Unfortunately the list they tested isn’t comprehensive and an AV company has to request that SE Labs include their product in their reviews. There is a hint that SE Labs may charge for the testing of products, but not those which it includes in public test results. I assume that the companies in the list may have paid for their products to be tested by SE Labs and also then agreed for the test results to be used in any public report that SE Labs produces.
Notwithstanding this, while the list may be somewhat useful based on the SE Labs testing regime (assuming it is rigorous and one of the better ones), limiting products tested may not give the full picture of reliability of all AV systems in the market and may skew results in favour of those with a relationship with SE Labs.
Addition of AV-Comparatives results also adds clarity. Taken on it’s own maybe just maybe SE Labs could be discounted a little but with more testers also showing similar trends the fact that MS Defender appears among the top is more clearly the true performance indicator. Bias that may be present becomes harder to make a case for. I don’t for a moment discount that other products may be adequate or effective but most of those are not largely followed. The omission of some maybe for reasons that are quite valid, some because they simply missed a deadline to offer their products or that they didn’t want their product tested.
I’ve been using the free Sophos Home programme to protect my Mac. They are now telling me that it’s run out and I need to upgrade to a paid one.
Can anyone please suggest any other free anti-virus programme for a Mac, or tell me the pros and cons of Sophos, whether free or upgraded.
All suggestions greatly appreciated.
When I was last using Windows, I had Defender installed, and found it to be adequate.
On my Mac, when I first switched, I installed ClamXAV which was pretty good too, but then eventually dropped it. I currently use the free version of Malwarebytes.
I suggest we use Linux on laptops. No need for any anti virus software ever!
Ubuntu Linux easier to use than MS Windows and virus free. Try it! This is the only one I have been using for years! For added security use a good quality VPN (paid subscription).
Sorry to say that there is malware in the Linux environment, but the level in the wild is rare. Ubuntu suggests that you may not need antivirus software, but states:
If you want to be extra-safe, or if you want to check for viruses in files that you are passing between yourself and people using Windows and Mac OS, you can still install anti-virus software.
If you want to protect others, antivirus is recommended. There is free Linux antivirus software such as these:
One reason for so little linux malware is that the linux user community is quite small compared to Windows. Hackers wanting the best return for their effort are always going to go where the most people are, and that is ‘accented’ by linux users being more generally technically savvy than the very wide cross section of Windows users.
If I am going to make some ‘evil-ware’ do I want to infiltrate a potential 2% (an arguable number, but a reasonable order of magnitude for this discussion) of ‘the target market’, or looking at Apples still only about 25% of the Windows user population, all numbers +/-. Thus linux security is partly because it is not interesting to the wider hacker community yet, although a few do put their heads up from time to time and have a go.
Thanks for your comments. Are you a longime Linux laptop user?
As you rightly observed,malware in Linux is rare.
Never heard of it in the UBUNTU Linux I have been using continuously for some 15 yrs. Any anti virus software for Ubuntu Linux would be overkill!
I would be interested in comments on this topic from any longtime Ubuntu Linux users.
I am a long time user but not on laptop and have run most Ubuntu (from early releases to my now 18.04.5 LTS version and soon moving to the 20.04.2 LTS) via VMs, I have one server also running the 18.04.5 LTS and I sure do use a AV product (ClamAV https://www.clamav.net/downloads#collapseUbuntu), also run Linux Mint, and a few others for their particular qualities (mostly Debian based). At one stage I also used rkhunter (https://kifarunix.com/how-to-install-rkhunter-rootkit-hunter-on-ubuntu-18-04/) on Ubuntu as I often installed from non-official repos but now only use the Official ones as there is just too much risk from outside repos. GNOME & KDE launchers both had proof of concept attacks that were added to the autostart folders, and Kaspersky also years ago found another proof of concept cross platform one https://lwn.net/Articles/179117/.
As to vulnerabilities Linux is not immune it is just harder to hack, just 3 that have caused some heartache are HeartBleed, POODLE and DROWN attacks.
I however prefer Windows as my normal usage OS, everyone to their own I say.
I was the same, used it on an old PC as a media player but after the PC died, gave it up as I seemed to be tinkering all the time to get it to work properly.
I am also the same. While Windows has it faults (like any other OS), it provides the platform to run the software we wish to use.
When talking ‘Linux’, Android is often forgotten - malware/etc has made an appearance there for sure - often people say it’s not the same, well, get a command line on your Android phone/tablet and tell me otherwise ;-).
I’ve run Linux continuously at home in various forms since the early '90s … this year is the 30th anniversary of Linux - before that all we had was 386bsd etc … Had all sorts of problems at various times building kernels with hobby specific patches and the like, but never been hit personally by malware/worm/virus/etc.
I ran Red Hat Linux on a laptop for a number of years. It provided a virtual Windows environment so I could run all my Win software. I could create and delete if needed multiple of these.
Being virtual machine environments they could not infect either other VMs or indeed the main Linux system.
Infection of other VMs and the parent is possible depending on what resources are shared eg external storage. VMs may need locking down to ensure security. As @draughtrider points out below there are infection vectors that can be almost impossible to keep locked, or impossible. Risk is minimal in most cases but a dedicated actor would probably have ways and means to almost anything not faraday shielded as well as air gapped with isolated and filtered power supply. Of course we are then talking about very high security players.
Regardless, this somewhat dated exchange puts it into perspective since the ‘demographics’ of who does what hasn’t changed all that much in the interim.
Indeed - there are some resources that VM’s can’t avoid sharing with the host
Virtual Machine Escape has been achieved using a number of attack vectors and is definitely considered a real world threat anywhere security is taken seriously. Some of the ‘known’ info here …
