- Aug 21, 2020
- 605
SpiderWeb's Macbook Air '24
- Thread starter SpiderWeb
- Start date
- Mar 13, 2022
- 599
- Aug 21, 2020
- 605
I think I settled for a 3rd party AV for now. Kaspersky Plus
Tried:
All of these are severely reduced down versions of what you get on Windows. They are so limited, I think even the free Windows versions have more features sadly which honestly explains why nobody on macOS can be bothered paying for an AV. I cannot justify the price tag on any of them for the feature set. But, Kaspersky Plus is free for the rest of the year and they detected Pegasus so I will have it on my system until it gets nerfed by the US government.
Tried:
- K7 Ultimate - Nothing wrong with it. Extremely light. Fast scans. No web protection. Just wanted to try something with more features on macOS
- Malwarebytes Premium - Simple and fastest scans of them all. Slows down browsing, apps and file access when real-time protection is on.
- Norton 360 - Great detection. Slows down apps and browsing, does not protect you during startup. Some features not working. Absolutely love LifeLock.
- Bitdefender - Actually my favorite. Lightest on macOS. But does not offer scheduled scans (????) and does not protect network drives unless you manually scan.
- Eset Premium - Best feature set, but all locked behind Premium price tag. Way too expensive in comparison to:
- Kaspersky Plus - Settled for this because it protects network drives with scheduled scan, scans network devices. Light. No firewall unfortunately.
All of these are severely reduced down versions of what you get on Windows. They are so limited, I think even the free Windows versions have more features sadly which honestly explains why nobody on macOS can be bothered paying for an AV. I cannot justify the price tag on any of them for the feature set. But, Kaspersky Plus is free for the rest of the year and they detected Pegasus so I will have it on my system until it gets nerfed by the US government.
- Apr 16, 2017
- 2,576
fwiw I've been running mbam on my mac_mini (& wife's iMac). once upon a time, many years ago, I tried various 3d-party av on my macbookpro and one was problematic and the other borked the mbp. Relatively high level Apple support tech more recently told me that mbam is best for macOS as it does not interfere with how Apple protects macOS. Slowdown, if any, on my mini is not noticeable to me. I'm curious to try Norton or ZA anti-ransomware @Trident mentioned, but then my curiosity fades... but still undecided... I'd like to see an Apple online av scanner for a safe occasional scan.
- Aug 21, 2020
- 605
Yes I think it depends on the software on your device. They are all fast, even Norton 360. I should have phrased it differently. I suspect some AVs have more conflicts with all the other programs on my computer than others. But, I believe Bitdefender, Kaspersky and Eset did better for real time protection while MBAM did much much better for on-demand scanning, at least on macOS. Ultimately I could have gone with anyone of them and be happy, but Kaspersky Plus had the most of the feature set I wanted.
- Aug 21, 2020
- 605
I had to roll back to Bitdefender unfortunately. I came home to a message that macOS had a kernel panic. Kaspersky is not compatible with my setup and causes random RAM leaks for now but that's ok. 
- Apr 16, 2017
- 2,576
wow but not surprised based on personal mac experience(s). That's why I'm using Malwarebytes, some (extra) protection is better than a bad appleI had to roll back to Bitdefender unfortunately. I came home to a message that macOS had a kernel panic. Kaspersky is not compatible with my setup and causes random RAM leaks for now but that's ok.
- Aug 21, 2020
- 605
Very happy with Bitdefender. It is actually working, tested generic drive-by downloads and archived files and it cleans all of them even if they haven't completed download yet. I added Little Snitch Mini as a firewall and it's already worth every penny. The ability to add blocklists cuts so much work out for people who are looking for a general ruleset. I added HaGeZi Threat and Fabezi Malicious Blocklist to really solely focus on removing threat vectors that apps tend to connect to without causing the apps themselves to break. It shows you every domain or IP a program is connected to and provides it on a world map. None of my connections are going anywhere near Russia or China so that is a relief. The most active connections are the browsers, cloud stoage providers (iCloud, Proton Drive, etc), and macOS which seems to constantly check where all my other Apple devices are to stay in sync.
Fun detail: The two connections that point into the Atlantic Ocean are Tailscale VPN and my Local Network. Both use reserved private IP ranges that don't map to anywhere in the world. The other one pointing into the Pacific Ocean is actually legit, it's Hawaii. I guess it was a wise decision to pick a place in the middle of an ocean to avoid overlap.
Fun detail: The two connections that point into the Atlantic Ocean are Tailscale VPN and my Local Network. Both use reserved private IP ranges that don't map to anywhere in the world. The other one pointing into the Pacific Ocean is actually legit, it's Hawaii. I guess it was a wise decision to pick a place in the middle of an ocean to avoid overlap.
- Feb 7, 2023
- 2,349
Are you using a version that still allows kext? Because with a user mode extension it is nearly impossible to get kernel panic.I had to roll back to Bitdefender unfortunately. I came home to a message that macOS had a kernel panic. Kaspersky is not compatible with my setup and causes random RAM leaks for now but that's ok.
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