Protect your Mac from malware with Avira Free Antivirus for Mac

Apple Macs are much less likely to be infected by malware and spyware than Windows computers, but they are not completely immune. If you are at all worried, Avira will protect your computer.

There have been occasional malware infections in recent years and sometimes large numbers of Macs were affected. Yes, the Mac is safer, but it is not 100% safe. It is certainly worth considering a security program like Avira Free Antivirus for Mac to boost the protection of your computer and files.

There are tens of thousands of viruses for Windows PCs, but relatively few for the Mac. Even if you manage to avoid Mac viruses, you can still harbour and pass on Windows viruses to your friends, relatives and work contacts. Many viruses are attached to emails and while they may not execute on the Mac, you could forward an email with malware to someone with a Windows computer, thinking that it is harmless.

One of the features of Avira Free Antivirus for Mac is that it can detect Windows viruses in addition to threats to macOS on your Mac. It will detect and clean up infections so you can be sure that you aren’t passing on viruses to your Windows-using friends.

Installation was more difficult than is usually the case for Mac apps because Avira will not work properly until yoo go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access. You must manually add Avira to the apps that have full disk access or it will not be able to scan or protect. There is a setup guide that shows you what to do, but I managed to miss it and wondered why Avira would not work. Once this was sorted, it was fine.

Real time scanning

Even if you are not bothered about Windows viruses, after all, they can’t run on macOS, there are some serious Mac malware programs out there that could infect your computer. Avira has a real-time scanner and this checks every file that is accessed before it can do any damage.

The real-time protection checks files as they are accessed on the drive and makes sure they are clean.

In addition to this, you can also scan the Mac’s disk drive on demand or by dragging files and dropping them on the window. This is useful if you want to check files and apps after downloading them from the web. Apps in the Mac App Store have been checked by Apple, but who checks downloads outside of the App Store? This is where Avira is useful.

Quick or thorough scans can be performaned a schedule and you can choose from weekly or daily schedules and how thoroughly files are checked.. You can perform a quick scan of critical areas, a full scan of the system, or a custom scan of the folders you drag to the app. A full scan is recommended after installing Avira just in case there is anything hidden on the disk drive.

The scheduler enables you to choose the type of scan, quick or full, and how often to run it, such as every week on Monday, every day at 9am or whatever you prefer. It then runs automatically in the background.

Customise the protection

There are a few settings that can be customised, sucj as notifications and whether to show the Avira icon in the menu bar. This displays a short menu containing a few useful quick-access functions. The Threat scan and the real-time protection can be customised a little. For example, it can be made to ignore zip files, which is useful if you lots of zips on the disk because unzipping everything is bery time consuming.

Uninstall Avira Free Antivirus

Not only was installation a bit tricky, the uninstaller is hidden in the Utilities folder where you might not think to look. I didn't and ended up Googling how to remove it.

Installing and uninstallting apart, this utility provices useful protection for your Mac both against macOS threats and Windows threats. If you regularly download files outside of the Apple Mac Store then it is recommended, but if you stick to well known safe apps supplied by Apple then you can live without it. If your children have a Mac or use yours, I would also recommend it because they may not be as careful about downloading files as you are.

Avoiding malware is partly about having good security software, but there is a human factor too and if you are technically knowledgable and are able to spot and avoid potential threats, you might be able to continue using your Mac without security software. For non-technical users and children, it is certainly worth adding a free anti virus program like Avira.