Just got a MacBook Air - firewall question

Thinking of using Avira Pro AV just to be extra safe. But should the Mac have a third party firewall? Or is the built in one best to use?

 

You have a firewall; disable by default.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201642

You could also take a look on Little Snitch

 

Thanks for the links! I was wondering how adequate the Mac OS firewall is. I noticed that my router allows pings. Should I put the firewall in stealth mode then?

 

I personally love Little Snitch on my Macbook Pro. I've been using it since ~5 years ago and it's fantastic.

 

But do you have to pay $30+ for Little Snitch? I did not want to pay.

 

Any opinion on the Radio Silence firewall? It s cheaper than Little Snitch.

 

You can use a graphical third party firewall. I've run Intego Netbarrier on Mac OSX Leopard.

Easy to configure and has more settings than the default built-in firewall.

 

I am a home user, so would have to get the full Intego Internet Security. Is that good?

 

I'm trying Intego Mac Security trial version. I really like the firewall, which seems to prompt just enough but is not too noisy. I also like that it is made for Macs. Only thing that bothers me is it seems you can only set it to check for new virus definitions once daily.

 

You should just get the firewall - NetBarrier.

You do NOT need to run an AV on Mac OSX. Only reason for an AV is to prevent infected files from being passed onto Windows users.

On a UNIX system, a firewall to lock down the system is sufficient security.

 

After evaluating, I decided on BitDefender for Mac with Little Snitch firewall. Macs CAN be infected. And I want outbound protection.