Just in case you were wondering: You are much safer on a Mac than Windows users are, Independent test lab AV-Test confirms. They identify, on average, more than 400,000 new malware samples for Windows and 5,000 new malware samples for Android every single day. For Mac, the lab usually identifies 100 samples per month.
So you are free to skip the anti-malware products, though sometimes they can be handy, especially if you are targeted by any of the identified malware developers. However, there are plenty of anti-malware software programs out there, so AV-TEST.org has tested 18 of them (via ZDNet).
The lab tested the software’s malware detection, both on access and on demand; false positives; impact on system performance; and other features, such as anti-spam, anti-phishing, personal firewall, safe browsing, parental control, encryption, and backup.
As it turns out, avast!, Bitdefender, G Data, Norman, ESET, Intego, Panda, Microworld, F-Secure, Sophos, and Kaspersky products performed very well in the malware on-access category. Trend Micro, Webroot, and McAfee, on the other hand, had disappointing results.
AV-TEST shares results for on-demand scanning, but what’s important is those of on-access. Kaspersky detected 95.2% on-access, several others detected 97.6% and 98.8% and four products detected 100% of malware on-access: Norman, Microworld, G Data and Bitdefender.
In terms of system performance impact, most of the apps performed well, except for the products from Microworld and Trend Micro.
You can read the full report by visiting AV-TEST’s website.
