VirusBarrier scans for the latest threats and also detects Windows malware.
Intego Mac Internet Security X9 is made up of two parts – the VirusBarrier scanner and the NetBarrier firewall. The company now has a head office in Seattle and a European branch in Paris, and offers a premium Mac protection product. With this you get a definite focus on Mac-owners’ needs. Not Intego – this company focuses entirely on Mac security and built its brand serving Macs since its founding in France in 1997.
The other three programs in our review suite don't offer quick-scan options.ĭuring a full scan, second place for lightest performance impact wentto Avast at 4,757, followed by Sophos at 4,693, Bitdefender at 4,661 and ClamXav at 3,989.Most Mac anti-virus solutions are offered as an add-on to a company’s PC specialism. During a full scan it dropped a bit further, to 5,166.īy comparison, Bitdefender’s Geekbench 3 score during a quick scan was 5,133. With Intego installed and running a quick scan, that number dropped slightly to 5,210. Intego had the lightest impact, both in its quick-scan and its full-scan features.Īccording to benchmarking tool Geekbench 3, our MacBook Air scored 5,398 before any anti-malware programs were installed. We tested five programs for their performance impact on Macs while running scans. It's important that an anti-malware program not slow down a computer. Intego Mac Antivirus Security X8 scored highly among the five anti-malware programs we tested in our review suite: it caught 98.3 percent of on-demand malware (above the average of 80.8 percent) and 98.8 percent of on-access malware (far above the average of 57.5 percent). In August 2014, AV-TEST completed a round of testing on 18 Mac anti-malware programs, using 117 samples of native Mac malware.ĪV-TEST assessed each anti-malware program based on its ability to catch malware "on-demand" (when a user manually runs a scan to detect existing infections) and "on-access" (when the program automatically scans a file or program as the user accesses it). Intego Mac Internet Security X8 looks good, but how effective is it at catching malware? We turned to AV-TEST, an independent German lab that tests the efficacy of anti-malware programs. Bitdefender, Avast and Sophos all have some version of this feature. However, Intego Mac Internet Security X8 does lack any kind of Web-scanning component, which would scan for malicious links and Web pages as you browse. NetBarrier's features are unique among the other Mac anti-malware programs we reviewed. You can save three custom NetBarrier settings as Home, Work or Public Hotspot profiles, which have basic presets: For example, the Public Hotspot profile automatically blocks NetBarrier connections from untrusted devices.
The NetBarrier firewall can be customized to block or allow incoming and outgoing traffic from local and Internet connections. The full list of approved applications is available within NetBarrier's interface. Permission must be manually granted via a pop-up box that appears when you access an application after NetBarrier's installation. NetBarrier is essentially a firewall, regulating which applications installed on your Mac - including NetUpdate and VirusBarrier - can access the Internet. Windows malware can't infect Macs, but it can spread through them stopping it on a Mac helps curb malware infections. Intego Mac Internet Security X8 also detects Windows malware. NetUpdate is a simple list of virus definitions, which identify malware and are regularly updated as new malware is found and documented. Avast, Bitdefender, ClamXav and Sophos have similar features. In addition to the scheduled and on-demand scans, the program also scans files in the background when you access them. VirusBarrier lets you schedule scans, as do Sophos and ClamXav. You’ll have to choose one when you first launch VirusBarrier, as well as decide whether VirusBarrier will scan your archives. VirusBarrier, the anti-malware protection component, has Minimum, Standard and Maximum protection settings.
These features aren't as extensive as those for PC antivirus, but they're among the best in the Mac antivirus products we tested.
The applications in Intego Mac Internet Security X8 focus on malware protection and managing your Internet traffic.