tell that there are some pros and cons in each of them. Still, I claim that they are most adequate among those almost 30 ones I’ve tested.
1. Norton by Symantec. A well-considered program, we all know it very good. I’ve been using it for almost two years, and there are very few complains that I can give utterance to: sometimes Norton thinks necessary files to be viral ones, and therefore you’re getting tired to repair your system after that. This feature is actually the most irritating – all the others are trifles. Its unquestionable pros are quickness, usability and very thorough virus finding and eradicating – the algorithm of the program code is written absolutely perfectly. I suppose Norton to be of the most effective and up-to-date antiviruses for Macs.
2. MacKeeper. A very successful and still intriguing software package by ZeoBit. I’ve been using it for almost a year, and the only thing I was upset about is that it had a bit inconvenient graphical user interface. Yet its 2012 version is much more usable. Among its pros the strongest one is multifunctioning – it has a damn variety of useful tools for cleaning, defragging and other things besides antivirus itself. A good choice for those who don’t like paying money for every single program when you can get a bundle.
3. McAfee VirusScan. A specialized tool for eradicating the most tricky malware like keyloggers and backdoors that are sometimes so cunningly hidden that a general antivirus cannot see them. As for me, it’s a wonderful option for people who want to have a reserve 100% trustworthy variant if the usual one doesn’t work. A really good scanner – it saved me many times.
4. Kaspersky Antivirus for Mac. Really severe and rather funny, but still a very effective antivirus from Kaspersky Laboratory. It has an understandable and intuitively usable interface, and its virus eradication experience is really impressing. The real con of this nice software is that after you install it upon your Mac, it begins to decide – what you are allowed to do with you Mac and when, and when you finally decide to get rid of it, it is practically impossible – because your system goes away along with Kaspersky. Yet – if you’re a common user, it’s a very easy and effective antivirus.
5. Sophos Anti-Virus. A perfect cross-platform decision for those who have both Windows and Mac OS X installed upon the HDD of their Macs. A plain, understandable, very tiny and extremely quick antivirus that works both with Windows and Mac OS – so you don’t have to pay too much money in order to defend both of your systems. I’ve used it for some time when I had two operating systems on my Mac – and it showed itself as a good mate during the whole time I had it. The only con is that detects viruses not always.
And one more piece of advice for today – use demo versions, they are fully functional and you will be able to understand what you’re going to pay for.