Recommendations for iMac maintenance and antivirus app

In addition to what's been posted previously here is my contribution: first, there is no reason to ever install or run any 3rd party "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus, VPN or security apps on your Mac.  This documents describe what you need to know and do in order to protect your Mac: Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community and Recognize and avoid phishing messages, phony support calls, and other scams - Apple Support.  

There are no known viruses, i.e. self propagating, for Macs.  There are, however, adware and malware which require the user to install although unwittingly most of the time thru sneaky links, etc.   

Anti Virus developers try to group all types as viruses into their ad campaigns of fear.  They do a poor job of the detecting and isolating the adware and malware.  Since there are no viruses these apps use up a lot of system resources searching for what is non-existent and adversely affect system and app performance.

There is one app, Malwarebytes, which was developed by a long time contributor to these forums and a highly respected member of the computer security community, that is designed solely to seek out adware and known malware and remove it.  The free version is more than adequate for most users.  

Unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's, school's or bank's servers, they provide false security from a privacy standpoint.  Read these two articles: Public VPN's are anything but private and Security Risks: The Dangers of Using Free VPNs (eccu.edu).  

Additionally, a new study ("Apple Offers Apps With Ties to Chinese Military”) is specifically about VPN apps in Apple’s App Store.

The built-in anti-malware usually keeps the add-on anti-malware and add-on cleaners from causing issues, though the add-ons do tend to be noisy and for negligible or even negative value provided.

The built-in cleaning does avoid hilarity like freeing up memory and freeing up temporary storage, because free memory is wasted memory. You paid for that memory, and using it as cache provides benefits. Freeing it wastes it.

Too much of the advertised add-ons are all too reminiscent of malware with an end-user license agreement, too.

NONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mac OS does not require any maintenance or antivirus apps!!!!!!! All Mac OS requires to remain secure is to:

1. Keep Mac OS up-to-date.
2. Restart the Mac about 1x per week.

NEVER EVER install any third party:

• Antivirus apps
• Cleaning apps
• Security apps
• VPN apps
• Maintenance apps

If you do you will be rewarded with a slow, unstable, buggy computer.

It is not necessary...........but just in case.

Just in case... what?

Installing non-Apple "anti-virus" products increase your threat profile. Most of them exist to harvest your personal information and sell it, which results in getting bombarded with targeted advertisements. And those will be the least of your problems.

Look at the calendar. It has been over a quarter century since OS X was first released. In that time there have been zero viruses that have affected it. None. Also during that time, Apple has made macOS even more impervious to malicious attack.

If it had not been for the ill-conceived Microsoft Windows "Active Desktop" and their "Microsoft Everywhere" approach this conversation would have never occurred. Those products aged like milk, while launching a multi-billion dollar "anti-virus" behemoth — a grift that keeps on grifting.

You don't have to play that game. Read Effective defenses against malware and other threats - Apple Community.

The OS handles those itself. If you'd like a separate product, download and run the free version of MalwareBytes.

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Simply restarting your Mac periodically empties caches and clears RAM. Easy and free.

The only thing those scammy aftermarket add-ons clean is your wallet. And you get poor performance and reduced stability at no extra cost.

claus237 wrote:

Completely agree with what has been written on AV on Mac!

But I use AV on all ,my Mac Computers anyway!

It is not necessary...........but just in case.

Yes, because errors and added noise, risks of corruptions, greatly-attack surfaces and risks of introduced security vulnerabilities, and opportunities for personally-identified data collection are, um, beneficial.

Security is not additive.

Outside of cases where endpoint security and related can be appropriate — and there are issues and risks with that path — I’d not look to add a second anti-malware app.

Completely agree with what has been written on AV on Mac!

But I use AV on all ,my Mac Computers anyway!

It is not necessary...........but just in case.