Anti Virus for Imac

Just a note for the ones interested
Kaspersky MAC antivirus here uses 9MB of RAM

Cheers,
Fax

 

WOW thats quite impressive thanks for the heads up fax!

Just a thought, might that be even lower RAM usage than KAV and KIS uses on Windows. If it is lower, then Kaspersky have done a great work on the OS X version indeed

 

Yes I will do.
I did loads of research on av's for Mac before making my final decision. Kaspersky sure looks good, but its £39.99 in the UK for just the AV, thats the price of many suites. No discounts to be found for it either. I wanted to know more about Dr Web for mac, which is very reasonably priced, but never did find anyone that actually used it. In the end went for Intego as they are the most experienced in the field of Mac Avs and it is well respected by my techy friends. It may use a lot of ram, but I don't notice it running at all. I am happy with my decision...........something I never was for long on a windows pc

 

From my research Kaspersky for Mac is not that advanced. That is why you have 9 mb ram usage. Some of these big names find simple trojans, but won't catch "program vulnerabilities" as per Adobe PDF vulnerabilities or Java. Intego does.

 

Cool, thanks for that

 

Any factual proof of malware bypassing Kaspersky MAC? The effectiveness of a malware scanner is usually not proportional to its RAM usage or 'advanced' options. In other words, do you really need a bazooka to kill a mosquito?

 

True to a point, but at some point you use resources to get stuff done and to watch the multiple areas of attack. Kaspersky looks as if it is only watching the front door. Where Intego is watching both flanks, the front and back door, the roof and the basement side windows while listening for an attacks from the cable and telephone lines.

I remember combing the Kaspersky Mac Beta fourm and I though I saw that Kaspersky for Mac is ONLY signature based and does not have a heristic engine in it. That is a FAIL and would explain the low ram use. It just is not doing much.


Found this

Kaspersky Anti-Virus (KAV) for Mac is an AV-only package - that is, it offers no additional firewall, weblink screening, system resource monitoring or personal identity data safeguards, as you'll find in the company's own entry-level Windows AV product, let alone its more comprehensive internet security suite.

Additionally, while Windows AV programs often add heuristic testing to snag as-yet-unlisted threats based on their dynamic behavior, the program's recognition of Mac malware seems to be focused on signature recognition.

Given its reduced feature set, we wonder why Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Mac costs the same as that of Kaspersky's complete internet security suite for Windows. Meanwhile Kaspersky's sophisticated AV-only package for Windows is only $39.95.


Here is the short test-- Not so good

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/review/security/kaspersky/anti-virus_for_mac/334590

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Interesting read. Thanks for that Blueshoes

 

Yes, thanks I know that review but it is just a descriptive text. Any indipendent test to offer about MAC AVs against real threats? I have no preference for a specific security tool but I am afraid that without some concrete testing all these 'advanced' features may only help consuming RAM.

 

I use Intego virusbarrier x5 (the previous version) on my imac and it runs unobtrusively on my system - no noticeable slowdown in speed despite previous posts saying it uses a fair bit of RAM.

Just runs along silently protecting, i recommend it..

 

I have to agree that is my finding too. I personally am now worried about the ram it is using, for me the importance is the lightness of the computer and the feeling of security.

 

Regarding the number of threats

http://www.iantivirus.com/threats/

It's full of commercial keyloggers and Mac OS 9 malware.

The only 2 ACTIVE pieces of malware are the ones that Snow Leopard detects.

I seriously doubt that Intego's "proactive" protection would do anything against new malware. Till today it never has, besides malware which included the word "Intego" in their code (malware which strangely I've never encountered).

I have 4GB of RAM too, and I think that 200 Megs of RAM just for an antivirus is unacceptable, a waste.

 

I decided to have a bit of a play today so I uninstalled virusbarrier and then installed iantivirus to see a) if I would get any of those cpu spikes that others had encountered and b) would the mac run lighter?
The answer is a) no spikes, very low ram usage and no cpu usage.
b) computer IS more responsive. Only using 6.7mb ram rather than the 220 of virusbarrier.
My computing habits are pretty safe, so I may just run this for a bit longer and will report back my findings.

 

I run both at once with no issues. You people are nuts with all your cpu cycle worries!

 

I'm still waiting for PrevX BETA release party

 

You know..................I think you are probably right

 

Someone is only watching the front door with 6.7 mb. Who is watching your backdoor and side windows in the alley.

Do you think you are going to win the Daytona 500 car race with that 2.3 liter 4 cylinder? But hey, you get 25 miles per gallon.

Are you running Intego on a ten year old 266 mhz G3 chip? or a modern dual core chip? I think you would only have worries on the 226 G3 chip.

 

A brand new dual core chip, which should be more secure by design.
We in the UK expect at least 40 miles per gallon with the excessive cost of the huge amount of tax on our fuel

 

I just thought that I would mention every vendor that I know of that has,
or are developing an Antivirus for the Mac as of now, incase someone would like to try them out.

Avast
BitDefender- Beta
CA
ClamXav
Dr.Web
ESET- Beta
F-secure- Beta
Intego
Kaspersky
McAfee
Symantec
PC Tools
PrevX- Beta starts soon...
ProtectMac
Trend Micro

Edit: ClamXav and ProtectMac added.

I guess that's all for now anyway

SweX

 

Well, I ran iantivirus and yesterday got hit with the dreaded 100% CPU issue that many others get out of the blue. there is still no sign of them fixing this. So off with iantivirus!
I tried the Dr Web for mac, worked ok but used masses of ram, not good for an av alone.
I don't normally try beta software, but I did then try Esets beta, which seemed ok to start and then locked the computer solid forcing a hard reboot. that came off.
Then my luck changed, and I tried the fairly new kid on the block Protectantivirus. It has a mention on Apples site too. Really light, only 40mb of ram and worked 100% with the test viruses I threw at it. Protectantivirus is a UK company based in my home country of England. I am for once really happy with an av, but will play cautiously and leave it on for the full 30 day trial to see how it goes.
Hopefully all my pain and changing will be useful to someone else looking for a solid, and light Mac AV.
Not sure if they have had a mention on here before, but here is their site for anyone interested.
http://www.protectmac.com/

Rollers

 

Hi rollers!

Good that you mentioned ProtectMac I didn't add it at first because I have read that it uses the ClamXav engine, but I haven't got that confirmed yet.
Do you know if that is true?

But I added ClamXav and ProtectMac incase someone where missing them

Anyway, nice to hear that you find an AV that didn't blow your RAM out

Yes I have also read about that the Dr.Web for Mac can use a little to much of RAM, wich as you say is not that good for an AV alone.

And to bad that the ESET Mac OS X Beta didn't work out that great for you, I really have hopes for it though.

Yea the iAntivirus forums is filled with complaints about the 100% CPU usage. But it seems that PCTools doesn't really bother to fix it wich is a shame for the users.

Cheers, SweX

 

Thanks Swex. You are on the ball with this one You are absolutely right about protectmac using clamav updates, I found it on their web site. still runs nice and light and has a contextual scan feature too.

 

Here we GOOO!

http://blog.intego.com/2010/03/17/20-preview-bugs-to-be-unveiled-soon/

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Looks like iantivirus will go~Possibly offensive phrase removed~ as well if PC tools are discontinuing their anti virus.

 

Two weeks to a month after Symantec bought PCTools and I saw a difference on iAntivirus's forums that pointed to a "pulling up the stakes" with iAntivirus. Seems PCTools was raped and pillaged for intellectual knowledge and left for dead.