Is Anti-Virus software a necessity for your Mac? It's something of a contentious issue.
On the one hand, there's the undeniable fact that the malware types like low hanging fruit, and Windows still has the lion's share of the computing market. As such, the quantity of Mac malware "in the wild" is rather low.
On the other hand, Apple is gaining market share year on year, and there are millions of completely unprotected machines out there. You may work only on a Mac, but the chances are high you interact with Windows machines on a regular basis. Out of politeness alone it'd be a good idea not to pass malware on.
So I'd say that yes, it makes good sense to run AV software on your Mac.
As the market share of Macs has grown, we've seen more companies offer up security solutions. The latest company to jump up to the challenge has been BitDefender, with a double-headed security package. For $A45 you get BitDefender For Mac with a single year, single user licence. Bump that up to $A55 and BitDefender bundle in a PC licence for those running boot camp or virtual machines. If you are running Windows in any form on your Mac, it makes solid sense to run AV software, and the bundle does have some value in that aspect.
But what about the Mac version? I downloaded the .DMG install file for the standalone Mac product and ran through the install procedure on a standard Core i7 iMac. It's worth keeping the .DMG file around, as it contains the uninstaller for the application if (or in my case, when) you need it.
Having installed BitDefender, I let it go through the normal procedure for this kind of application, which involves updating definitions and doing a slightly longer than normal scan to ensure your system is "clean". I left it running in the background and really didn't think too much more about it. Good AV software should run in the background and really only get chatty when you're in actual danger.
BitDefender, at first, seemed ideal, as I really didn't hear anything from it at all. A day later, it occurred to me that the BitDefender icon still had an alarming badge on it. Clicking back in, I discovered that it was still running the initial scan, more than 24 hours after it started. There was a huge list of infected files that it was unable to quarantine or delete.
Was my Mac incredibly compromised beyond belief? In a word, no. The problem was junk mail and Time Machine, and how the current version of BitDefender for Mac deals with both.
I get a fair amount of junk mail — it's the peril of having (and needing to have) a relatively public e-mail address. The junk doesn't bother me too much, as Mail's inbuilt junk filter is pretty efficient at weeding it out. Once or twice a week, I'll check and empty my junk mail folder. No worries, no problems.
Except for BitDefender.
It spotted the Windows malware in many of the messages (which it should) but couldn't do anything about them. To make matters worse, the initial scan tried to run over my Time Machine drive as well. Suddenly a week's worth of junk became months, and Time Machine was even less willing to have an external program mess with it than Mail was. All it could do was leave me with BitDefender insisting my Mac wasn't safe. While some of the junk mail was phishing related and thus could realistically "run" on my Mac, a lot of it was still the same old Windows junk that wouldn't execute outside a virtual PC.
For what it's worth, I can't fault BitDefender's ability to detect malware. It found loads of the stuff. As you might expect, the malware it found was entirely focused on my mail folder. There's a huge line, however, between finding Malware and being able to do anything about it. The current version doesn't allow you to specifically exclude drives or locations, can't work within Time Machine's backup folders and at best will leave you unsure if your system is compromised or not.
I've been in touch with BitDefender's Mac team regarding this rather severe problem, and they tell me that the next release should allow for selectively ignoring Time Machine drives. That should solve the speed issue, but BitDefender is on sale as a working product right now. As it stands, I'd strongly argue that responsible Mac users ought to run AV software, but that BitDefender, in its current state, isn't polished enough to be worthy of consideration.
