- Best Antivirus For Mac Reviews
- Sophos Antivirus For Mac Reviews
- Antivirus For Mac Reviews Macworld
- Sophos Antivirus Mac Review
- Avg Antivirus Free For Mac
Commercial Mac antivirus pricing centers on just under $40 per year for a single license. Half of the current products fit that model, and most of those give you three licenses for $59.99 per year. Total AV is a competitively priced antivirus option for Mac users with some handy additional features, but it isn't without its downfalls, and some of them are significant.
Software Reviews
Editor Rating: Good (3.0)
Pros
- Top scores from one independent testing lab.
- Speedy full scan.
- Attractive, lightweight user interface.
Cons
- Phishing protection not yet working.
Bottom Line
Newcomer Airo Antivirus for Mac earns top scores from one testing lab and has a refreshing Mac-centric interface, but some of its components aren't yet ready.
Feb 21, 2016. Intego Mac Premium Bundle X9 review: Good for Macs, waiting for multi-OS improvements Intego's Mac Premium Bundle X9 has a lot of good tools for Mac users, but it's still lacking Windows. Jan 09, 2020.
Best Antivirus For Mac Reviews
The proliferation of cross-platform security suite products has resulted in a Mac antivirus boom, as each vendor wants to promise protection on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. Few companies focus specifically on macOS, and even fewer new Mac-specific products show up. It's refreshing, therefore, to see the arrival of Airo Antivirus for Mac on the market. This newcomer earned some impressive lab scores, and its attractive, lightweight design should appeal to Mac enthusiasts. However, it's on the expensive side, and not all components are working yet as of this writing.
Pricing and OS Support
You pay $49.99 per year for a single Airo license. Upping that to $69.99 gets you three licenses, and $89.99 brings the total to five. Originally I reported prices of $69.99, $99.99, and $129.99, since these were visible (though struck out) on the pricing page. My company contact pointed out that those prices are never used, and proved it by removing them from the pricing page. I'm glad; the product looked rather expensive before that fix.
Intego costs $99.99 for three licenses, while ClamXAV (for Mac) costs just $29.99 for three. Like Airo, Intego and ClamXAV are specific to the macOS platform. In the cross-platform realm, you get five Norton licenses for $99.99, along with five no-limits licenses for Norton's VPN.
You can try Airo for a week at no cost, with no need to give any personal details. That's a nice touch, but a few macOS antivirus products are entirely free. You don't have to pay a thing to protect your Mac with Avira, Avast, or Sophos. Even ignoring these free options, Airo is on the high side, price-wise. The most common price-point for a single license is $39.99; that's what you pay for Bitdefender, Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac, ESET, Trend Micro, and Webroot.
Between $45 and $65 for three licenses is another sweet spot; Bitdefender, ESET, Kaspersky, ProtectWorks, Vipre, and Webroot all fall in that range. And for $59.99 per year, McAfee AntiVirus Plus (for Mac) lets you install protection on every Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS device in your household.
Like Avira, Sophos, and Vipre, Airo supports macOS versions 10.11 (El Capitan) and later. Trend Micro really wants you up to date; it only supports 10.13 (High Sierra) and later. If legacy software or antique hardware requires you to stay with an old macOS version, you might consider ProtectWorks AntiVirus (for Mac) or ClamXAV, both of which go all the way back to 10.6 (Snow Leopard). Webroot also handles dated systems, with support back to 10.7 (Lion).
Getting Started With Airo
Once you've purchased your license and created your Airo account, you simply download and install the product. It quickly grabs the latest build from Airo's servers. The installer walks you through granting necessary permissions, such as full disk access to remove malware, and it offers to explain why it needs each permission. It also offers to add phishing protection to your browser. When the installer has finished, it cheerily announces, 'All is good in the world. Airo has been installed.'
Airo aims for a light footprint. It doesn't appear in the dock. Rather, you pull down its distinctive tall, skinny window from its icon in the menu bar at top whenever you need it. The main Status page just reports on the latest scan and latest update, with a big button to launch a scan. A Threats page lets you review malware threats that the product found and quarantined. Another page holds the product's few configuration settings. The fourth and final page lets you manage your account.
The product prompted me to run a quick scan, so I indulged it. That scan finished in barely 20 seconds. Then I clicked the hard-to-see Scan Options link and launched a full scan, which also finished quickly, 11 minutes. Trend Micro came in slightly faster, at 10 minutes. Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus (for Mac) is the fastest macOS scanner I've timed, finishing its full scan in just 2.5 minutes.
![Anti Virus For Mac Review Anti Virus For Mac Review](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/meW7XmMA7dQ/maxresdefault.jpg)
Hands On With Airo
Just about every Mac-focused antivirus also tries to wipe out any Windows malware it encounters. Naturally these foreign programs can't execute on a Mac, but the Mac could conceivably serve as a conduit for them to reach Windows boxes on the network. I turned on the setting 'Scan external devices when connected' and plugged in a USB drive containing my current set of Windows malware samples.
When nothing happened, I checked with my contact at Airo. He explained that with this setting enabled, the scans you launch include any connected external drives. It doesn't mean that the event of connecting a drive triggers a scan.
With this understanding, I launched a folder scan of the removable device. Airo eliminated 72 percent of the Windows malware samples, which is precisely the average for current products.
It's true that others have done better against Windows malware. Webroot got 100 percent of them, ESET managed 93 percent, and F-Secure Safe (for Mac) detected 91 percent. Again, these samples can't infect a Mac, so detecting them is icing on the cake.
Airo's real-time protection checks any apps you download; it also checks apps on launch. Some products, among them Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac($34.99/Year at Bitdefender), F-Secure, and Sophos, figure this real-time protection is all you need and hence don't bother with scheduled scanning. Airo runs a daily quick scan and a weekly full scan automatically; it doesn't bother to expose the schedule for user-initiated changes. Given that both full and quick scans are plenty fast, this makes perfect sense.
Excellent Lab Test Scores
I've been working with PCs since the 80s, and with Windows-based antivirus tools for many, many years. I'm fully equipped for hands-on testing of Windows antivirus utilities against actual malware samples, even ransomware. But this is a Mac-specific product, and my expertise on macOS is minimal by comparison. That's why test results from independent labs are so important for my Mac antivirus reviews. In fact, when I started reviewing such products, I only chose products with scores from at least one lab.
As you can see in the chart below, the labs don't necessarily keep testing the same set of products. More than 40 percent of the products I track don't have any current lab results. Airo looks very good, with a perfect score from AV-Test Institute. That means it successfully protected the test systems against malware, correctly avoided flagging valid programs or sites as malicious, and did it all without dragging down performance.
Of course, getting top scores from two labs is even better. Avast, AVG, Bitdefender, Kaspersky, and Trend Micro all got perfect scores from both AV-Test and AV-Comparatives.
Quite a few big names, among them ESET, McAfee, and Sophos Home Premium (for Mac), don't have any current test results. For newcomer Airo to hit the scene with one set of perfect scores is impressive.
No Phishing Protection Yet
During Airo's installation I encountered a screen that stated, 'Airo can warn you about deceptive and phishing sites before you visit them.' In response to that offer, I installed browser protection in both Chrome and Firefox to take advantage of phishing protection. I did notice that the settings for the browser extension mentioned blocking sites that contain: Malware, Adware, Scareware, Spyware, and Suspicious. Phishing wasn't listed.
Indeed, when I ran my standard phishing protection test, Airo did not detect or block a single phishing site. Fakes of PayPal, eBay, Amazon, and popular banks slipped right past it. The only page I found that got a reaction was the phishing test page from the AMTSO's collection of antivirus feature tests. Airo detected that one as an adware site.
My contact at the company confirmed that phishing protection is not yet present in Airo, and that the team plans to change the phishing protection promise during install until such time as that feature becomes available. That's good, because it's dangerous to give users a false sense of security by promising protection that isn't actually offered.
An Interesting Arrival
Airo Antivirus for Mac's enthusiastic developers have come up with an attractive new macOS antivirus that does its job unobtrusively. AV-Test Institute put it to the test and awarded the top score in each of three criteria. It wiped out some, but not all, of our Windows malware samples in testing. However, its promised phishing protection isn't yet present. We look forward to the next iteration of this interesting new arrival.
Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac and Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac get top scores from both labs we follow. Both excel in phishing protection, and both include uncommon features such as ransomware protection for Bitdefender and parental controls for Kaspersky. And both cost quite a bit less than Airo. The five-license price of Norton 360 Deluxe (for Mac) is the same as Airo's three-license price, and you can use your Norton licenses on macOS, Windows, Android, and iOS. In addition, your Norton subscription gets you five unlimited licenses for Norton's VPN and 50GB of online storage for your (Windows) backups. Translate tab 2 0 – quickly translate text. These three products are our Editors' Choice picks for Mac antivirus.
Best Antivirus Picks
Further Reading
Sophos Antivirus For Mac Reviews
I am surprised by the fact that there are hardly any reviews about high-quality antivirus programs for the Macintosh, despite the fact that only 5% to 10% of global users have personal computers that run on this operating system.
However, even that 5% to 10% is quite a lot, particularly when one considers the number of global PC users.
Keeping this in mind, I have decided to write this Sophos antivirus for Mac review. Anybody using computers knows pretty well about the popularity of Sophos, and consider its antivirus software amongst the leaders in the field.
Is Sophos A Good Antivirus for Mac?
![Best Best](https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-79a_kzhRiSU/WqcXWO1-0RI/AAAAAAAADxY/CpooDYxaorkL0gvvboXIRdtyALnnwByyACLcBGAs/s1600/Bitdefender-Antivirus-for-Mac-2018-2019-Review.png)
This Sophos Mac review 2020 will also go a long way in addressing the queries of individuals who have doubts about this program.
After you read this review in depth, you will find it easier to recommend this antivirus program to others as solid protection for the Macintosh; thereby helping to answer the question “is Sophos good for Mac?” Read on to know more.
Antivirus For Mac Reviews Macworld
Free Download and Trial
You do not have to believe those naysayers to discover the power of Sophos, as the developers offer you the option to pay no money for Sophos antivirus Mac download.
Be ready for a surprise, as the company offers you a free 30 days trial for their “Sophos Home Premium” software. You only have to fill up their online form with your name, email address, and password to create an account with Sophos in order to download the premium version.
Once completed, you will receive a Sophos Mac download link on the email ID you provided. Click on that link to initiate the download process. Once downloaded, click on the installer to install Sophos Mac.
There is no need for you to worry if you do not purchase their program within this period, as the software reverts to the free version at the end of the trial period. We shall discuss the differences between the free and premium versions later in this Sophos for Mac review 2020.
I would like to point out at this juncture that no other antivirus developer offers a premium version of their program for free. Sophos is able to do so because they are confident about the capability of their program.
Statistics reveal that more than 95% of people who opted for the free Sophos Mac download, ended up purchasing it within a week, rather than waiting for the 30 days trial offer to end.
No doubt, some other vendors too offer free versions of their antivirus programs. However, most of them pale in comparison to the Sophos anti-virus for Mac home edition, as this program is rich with bonus features that you will not find in any other antivirus program for the Macintosh.
Amazing Features
The remote management feature from the home page of the vendor allows you to check your computer plus nine others linked to your account. This is an awesome feature when you want to manually perform certain tasks such as scanning your other Macintoshes when you are not at home.
Manage Security Remotely
You have to log into your account on the website of Sophos using the email and password you had used to register yourself prior to downloading the program.
Before I proceed further, let me point out that Sophos anti-virus Mac is much more than a vanilla antivirus tool. It contains all the goodies you would expect from a top grade antimalware tool.
Parental Control
The Sophos home edition Mac also contains powerful parental controls. Only two other antivirus programs for the Macintosh contain this feature; however, those programs do not have many other powerful modules and features for the Mac like Sophos has.
The extremely powerful and useful parental control of Sophos virus protection for Mac, apart from keeping track of every attempt from a linked Mac to an unapproved site, allows you, the administrator, to block individual linked computers from visiting entire categories of websites.
This awesome tool ensures that your kids or employees cannot visit sites you do not want them to.
You can also tweak the controls to allow unrestricted browsing on the connected Macintoshes… the difference being that that computer will note and inform you about the user's attempt to log on to a restricted site. This alone acts as a deterrent and prohibits others from visiting sites that they should not.
Sophos Antivirus Mac Review
No Bundled Plugins?
Unlike the competitors, Sophos does not pack browser plugins that flag potentially dangerous sites. However, you can download these plugins for free from antivirus manufacturers such as Kaspersky, Bitdefender, and Avast.
What Sophos will do is that it will alert you that the website you are about to visit is dangerous. It will protect you from these sites that inject viruses through the browser.
Thus, you cannot ‘accidentally' visit malicious websites with this program.
Uses Less System Resources
I was very impressed with the low resource usage by the Sophos for Mac home while writing this review. I had previously tried some other antivirus programs in the past, and all of them ate a lot into my computer's resources and slowed it down significantly. This was not the case with Sophos. In fact, most users will not notice any difference in speed after installing Sophos.
The Interface
The interface windows of Sophos AV Mac allows you to check the status of your PC and permits you to perform scans on demand. However, the actual fun lies in the vendor's web interface.
The interface on the installed computer has an “exception” button. On the one hand, clicking on it displays the exemptions you have set for files, applications, and websites. On the other hand, you can visit the web interface or the cloud interface by clicking on the “Home Dashboard” on the main screen.
This permits you to conduct remote scans, set up exceptions, alter scanning preferences, and configure parental controls.
As you receive information about sites visited through the other computers, users of the same will be in for a shock when they next try to access a website that you have just blocked.
Many of you, reading this Sophos home for Mac review, might be seeking additional protection for your business. I would strongly suggest that you opt for this as it also includes the Sophos Endpoint Protection Mac, which offers all the features of the antivirus along with many advanced features such as malware protection, exploit protection, and more… ideal for small businesses and enterprises.
In short, this is simply why the company has coined its software as one with ‘Business-grade cybersecurity' that is ‘Now available for home users'.
I would like to point out in this Sophos antivirus Mac review 2020 that the home edition includes the endpoint protection.
What does this mean? It simply means that even though it is the Sophos home edition Mac, with endpoint protection included, you get the same protection that businesses and governments have worldwide.
So, are you looking for the Sophos Endpoint Mac? You'll also get it in the home edition. This gives you absolute protection against any type of malware, including the latest variants of the dreaded Cryptoware, to a level not available on any other antimalware tool available for the Macintosh.
You do not need to worry as the Sophos Mac OS X detects these dangerous bits of code once you perform a system scan, and asks you what to do with them. Therefore, I strongly recommend that you should perform a manual scan once a week to ensure that your computer is free of any types of malware.
This is no big deal, considering the blistering speed at which this program scans the hard disk drive of your computer.
On certain occasions, the program will request you to switch off the protection module when it detects that manual intervention is required to remove certain malware. Do not worry if your Macintosh reboots during this process, as it is natural.
Multiple Scans
Unlike other antivirus programs, Sophos does a thorough job of finding and cleaning malicious bits of code. Once it completes a scan cycle and removes viruses and other malware, it will scan your PC once again. Do not be surprised if you see this program detect additional pieces of malicious code.
Certain antiviruses and malware hide behind other viruses, making it difficult for an antivirus program to detect and remove them.
The multiple scan system integrated with Sophos virus removal tool mac ensures that it effortlessly removes the cloaked virus after removing the virus covering it… offering your computer foolproof security.
You Will Simply Love These Features
There are occasions when people accidentally visit malicious sites that inject viruses and malware via the browser. Sophos has incorporated a special feature that displays a large message, alerting you that the site you are about to visit is dangerous for your computer.
It further checks all the outbound links on sites you visit, and warns you if any of these links lead to potentially dangerous sites. This is a special feature I did not find on any other program of this class.
Most other AV software alert you after you have visited a website containing malicious content. Sophos alerts you even before you visit it, virtually doing away with the chances of you visiting such sites and getting your computer infected with the malware they contain.
A Word of Warning
Free Vs Premium
Remember, although the free version I am basically covering in this Sophos antivirus home edition review is good enough to detect and quarantine most threats, I strongly suggest that you opt for the paid version because that is where the goodies lie.
Avg Antivirus Free For Mac
Remember, you get access to advanced features such as advanced ransomware shield, and mic & webcam protection with the free version. These features will stop working after 30 days from the date of installation.
Apart from this, the free version offers protection to three devices (although this is a Sophos antivirus for Mac home edition review, I would like to point out that you can also protect Windows-based computers by downloading and installing the Windows installer along with the Mac installer).
Pricing
The premium version costs only $60 and provides protection for 10 devices while the free version offers protection only for three devices. I would strongly suggest that you opt for the premium version which works out to just $6 per device per year and is the cheapest protection available.
Customer Support
Did I forget to mention that the premium version also entitles you to receive support via email and live chat, Monday to Friday, 8 am to 8 pm (ET)? This is extremely vital in case you are unable to remove a detected threat and require the help of experts.
As the proud owner of a costly Macbook, you should install Sophos Macbook, to protect your costly device against viruses and malware.
Firewall to Protect You Against Hackers
The Sophos firewall Mac boasts of a dual AV scanning engine that blocks viruses embedded in websites, in email attachments, and in file downloads too.
Sophos blocks these harmful pieces of code at the gateway before they can access your computer and attack it. This software is available for free and is an important part of your protection armory.
What Are You Waiting for?
Instead of waiting any longer, log on to the website of Sophos here, and receive the link for Sophos Home Mac download. You may need to fill up a short form by providing your first and last name, your email ID, along with a password.
Note down this password and keep it in a safe place, as you will require it to log onto their server for remote controlling additional devices.
You will receive a Sophos Antivirus for Mac home edition download link on the email address you provided. Click on that to download the installer, and start the installation process.
Alternatively, you also have the option to directly purchase a one/two year license of the Premium version by clicking on the “Buy Now” button. The 2-year license costs $90 while the 1-year license costs $60.
Complete the process by making the payment via their secure online payment gateway, then download and install Sophos antivirus Mac. You can now surf the net with peace of mind, knowing that your computer is being protected by the best available antivirus and antimalware for the Mac platform.