6 months, 3 weeks By Neil J. Top-rated free antivirus offers more extras than some premium suites. 6 months, 3 weeks By Neil J. Basic macOS malware protection at no cost.
Pcmag Antivirus Plus An Installer(40 meg for the download edition). Download TODAY.Windows, Macintosh, and Linux, plus an installer for the modules CD Suite - Volume I Version and our own material, we do not fully endorse any of the material included on the Bible Analyzer Suite CD-Rom. Easy-to-use virus scanning and clean up. Protection against viruses, malware & spyware. Best Hosted Endpoint Protection and Security SoftwareDownload FREE AVG antivirus software for Mac.The main window features a simple menu down the left, like Avira Free Security. Avira Free Antivirus for Mac doesn't cost a penny, and it earns good scores in tests by the independent labs.Since my last review, the macOS product has undergone a redesign that makes it look a lot more like the Windows version. You need antivirus protection on your macOS devices, though you don’t necessarily have to pay for it. Macs get hit by malware, even ransomware. Yes, macOS has better built-in defenses and fewer users overall, but that also means that a malware attack doesn’t have as much competition. You need antivirus protection for your Mac, and you need the best.Windows and Android are the most popular targets for malware coders, but that doesn’t mean macOS is immune.Like Sophos Home for Mac, it's free. You don't have to pay a thing for Avira. Norton goes way beyond the features offered by a simple antivirus utility.The most common pricing plan among products we've reviewed is $39.99 per year for one license and $59.99 for three. Granted, these two are security suites. At the high end, Intego Mac Internet Security X9 lists at $99.99 per year to protect three Macs, and Norton 360 Deluxe for Mac asks $104.99 per year for five cross-platform licenses. Just as in the Windows edition, the rest of the window features oversized icons representing Security, Privacy, and Performance, with a button to run what Avira calls a Smart scan.There's a big range of prices for Mac-based antivirus support.I don't have anything similar for the macOS platform, as my many hand-coded testing tools and my coding skills are both Windows-only. Lab Results Look GoodWhen evaluating Windows antivirus utilities for malware protection, I rely on a wide range of testing apps that I've coded and recoded over the years. You can turn off the Real-time Protection system, but don’t! USB protection, meaning automatic scanning of any mounted USB drive, is unavailable unless you upgrade to the feature-complete cross-platform Avira Prime suite. You can schedule additional scans, quick or full, on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.Clicking Protection Options in the left-rail menu brings up a very simple page with two options: Real-time Protection and USB Protection. Out of the box, Avira schedules a weekly quick scan. Only Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac took 18 points in the latest test.AV-Comparatives certifies Avira for malware protection, with 99.8% protection against macOS malware, down from its 100% score in the previous test. It’s 17-point score is quite good. A full six points in Usability mean it exhibited next to no false positives. It also scores 5.5 for Performance. With six points available for Protection, Performance, and Usability, the maximum score is 18.All the products I follow score 5.5 or 6 for Protection Avira is in the 5.5 group. Avast, Bitdefender, Clario, and Trend Micro also show up in reports from both labs, but over half the products I track don’t even have one lab result.The experts at AV-Test Institute rate antivirus utilities on three criteria: how well they protect against malware, how little they impact performance, and how carefully they avoid interfering with usability by flagging valid programs as malicious. ![]() If you’re foolish enough to log into a fake banking page on the browser built into your high-tech auto, you lose your credentials just the same as if you entered them in a browser on your Mac. Certainly, creating a phishing page is vastly easier than coding a Trojan that can actively steal those passwords and exfiltrate them, all while dodging discovery by antivirus programs.In addition, malware programs are platform-specific, while phishing works on any platform. Plenty of users don’t have any real clue about how to spot a phishing scam. It’s easy to craft a fake bank site and fool people into giving away their passwords. Protection Against Phishing and Malicious SitesPhishing pages are frauds that attempt to steal your login credentials by imitating sensitive websites. As for the Mac product under test, my analysis tool works strictly on Windows, so I test by hand on the Mac. I use one of my hand-coded tools to launch each URL and record results in three browsers, Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, each protected by the browser's own built-in protection. If you’re going to use Avira’s free antivirus for macOS, be sure to pair it with the free Browser Safety extension.For this test, I gather the newest phishing URLs I can find, including ones that haven't yet been analyzed and blacklisted. I installed it for Chrome and proceeded to test Avira's browser-based protection. That pointer is no longer present, but the extension is free and easily available. It used to point users at Avira’s Browser Safety extension for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Opera (sorry, Mac purists—there’s no Safari extension). Format as table in excel for macWebroot, Bitdefender, McAfee AntiVirus Plus for Mac, and Avast stepped off the top scores, with 100%, 99%, 98%, and 97% respectively.As it does on Windows, Browser Safety also actively blocks ads and prevents advertisers and others from tracking you. Even so, others have scored still higher. It makes sense that the scores match since both used the same Chrome extension.Avira’s 91% brings it into the top half, score-wise. Analyzing the confirmed phishing pages, I found that Avira's detection rate came at 91%, exactly as it did under Windows. I ran this test simultaneously with my test of Avira Free Security on Windows.For testing purposes, I discard any URL that doesn’t load properly in any of the browsers, and any URL that doesn't actively attempt to capture login credentials. How much is a ram upgrade for macUsing the free edition, you’re limited to 500MB of bandwidth per month and you can’t choose your VPN server location. Clicking the button to get VPN support sends you off to download the separate free edition of Avira Phantom VPN. These include feature-limited versions of Avira’s VPN and password manager, as well as secure deletion file shredder and a tool to tune privacy settings in Windows and popular apps.In the macOS edition, you access the VPN and password manager via submenu items in that left-rail menu. Privacy FeaturesWith Avira’s Windows-based free security tool, you click Privacy in the left-rail menu to view a page of privacy-related features. You can click for more detail, but you don’t get the option to fine-tune what it blocks the way you do with Bitdefender, Kaspersky, and others. This tool handles basic tasks like capturing login credentials you enter, replaying them as needed and syncing across all your devices. Be sure to install the browser extension to get the full range of features. You log into your Avira account and, on first use, create a master password.
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