We have already covered the free virus protection for Mac programs and in this article we’ll take a look at those that are available for purchase. More and more Mac business users are becoming aware that Mac computers, while being much less prone to viruses and Trojans than their Windows counterparts, can still be vulnerable to malware. So it makes a lot of sense to check out additional protection that will keep your computer, your data, files and e-mails secure. Here is the list of programs that offer virus protection for Mac computers.

ESET Cybersecurity for Mac

ESET is a well-known name in the virus protection industry which is most widely known for its NOD32 Antivirus. ESET Cybersecurity for Mac is a complete package for Mac computers to protect them from viruses, Trojans and other malware. They offer a free trial and the software is compatible with OS X 10.5, 10.6 and the latest 10.7, Lion.

Norton AntiVirus 11 for Mac

Norton AntiVirus 11 for Mac is of course made by Norton, a major player in the virus protection field. It claims to be the #1 selling antivirus solution for the Mac and it offers all the standard protection features that you would expect from an antivirus. At the moment of writing this article (August 2011) the version for Mac OS X 10.7 has not yet been released, so if you are running Lion, you will have to wait for this one.

McAfee VirusScan for Mac

McAfee is another giant in the antivirus department and their McAfee VirusScan for Mac is available for purchase to the Mac users. It seems that some of the major companies are taking some more time to produce the new versions for the latest OS X because also McAfee VirusScan is at this moment available for versions 10.5 and 10.6. It may have something to do with the fact that Apple is very secretive about the release dates of new versions of their operating system.

ProtectMac AntiVirus

ProtectMac AntiVirus is a Mac-only virus protection software. It has been around for several years and it offers all the standard features that are available from the best professional virus protection programs. It says on their website that ProtectMac AntiVirus Version 1.2 and later is fully compatible with OS X Lion.

VirusBarrier X6

The company called Intego is behind the VirusBarrier X6 antivirus program that is designed specifically for the Mac OS X. In comes in two sizes, the VirusBarrier X6 and the Internet Security Barrier X6 which offers some additional features, such as antispam, parental control and data protection. It is compatible with the Lion and it has won the Reader’s Choice Award 2011 at about.com for Best Mac Antivirus.

PC Tools iAntiVirus

PC Tools iAntiVirus is available also as a payable virus protection for Mac computers. The payable version offers some additional features in comparison to the free version and it’s aimed for business users. At the moment it’s not yet available for Mac OS X 10.7.

A variety of choices for virus protection is a good thing

I will take a guess that you weren’t aware that there are so many virus protection programs available for Mac computers. With all the talk about how Macs are not vulnerable to viruses and other malware you would think that companies will not spend their resources on producing antivirus programs for OS X. But it seems that enough Mac users are taking their protection seriously enough to invest into a good virus protection software to keep them safe. Perhaps you should do it to.

Major antivirus companies provide free virus protection for Mac also

This may come as a surprise to you but there are some major names in the virus protection market that provide antivirus not only for Windows but also for Macs. And some of them even provide free virus protection for Mac if you are a home user (if you are a business user or want to purchase virus protection for Mac we have covered that in another article). Let’s take a look at some of them.

Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition

Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac Home Edition is a free virus protection program from one of the leaders in the virus protection market, Sophos. Their program is free for home use on your Mac and it runs on both recent versions of OS X, Snow Leopard and Lion. If you are a home user, you are free to download it and install on your Mac.

Free Norton AntiVirus 12 for Mac – Beta

Norton is another virus protection giant who offers free virus protection for your Mac. You can download the Norton AntiVirus 12 for Mac – Beta from their website for free and install it on your computer. Just be careful you have already upgraded to Mac OS X Lion, as it won’t run on Snow Leopard.

Avast! Free Antivirus for Mac

Avast is known as a producer of one of the best free virus protection programs for the Windows platform and now it has started providing free virus protection for Macs also. It’s also running on Snow Leopard and support for OS X 10.7 Lion has been added in August 2011.

Pc Tools iAntiVirus Free

Pc Tools iAntivirus is available as a free version for home users of Mac computers. The program is available for download from their website but be careful because they have not yet released the version for the OS X 10.7, at the moment it runs only on versions 10.5 and 10.6.

ClamXav 2, Free Anti-Virus Solution for Mac OS X

ClamXav is a Mac only free virus protection solution which uses the ClamAV open source antivirus engine as a back end and has the ability to detect both Windows and Mac threats. It has been on the market for several years and it is as proven as the other major brands, if not more. If offers several types of protection and it’s compatible with all versions of Mac OS X from 10.4 to the latest 10.7.

Which free virus protection for Mac to choose?

If you are a home user, you have the ability to choose any one of them. Our advice is to check their specifications and decide for yourself. But we would recommend you to actually choose one and install it. There are people who will tell you that on a Mac you don’t need virus protection (we have discussed that on this site also), but the fact is that there are malicious programs out there that can hurt your computer and your data. So choose your free virus protection for Mac and install it for your own safety.

Running Windows VM on Mac

Do you have any programs and tools that you couldn’t live without on Windows and you can’t run them on your new Mac? Don’t worry there is a solution, run Windows as a VM or as dual boot.

But you already guessed what this means – if you run Windows on your Mac, you should probably have virus protection for Windows so you don’t get into trouble. Does this means that you need virus protection for your Mac too? Let me put it this way – if your OS X somehow gets infected and that Trojan or malware or whatever it is that you got on your computer spreads over to the Windows partition, you may have a problem. If it infects the OS X already than there is no further justification of why you should have antivirus for your Mac necessary.

Peace of mind for old Windows users

This is a psychological issue. If you were a Windows user for many years, you are probably well aware of the fact that if you don’t have your antivirus up to date, your computer will sooner or later die in agony. Which actually can happen – you may lose your data, send out tons of spam to your contacts and even unwillingly share some of the personal data with the makers of the virus.

You have been told that there is no such threats on a Mac. But can you be absolutely positive you will never ever get infected and have serious problems with that? I’m sorry to say that nothing is 100 percent. If you are a converted Windows user you may sleep better at night if you actually have some virus protection running on your new Mac, knowing that a chance to get infected just got even much smaller.

Surf the Web responsibly

Surfing the Internet is probably the most common way to get your computer infected. All it takes is for you to arrive to a website that has a piece of malicious code on it and without some protection, you may be in trouble. If you are surfing suspicious websites (you know, porn, gambling, warez, illegal program downloads, passwords sites etc.) your chances for catching something bad increase a lot. But the sad thing is you don’t even have to go to the dark corners of the web to be exposed. A perfectly legitimate site can get hacked – not in the way that says “we have hacked you n00bs” but in a much more subtle way. A piece of script may be included in the website and when you visit the website, the script tries to install itself on your computer. I have seen it happen with my own eyes on a respectable tech website.

Download only the files that you completely trust

Suspicious downloads are a very serious danger for any computer. You need to check any download and if you are not certain that you need it and that you know what it is, don’t download the file. There is a widely known security incident for Macs where you downloaded some video but when you wanted it to play the program informed you that you need a codec to view the video. If you went ahead and downloaded this so called “codec” you also downloaded malware that got installed on your computer.

E-mail is fun, just be careful about the attachments

There is not much chance (virtually zero) to get infected if you open e-mail, even if it’s suspicious (it depends on your mail client but nowadays a vast majority of them is secure in this regard). However, this can change once start opening the attachments. E-mail attachments are a huge vulnerability in terms of computer safety because users are just people. And if you see e-mail with attachment titled “Nude photos of Angelina Jolie” or “The cutest puppies in the world!” you may forget about the golden rule not to open suspicious attachments from unknown people and go ahead and click that file. Sometimes it’s not just puppies that have arrived to your mailbox.

Follow these basic steps and you should be relatively safe

To sum it up, if you are online (of if you get a USB key from someone), you are exposed to malware. There is no 100% security on any computer or operating system but whatever OS you are running these three simple steps can save you a lot of trouble. Surf the web responsibly, download only files that you trust and open the suspicious e-mail attachments only after you have thought about it first. For any Mac user this will go a long way.

Virus protection for Mac is not absolutely necessary …

If you are a Windows users or if you ever were one, you are certainly well familiar with all the horror stories that can happen to your computer, if you don’t use virus protection. You’ll get infected, your computer will start acting weird, you’ll be sending email viruses to all the contacts in your mail client and in the end, your data will get scrambled and deleted beyond repair. Right?

This may be a bit of exaggeration, but if you don’t use virus protection on a Windows box, you actually have a good chance to see it happen. In the Windows world you need some antivirus, period.

But in the Mac world things actually are a bit different. The architecture of the OS X is much more closed, you and the programs you download (or are downloaded themselves) have a much harder time doing anything bad to your system. Original security level of a Mac computer is considerably higher than of a Win computer.

… but even on a Mac you can still get infected

Wait a minute, you just said Macs are ok! What is this now about getting infected? While OS X is much less vulnerable to virus attacks, it is not impenetrable. There are viruses, Trojans, dialers and other malware that will happily take the opportunity to infest your Mac if given half a chance. Just try surfing the more suspicious and darker corners of the web and you may have enough of bad luck to catch a virus. Again, the chances are slimmer than with the Win computer, but statistics won’t give you much solace when you are desperately trying to rescue your data.

“There are no viruses for Macs!”

And for all those Mac users who are still one hundred percent sure that no malware actually exists for Macs I’m sorry to break the dream. Malware for OS X exists and it can infect your computer. This is the actual quote from the Apple forums: “There are X-rated sites popping up on my laptop that I did not go to nor authorize. I just want them gone/off. Please help!!!”

I’m not saying you will get infected and that it will do any damage to you, but believing that there are no viruses and other harmful programs for OS X is unfortunately a mistake. The chance for a Mac user to get infected is considerably lower than with a Windows computer but are you willing to take that chance? Sometimes it’s better to prevent than to heal and all in all it may still be a good idea to get some virus protection for Mac.

Do YOU actually need virus protection for your Mac?

This is a hard one, you’ll have to decide for yourself. Let me give you a few examples. If you have come to Mac from Windows, you are probably a bit nervous without some antivirus running on your new box. To help you sleep better, install the virus protection for Mac on your machine. If you are a business person and you use your Mac for work and have valuable data stored on your computer, you may want to check for additional protection. If you use computer for a bit of safe surfing and mail correspondence with people that you know and trust, you are on the safe side and probably don’t need one. If you are an IT specialist who knows where dangers are lurking on the Internet and in the e-mail, you don’t need virus protection either.

Has this helped you a bit? I hope so. There are more useful tips, how-tos and guides available on this site, so you may want to check them out before making a decision.