Software Review: Bitdefender Antivirus For Mac
. Pros Protects files and backups from ransomware.
Top ratings from two independent testing labs. Excellent score in our antiphishing test. No-hassle Autopilot mode. TrafficLight browser extension marks dangerous links in search results. Cons TrafficLight currently doesn't work under the specific Safari/Google combination. Bottom Line Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac gets top marks from the independent labs and in our own hands-on testing.
With its handy Autopilot mode, you can set it, forget it, and have confidence that your Apple computer is protected against malware. The macOS product's main window resembles that of on Windows, but simplified. There's no left-rail menu, and no secondary pages with detailed configuration for protection and privacy. A status banner occupies the top portion of the screen, with three big buttons below that launch Quick, System, and Custom antivirus scans. As with the Windows product, Bitdefender on the Mac defaults to running in Autopilot mode. That means it does its job as quietly as possible, keeping user interaction to a minimum.
If you turn off Autopilot, your security status changes and the program enjoins you to turn that feature back on. Most users shouldn't turn it off. Pricing and OS Support For $39.99 per year, you can install Bitdefender on a single Mac; raising that to $59.99 extends protection to two more systems. ESET and Kaspersky precisely match this pricing scheme. Webroot is similar, but you get three licenses for less—just $49.99. As for, it also costs $59.99 per year, but that subscription includes protection for every macOS, Windows, Android, and iOS device you own. And Avira are totally free, which is handy if you didn't budget for Mac antivirus.
Software Review: Bitdefender Antivirus For Mac Download
Intego lists for $99.99 per year to protect three Macs. That sounds high, but it's more of a security suite than a mere antivirus. Norton is also a suite, which makes its price ($89.99 per year for five licenses) seem more reasonable. If your Mac is brand-new, it has the very latest and greatest operating system.
Good for you! But if you're running an older version, your need for antivirus is even greater. Like, Bitdefender works on anything from Mavericks (version 10.9 of the OS) to the present. ESET goes beyond that, almost ten years back, with support starting at Snow Leopard (10.6).
Others require a much more recent version. With Avira, you need El Capitan (10.11) or better, and several others require at least Yosemite (10.10). Excellent Malware Protection Scores I have an elaborate set of hand-coded tools, developed over a period of years, that help in my hands-on testing.
On a Mac, they're worth exactly nothing. Oh, I can run a few tests manually, but for the most part I have to rely on reports from the major labs.
Five of the labs report on Windows antivirus products, just two on Mac products Both the testing labs that I follow for macOS antivirus include Bitdefender in their testing roster, and both give it excellent scores. Like all the products in the latest test by, Bitdefender achieved 100 percent success protecting against Mac-specific malware. Because it's possible for a Mac to act as a carrier for malware that attacks Windows, the researchers also check how well each antivirus detects Windows threats. Bitdefender also managed 100 percent in this test, and almost all products detected better than 90 percent. The one exception was Intego, whose 28 percent detection rate makes sense given that, unlike the rest, Intego has always focused on Mac protection, not Windows.
Both AV-Comparatives and certify Bitdefender for Mac antivirus protection. Bitdefender also achieved 100 percent protection in this lab's test, with no false positives. AV-Test's team also checked each antivirus against a collection of Mac-centered PUAs (Potentially Unwanted Applications) and against Windows malware. In both these tests, Bitdefender took the top score, greater than 99 percent. As with the Windows product, in other words, its lab scores are superb.
Windows Malware Protection ESET, Intego, and a few others include the ability to automatically run scans on a predetermined schedule. Bitdefender omits this feature, because its real-time protection should catch any new malware before such a scheduled scan. That does mean that it's important to run a full System Scan as soon as you've installed the product, to make sure your Mac is clean. A full scan with Bitdefender took 18 minutes, the same as Avira, and less than half the average time among current Mac products.
Running a quick scan, which looks for active malware and checks system areas typically used by malware, took just one minute. That's fast, but Norton's quick scan took just 30 seconds, and finished in 15 seconds.
All the products I've reviewed recently promise that they'll too, so your Mac doesn't become a Typhoid Mary. When I opened a folder containing my Windows malware samples, Bitdefender didn't react immediately, so I scanned the folder. It detected and quarantined quite a few, but reported itself unable to quarantine a handful. After I used Finder to delete that last handful, I found that Bitdefender wiped out 75 percent of the Windows samples. That's pretty good, but Webroot eliminated 86 percent of them, and Sophos got them all.
Superb Phishing Protection On a Windows system, Bitdefender blocks access to fraudulent and malicious websites at the network level. No internet-aware program, browser or otherwise, can access a site that Bitdefender has flagged as dangerous. The macOS version functions as a browser extension in Chrome and Firefox, and my testing shows that it does a very good job. Sites that host malware tend to be locked to a specific operating system—most often Windows. Phishing sites, though, are totally inclusive.
No matter how you're browsing the web, whether from a laptop, a game console, or a smart refrigerator, if a phishing site tricks you into giving away your security credentials, you're hosed. To test how well an antivirus utility protects against phishing, I start by collecting the newest phishing URLs I can find on the web, looking in particular for ones that haven't made it onto blacklists. I use a hand-coded test utility to simultaneously launch each URL in four browsers, one protected by Norton and one apiece by the antiphishing protection built into Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. As for the Mac products, well, my utility works only in Windows, so on the Mac my testing involves a lot of fancy cut-and-paste into the browser's Address bar. The fraudsters are constantly trying new tricks to get past phishing protection; some days they do better than others.
As a consequence, I report results as the difference between the product under testing and the other browsers, rather than as a hard number. In my Windows testing, I find that hardly any products do better than Norton, and the same proved true on the Mac. Bitdefender was the only product that outscored Norton, with a detection rate 5 percent higher.
It also handily beat the three browsers. Here's something interesting, though. I tested protection by Bitdefender's Windows antivirus simultaneously, and it fared even better, beating Norton's detection rate by a full 12 percent. That's the best score ever in this test. You'll also notice in the chart that scored distinctly lower than its Windows counterpart. TrafficLight for Search Result Protection If you try to navigate to a fake or dangerous site, Bitdefender's TrafficLight browser extension steers you back to safety.
TrafficLight also marks up search results, using green and red icons to identify safe and dangerous links. If you stay away from red-light links, you should be safe. Clicking the red icon opens a page with detailed information about why the link is dangerous.
You get a laundry list of reasons, with relevant icons highlighted. In most cases it's phishing or malware. But other reasons include Facebook scams, sending unsolicited email, and piracy. One warning; at the moment, TrafficLight doesn't work correctly with the specific combination of Google on Safari. It works with Google in other browsers, however, and with other search engines in Safari, however. Ransomware Protection Keeps Files Safe. Ransomware is a growing threat, and is showing up in more and more security products.
Some add a monitoring layer that looks for behavior that suggests encrypting ransomware. Others, Bitdefender included, balk ransomware activity by limiting access to the folders typically affected by ransomware. A ransomware attack doesn't aim to disable your computer. The perpetrators know you'll need a working computer in order to pay up. Ransomware usually attacks documents, images, and other personal files, working in the background until its dirty deeds are done.
Bitdefender's Safe Files feature defaults to protecting your Desktop, Documents, Downloads, and Pictures folder; you can add any other folders in which you routinely keep important documents. Known and trusted applications can access your files just as they always would, but when an unknown program attempts to create or modify files in a protected folder, Safe Files prevents the change and pops up a warning. If you recognize the program, if it's something you're actively using, you can add it to the trusted list. If not, let Bitdefender keep blocking the attack.
Under Windows I had no trouble seeing this feature in action. I used a couple of programs guaranteed to be unknown, a simple fake encryptor and a tiny editor that I wrote myself. I don't have anything similar for the Mac in my bag of tricks, but I have no doubt the feature works in just the same way. Savvy Mac users know that Time Machine keeps regular backups, theoretically insulating them against ransomware.
Got your files encrypted? Just restore from backup! But since the Time Machine backup drive is often left connected to the Mac, there's a possibility that backups could be compromised by a ransomware attack. Just as it prevents unauthorized access to your documents, Bitdefender also protects your Time Machine files. A Fine Choice Bitdefender has long been a name to conjure with in the world of Windows security software, and Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac carries on that tradition. Two labs certified its protection with their very best scores.
In my own hands-on test of antiphishing prowess, it beat all other Mac-based contenders. And it even protects your files and backups against ransomware.
It doesn't have the posse of security bonus features found in its Windows equivalent, but that's not anything to worry about. Bitdefender is an Editors' Choice for Mac antivirus. With scores nearly as good as Bitdefender's and even more features, Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac is also an Editors' Choice.
By Jennifer Allen 2018-11-06 20:13:03 UTC There's a common misconception that Macs don't need antivirus software. Unfortunately, that's far from accurate these days. Macs are generally more secure than PCs, thanks to a more secure operating system where certain aspects of its software are more locked down and harder to infiltrate by rogue software. Also, meaning fewer targets for criminals. However, that doesn't mean that it's impossible to get a virus on your Mac, or receive a suspicious piece of malware either. SEE ALSO: A report from Malwarebytes found that.
That number is likely to rise in 2018 with new threats like OSX.MaMi and Dark Caracal cited in the article as significant ways of disrupting Mac owners. The more Macs are used, the more they’ll be targeted by cyber criminals. And everyone loves the must-have MacBook of the moment, right? MacOS might still be more secure than Windows but why take a risk with your valuable data? We've taken a look at some of the best antivirus solutions out there for your Mac, ensuring you have an extra layer of security between your data and nefarious viruses.
We’ve evaluated their effectiveness at detecting viruses, and lay out any of their additional security features too. Protect your Mac against ransomware attacks, computer viruses, and more with these antivirus products. The gist: One of the oldest names in the security software business, it's easy to know what to expect from. Essentially, it runs in the background, keeping an eye out for any suspicious activity or threats to your system, without any need for interaction from you. In the past, Norton software has been known for causing performance dips but that's far from the case here.
For one thing, its idle scanning feature only scans during quiet periods with that scan pausing the moment you use your Mac. What it offers: Norton Security for Mac offers a few different options for scanning. You can switch to automatic, always-on protection and never think about it again, or there's schedule scanning for appropriate times of day for you. It's the idle scanning feature that's most useful though, which simply works when you need it to. Additionally, includes two Safari plugins. Safe Web helps you avoid visiting rogue sites, while Identity Safe is a simple password management tool. Neither are quite as expansive as the antivirus facility, but as a useful way of cutting off issues at the source, they do the job admirably.
The price: uses a subscription based service: $39.99 for the first year provides you with one Mac license. If you want to use the software on more than one Mac, you'll need to upgrade to Norton Security Deluxe for $49.99 for the first year.
The $10 upgrade gives you up to 5 licenses (for PC, Mac, Android and iOS smartphones), as well as parental controls if you need them. The gist: Another familiar name in the security software world, is more than just antivirus software, offering a full security suite of features. It's a name that was synonymous with being a tad bloated in the past but that's far from the case now.
If you want something more powerful than simple antivirus protection, this will scratch that itch. What it offers: As expected from a name as big as McAfee, there's the prospect of award-winning antivirus scanning. It's not quite as fast as Norton's nor quite as accurate, but it's still highly competent. Where things are ramped up is McAfee Total Protection's many extra tools, much beloved by its users. There's anti-spam protection that works with many popular email clients, a digital document shredding tool, Wi-Fi protection settings, and a network manager so your network can't be hijacked without your knowledge.
Parental controls are also available along with True Key identity management which uses multiple forms of authentication to ensure that only the correct owner of your Mac will be able to use it. It's all about cutting off your risks before you even get that far. It might not be the speediest or the most attractive antivirus software, but for those after comprehensive security assistance, it's unparalleled.
The price: The price you pay depends on how many systems you want to run it on. You can protect one device for $24.99 or five for $39.99, and up from there. In each case, that's the price for the first year of use.
The gist: antivirus option might be a lesser known name in the antivirus and security software world, but it's garnered many awards for its antivirus engine. Some sources have even found 100% success rates for virus and malware detection, although mileage will vary depending on the viruses involved. A little cheaper than its competitors, it's a strong opening gambit for a company that's more well known amongst tech savvy markets than the average consumer.
What it offers: Speed is one of the best things about. Within seconds of use, it'll scan thousands of your files with a full scan taking mere minutes. Opting to scan specific locations such as your Mac's system library is also an option, streamlining your experience.
No one wants to wait around for a full virus scan, so it's refreshing to see Bitdefender just get on with things, or provide you with convenient alternatives. There's also the ability to search for malware quickly within various archives and common filetypes, such as PDF or ZIP, further extending your options. An always-on scanner known as Autopilot keeps an eye on things when you don't want to do anything manually, although that does mean no choice of scheduling.
Security suite features are also included, such as an adware blocker, anti-phishing detection for webpages, and backup protection for your Time Machine backups. The price: is currently priced at $39.98 for five devices for the first year.
It'll work across platforms so it's ideal if you have additional Macs, smartphones (Android or iOS) or PCs that require protection. The gist: isn't like other anti-virus software, in that it's keen to make absolutely no impact on your Mac's performance, no matter how old your system is.
Instead of using a large database to detect issues, it primarily relies on behavioral based detection, snooping out when something doesn't seem normal for your system. Tackling things with a different approach means it's perfect for old systems that haven't got the space or the RAM bandwidth for too much probing. What it offers: Webroot Antivirus for Mac stores all its anti-malware protection information on the cloud, meaning it's speedy and has a small footprint on your Mac. By saving you the effort of downloading virus definition updates, it's also impressively accurate while speedy. Most full scans will only take a matter of minutes rather than hours, no matter how dated your technology is.
Alongside such fast scanning, works to cut things off at the source. It has anti-phishing tools that block harmful sites before you even load them, along with a firewall and network connection monitor. Working as pseudo security software means it's a little more effective than simply scanning your system as and when needed. However, the real advantage here is how undemanding Webroot Antivirus for Mac is.
It simply just works, without making you worry about any noticeable performance impact while your Mac is in use. The price: Webroot Antivirus for Mac works out as $29.99 per year for one device license. $37.49 provides you with three licenses per year, so it suits a household well. The gist: is software that's exclusively for Mac products. Unlike other entries here, it's been built from the ground up just for Mac, with no hint of a one-time clunky Windows interface in sight.
For a more stylish and intuitive way of tackling your virus protection, it's unbeatable. What it offers: High rates of accuracy is very much Intego Mac Internet Security's game.
It does a fantastic job of detecting anything thrown at it, albeit a little slower than with some antivirus protection. As soon as it's installed, scheduled and real time protection is activated by default, making it an ideal choice for anyone who wants to avoid poking around the software. By default, it automatically detects Mac malware, but it'll also keep an eye out for anything Windows or Linux based, so you can be sure to not accidentally send such files elsewhere. It keeps an eye on files on your iOS devices too. Besides the key antivirus protection features, also includes NetBarrier X9 to provide network protection, securing your Mac from unauthorized access when you're on a public network, like public Wi-Fi. The price: A one-year subscription for one device costs $49.99 with that price rising to $59.99 for up to three devices.