Jan 19, 2018 - Multi Platform – you can use this software on a PC, Mac, or Android device. Overall Recommendation – Malwarebytes Vs Avast. Is the real-time scanning component found in MWB Premium for Mac compatible and advisable on top of the real-time scanning of Avast for.
I should have been more specific, I wasn't given a Mac to keep, I was given a Mac to clean up. I have almost 20 years experience working with personal computers and I've worked on every major OS that's been released during that time (OS/2, every version of Windows since 3.1, Linux, Mac OS, Unix). I no longer work in a shop specifically fixing computers but my family still gives me their computers to look at whenever they have issues.
My cousin just gave me her laptop since she was unable to fill out any web forms that would try to verify her e-mail address, plus she kept getting pop ups to run some MacKeeper software. Had this been a computer I received second hand I would have re-installed the OS regardless of the state it was on, but since she needs the files on her computer for school I figured it'd be much easier to run a Mac OS equivalent of Malwarebytes than to backup everything and re-install the OS. Unfortunately when you search the internet for a Malwarebytes alternative for Mac OS, the majority of the time you just get posts from people saying 'Macs are super secure, don't worry about it you won't get infected', which is a completely useless response for someone whose computer is infected. The rest of the posts responding to people who ARE infected are much like your response 'Just re-install the OS' but that doesn't address the underlying issue of what's infecting the computer for those people who can't afford to lose everything. I was eventually able to Google the symptoms of this issue and determine that it was a trojan known as DownLite or VSearch.
Once I found where it was located I opened up a terminal, ran sudo su to elevate myself to root, deleted the VSearch folder and files from the terminal, ran ps ax grep VSearch to find the running application and did a kill -9 pid to terminate the app (rather than rebooting.) Once that was all done I was able to use Chrome and Safari without all of the popups and hijacks. It took all of 5 minutes once I knew what the underlying issue was but I was really hoping to find a program like Malwarebytes so I could just let it scan the computer and tell me 'These applications are malicious.' Especially since my cousin installed a lot of stuff I would consider junk on her laptop and I didn't want to delete things that are just harmless junk (since she might use them.) Since I ended up having to do this all manually I'm just hoping there's nothing else lingering on the computer that didn't have visible symptoms. I would disagree a bit with the others. Although it's true that there's a lot of bad anti-virus software out there - some of it bad to the degree that it should be considered a scam - not all of it is bad. Whether it's necessary is another question.
There have been some holes in the armor of Mac OS X lately, so although it does protect you from a lot, that protection is far from perfect. For some more reading on these topics, see: (Fair disclosure: The Safe Mac is my site, and contains a Donate button, so I may receive compensation for providing links to The Safe Mac. Donations are not required.). Absolutely, if you have an up to date Mac you have nothing to worry about.
Unless of course someone gives you an up to date Mac that has malware on it, in which case this is the worst possible answer since not only do you shrug off the possibility of a Mac getting malware, you also assert that malware tools are useless and should never be installed. I came here looking for alternatives to Malwarebytes or Spybot S&D so I can figure out which software is malicious on this laptop rather than having to manually google every single application in the Applications folder just to find out what's causing a ton of pop ups directing me to 'MacKeeper.' If anyone has any useful answers this would definitely be a great place to put them. If someone gives you a Mac, or you buy one second-hand, the first thing you should do is erase the hard drive and reinstall a fresh system.
If the system is infected with actual malware, there is no tool that exists that can reliably find and clean up the mess. In your case, it sounds like you may just have adware, which is more easily removed. However, I'd still recommend erasing the hard drive and starting fresh, unless the 'second-hand Mac' scenario was just rhetorical and is not actually related to your case. I should have been more specific, I wasn't given a Mac to keep, I was given a Mac to clean up. I have almost 20 years experience working with personal computers and I've worked on every major OS that's been released during that time (OS/2, every version of Windows since 3.1, Linux, Mac OS, Unix). I no longer work in a shop specifically fixing computers but my family still gives me their computers to look at whenever they have issues. My cousin just gave me her laptop since she was unable to fill out any web forms that would try to verify her e-mail address, plus she kept getting pop ups to run some MacKeeper software.
Had this been a computer I received second hand I would have re-installed the OS regardless of the state it was on, but since she needs the files on her computer for school I figured it'd be much easier to run a Mac OS equivalent of Malwarebytes than to backup everything and re-install the OS. Unfortunately when you search the internet for a Malwarebytes alternative for Mac OS, the majority of the time you just get posts from people saying 'Macs are super secure, don't worry about it you won't get infected', which is a completely useless response for someone whose computer is infected. The rest of the posts responding to people who ARE infected are much like your response 'Just re-install the OS' but that doesn't address the underlying issue of what's infecting the computer for those people who can't afford to lose everything.
I was eventually able to Google the symptoms of this issue and determine that it was a trojan known as DownLite or VSearch. Once I found where it was located I opened up a terminal, ran sudo su to elevate myself to root, deleted the VSearch folder and files from the terminal, ran ps ax grep VSearch to find the running application and did a kill -9 pid to terminate the app (rather than rebooting.) Once that was all done I was able to use Chrome and Safari without all of the popups and hijacks.
It took all of 5 minutes once I knew what the underlying issue was but I was really hoping to find a program like Malwarebytes so I could just let it scan the computer and tell me 'These applications are malicious.' Especially since my cousin installed a lot of stuff I would consider junk on her laptop and I didn't want to delete things that are just harmless junk (since she might use them.) Since I ended up having to do this all manually I'm just hoping there's nothing else lingering on the computer that didn't have visible symptoms. In that case, the issue with your cousin's computer was adware, not malware. Subtle difference, but it's there, and it means that most adware is not well detected by most anti-virus software, and I'm not aware of any anti-virus software that will fully clean up all the debris, if any, left by an adware infection.
For adware, it is completely possible to remove all the components without resorting to erasing the hard drive. See my, or my AdwareMedic app, for future reference. It's important to remember, though, that these are specific to adware, and do not provide any methods for removing actual malware. That's less easy. Some malware is easy to remove, other malware not so much. Depends on whether there are backdoors involved and how well documented the malware is.
Thus the recommendation for erasing the hard drive in cases where actual malware is involved, or with second-hand Macs in an uncertain state. (Fair disclosure: I may receive compensation from links to my sites, TheSafeMac.com and AdwareMedic.com, in the form of buttons allowing for donations. Donations are not required to use my site or software.). Thank you thomasr for creating the Adwaremedic software and Esquared for suggesting it, I wish the answer could be updated to highlight an actual response rather than the 'Don't worry about it' answer that was originally accepted. I couldn't find quite the community response in terms of software recommendations for cleaning out a Mac as I could for cleaning out a Windows PC so I didn't know which software to trust (obviously since there's a lot less malicious software out there on Macs.) The term malware encompasses all malicious software including adware, viruses, spyware and the like, which are all found by software like Malwarebytes. I generally don't like to run AV software like Norton or McAfee since they tend to dig in deeper into a computer and cause more problems than the malware itself and they hardly ever find anything that I'm trying to remove. I very rarely ran into any malicious software that required a format and re-install to completely remove, and on a Unix based system like Mac OS X there should be nothing that requires a format and re-install, it's just a matter of how much time do you want to spend trying to save the OS.
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. Pros Extremely fast malware scan.
Very good reputation among tech experts. Cons No protection against malicious or fraudulent websites.
No detection of Windows malware. Bottom Line The premium edition of Malwarebytes for Mac scans for active malware and uses real-time detection to prevent infestation. It has a very good reputation, but hard data showing its effectiveness is scarce. 'Yep, Macs get infected.'
That's the tagline on the very first installer page of Malwarebytes for Mac Premium, and it's true. Having no protection may not such a disaster as leaving your Windows or Android devices unprotected, but it's a bad idea to go without. Malwarebytes has a top-notch reputation for wiping out malware even when other utilities fail. However, coming up with hard data that shows it working isn't easy. As with on Windows, you can download this program and run a scan without paying anything. That can be handy if another antivirus utility detected a threat but failed to fully eliminate it.
Paying for the premium edition gets you real-time protection, automatic updates, and blocking of adware and potentially unwanted applications, or PUAs. Like, this product has a main window that's all about scanning for malware. But unlike ProtectWorks, there's just one kind of scan, a quick scan for active malware. A menu down the left side lets you view recent scans, check what's in quarantine, or tweak the program's sparse set of configuration settings. Pricing and OS Support Bitdefender, ESET, and Kaspersky all cost $39.99 per year for one license, and the same is true with Malwarebytes. All four of these products cost $59.99 per year for three licenses, but Malwarebytes is a little different.
After the initial $39.99, each additional license costs $10, which just happens to come out to $59.99 for three. I like the flexibility Malwarebytes offers.
With Norton, you pay $89.99 per year for five licenses, and you get a full security suite, not just antivirus. Charges $59.99 per year, but that license lets you install protection on all your macOS, Windows, Android, and iOS devices. As you can see, there's a lot of variation in pricing. No money in the budget for Mac antivirus?
You can install and run Sophos or on your personal Macs without paying a penny. If you're stuck with an old Mac, or legacy software that won't run on current versions of macOS, Malwarebytes may not be the best choice. Like McAfee, Symantec, and Trend Micro, it requires Yosemite (10.10) or later. Mac antiquarians will be pleased to know that and ProtectWorks support all versions of the operating system back to Snow Leopard (10.6). Malware Protection Testing The independent antivirus testing labs put Windows antivirus to the test in a wide variety of ways, many of them closely resembling real-world malware-attack situations. Those labs that also test Mac antivirus don't have the same degree of real-world testing.
Because of the way Malwarebytes focuses on eliminating active malware, it would not pass these tests, so the company simply doesn't submit it. It makes sense that tests by and AV-Comparatives don't line up with the way Malwarebytes does its job.
But I still must say, when a program like or Bitdefender shows up with two certifications and two scores of 100 percent, it looks very good. You may notice in the chart above that McAfee also doesn't have any lab results. At the time of my review, it had certification and 100 percent detection from. However, McAfee didn't choose to participate in the most recent test. Hands On With Malwarebytes Most antivirus programs include the option to scan your entire Mac for malware. Many also offer a quick scan that just looks for active malware and for malware traces in common locations.
However, a full scan is counter to the Malwarebytes philosophy. The company's thinking goes like this: If you really have an infection, the quick scan will see that there's a problem and remediate it. All a full scan could find beyond that is static malware that's inert and not doing any immediate harm.
Indeed, a scan of the that I use for testing finished in about 15 seconds. That's darned fast, considering that the average quick scan time for recent products is more than four minutes. All of the other products I've reviewed recently aim to detect and eliminate Windows-based malware as well as malware focused on the Mac. The idea is that this prevents the Mac from becoming a Typhoid Mary, carrying infection without being affected.
Malwarebytes has no interest in malware that can't even run on the Mac, so it ignores Windows malware. Many antivirus utilities manage quarantined files internally.
Typically, you can view the quarantined items, learn details about each, and permanently delete them. With Malwarebytes, quarantine is just another folder, with a button in the program to view or clear its contents. Goes a step further in minimalist quarantine, leaving quarantined files in place but blocking their execution. What's Not Here Given this product's focus on real-time protection and scanning for active malware, it's not surprising that it doesn't attempt to run scans on a regular schedule. ESET, McAfee, and Trend Micro not only include a scheduler, they schedule regular scans without any user intervention. Like Intego and ProtectWorks, Malwarebytes doesn't attempt this type of protection. Yes, its real-time protection should eliminate downloaded malware before it can infect the system.
I'm not so worried about those. But phishing sites are platform-independent; I like to see antivirus products help users avoid these traps.
And Kaspersky top the scores of those that I've tested. My contact at Malwarebytes says that protection against dangerous URLs is on the roadmap for future versions.
In both the Mac and Windows realms, some antivirus products pile on features galore. For example, Kaspersky, Intego, and include a firewall component. To be fair, those three are full security suites for Mac, not standalone antivirus tools. Sophos Home and Trend Micro include a simple content filter, while Kaspersky ups the ante to full parental control. With its laser focus on malware protection, Malwarebytes skips the add-ons. It Comes Down to Reputation Malwarebytes for Mac Premium isn't suited to testing by the independent labs.
I have hands-on tests to evaluate detection of Windows-centered malware, and protection against phishing sites, but those aren't features of this utility. Even getting it to detect the EICAR test file was tough. So how can you know whether it's a good choice? I asked my Malwarebytes contact that exact question. He explained that, as with the Windows edition, Malwarebytes has a reputation as the go-to tool for tough Mac malware. Many installations come about when a Mac technician installs the product to clean up a problem.
Other customers learn about the product through recommendations and word of mouth. I'm not a Mac tech expert; I haven't experienced this. But it's certainly true in the Windows realm. If the free version of this product saved your bacon, or if you've had a great experience with the Windows version, feel free to choose it. However, for my top recommendations I have to rely on actual, factual testing, both lab tests and hands-on tests. Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac and Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac top the charts in both types of tests, and these two remain Editors' Choice for Mac antivirus.