Do Mac computers need antivirus protection?
There’s an old adage that Macs cannot get viruses, so many people would not ever consider downloading antivirus protection – particularly with them often costing money.
What is true is that there are far fewer viruses on Mac than Windows. Mac’s in-built security is extremely reliable and powerful, but it’s certainly not impenetrable. Viruses most certainly can attack a Mac, and do it successfully. So, do Macs need antivirus?
XProtect is the built-in macOS tool that’s frequently kept up-to-date, defending from many new malware attacks. There is a backup security measure, too, called the Malware Removal Tool. If anything gets past XProtect, then the Malware Removal Tool can be used to get rid of the malicious files – but only if the automatic security updates are switched on.
Do Macs Need Antivirus?
Most people should be just fine with the built-in security, but it’s not perfect. In particular, dormant viruses laying around on the hard drive are often reported to not be detected by XProtect.
Beyond these sneaky viruses, antivirus serves other purposes too. For example, it can actively fight against phishing attacks, where websites steal your data and pretend to be an authentic, well-known sites when they’re not.
In fact, one of the most common attacks on Mac is the Yahoo Search Redirect virus, which is a browser hijacker that runs riot with your browser. It will install extensions that you do not want – which can be a huge security and privacy risk – as well as be a nuisance in causing a painful amount of pop-up ads to appear and redirect all searches made towards Yahoo.
Many Mac users report to have been attacked by this, be it from using Safari or Chrome. Deleting the virus is somewhat painful too when done manually. However, antivirus software can automate these tasks for you, by removing helping detect and delete all of the files in one go. Or, it may just have prevented the attack in the first place.
Finally, antivirus software can be useful in other areas to do with the Mac performance. Having a full up startup disk, a bunch of log files laying around, and cache that needs to be cleared can take a lot of maintenance time to deal with – and it needs to be done regularly. However, antivirus software can do a good job where one button is all you need to clear cache and remove all the junk files.
This is useful in keeping the Mac tidy and fast. Again, it’s not essential for the Mac’s security, but it can help it keep it protected in a holistic sense. Of course, installing an unsafe or less-than-proven antivirus software may cause more problems than it solves, and users need to be particularly careful of attacks that claim to be antivirus that’s detected an issue. So, always research the antivirus carefully and install it from their website – not a URL you have received in an email or pop-up.
All in all, antivirus is useful but not wholly necessary. It’s high, highly recommended for any user that partakes in torrenting, downloads free software from unknown sites, or generally isn’t aware of phishing methods.
