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TIME Tech Security This Is the Best Mac Security Software You Can Buy Avast Avast Free Mac Security Avast Free Mac Security 2015 is the go-to free software

Many Mac owners may be under the impression that their computers dont need antivirus protection. Theyre inherently safer, right? While there are fewer Trojan horses, viruses and worms designed to attack Macs than PCs, that doesnt mean theyre immune to infection.

Many threats, like phishing, dont care whether youre running Windows or a Mac, says Christopher Budd, global threat communications manager for Trend Micro.

In fact, a serious threat to Macs was verified as recently as December 2014, according to the National Vulnerability Database. To combat this threat, Apple issued its first ever automatic security update for Mac computers in December. (Previously, Mac users would initiate the security updates themselves.) The bug, CVE-2014-9295, could enable hackers to gain remote control of machines through a vulnerability with the network time protocol, or NTP, which synchronizes a computers clock. It was serious enough that Apple didnt want to wait for users to fix it themselves, according to Reuters.

With even one threat on the table, protection is needed. So we set out to find the best Mac antivirus software out there. We reviewed security lab results, interface accessibility data, and product feature ratings from independent experts and websites to recommend our favorites.

We placed an emphasis on performance and security over a trunk full of features. To find the best freeware, it had to meet top-notch security ratings while still offering a few perks. For paid software, we decided it had to not only achieve high security ratings, but it had to cost less than $100, offer a one-year subscription with multi-device protection, and be designed for home use.

With that, we narrowed it down to our two security software picks one free, one paid for 2015.

Avast Free Mac Security 2015 is the go-to software for protecting your Mac without spending a penny. Its a simple, on-demand scanning platform that can complete four different types of scans: Full System Scan, Removable Volumes Scan, Home Scan or Custom Scan. While the variety is useful for performing different system checks, it lacks the scheduled scans feature that many busy consumers want. Nonetheless, its simple-to-use interface, strong all-around coverage, and anti-spam features still pull it ahead of other free offerings.

While its not perfect at detecting all intrusions, independent security researcher AV-TEST reports that it gets the job done after all, its free. In testing, it performed the highest among its freeware counterparts, detecting 97.4 percent of all on-demand threats (above the average of 80.8 percent). It even outperformed some paid competitors, including Kaspersky, which only detected threats 93.2 percent of the time. It also held its own with paid offerings when it came to minimizing system slowdown.

Once Avast detects something suspicious, it locks it away in a quarantined area called the Virus Chest, where you can choose to restore it if its a falsely-identified file, or delete it altogether. And like most of its competitors, Avast also detects Windows malware.

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This Is the Best Mac Security Software You Can Buy