I have never felt the need to have an AV on my Mac.
However I thought it would become necessary at some point.
My worry has been:
- The impact on overall performance
- Obtrusive pop ups
- Ridiculous over the top ugly PC style interfaces (http://www.intego.com/virusbarrier/)
- Overpriced subscription based annual fees
But... With this product I am rather surprised.
1. Firstly credit to Sophos it installs as a menu bar app and stays out of the way.
2. The interface if you do need to open it, is simple, Mac like and not like some sort of over the top star wars dashboard
3. It has a low cpu requirement, idling at about 1.5%
4. If it does need to pop up a window to warn you (I downloaded the eicar.org virus to check it out) it handles it very simply with a quick dialog box.
It found the Eicar virus both when opening these files from the desktop in a text file and a zip file, or on a scan of a USB stick. It seems, quick, efficient and slick.
There's obviously more options that you might like to see e.g. automatic or one click scanning of USB sticks but without overcomplicating things, it's a winner so far.
Just as a note... I have this installed on a Macbook Pro 2010 model and a Macbook (black) 2008 both on OS X 10.6.4 both Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz+.
- Running the local disk scan on the Macbook Pro took 4 hours or so (you only need to do this once) and was completely 'quiet' and unobtrusive even with one core running at 85%. However on the MacBook (black) 2008 model, the fans kicked in and whirred constantly with the CPU running around 100%. Maybe something to do with the hardware design?
Anyhow, I'll post again after a day or so' intensive development use and see if there is any real world performance impact.
so so far, just a note to say thanks to Sophos for the product.
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