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Back in 2013, the news reports were full of a ransomware threat called CryptoLocker. It was a big deal, until a multinational task force neutralized it in 2014. CryptoPrevent dates to that same era, as it was originally created to aid in recovery from CryptoLocker. The current CryptoPrevent Premium aims to work alongside your antivirus, providing ransomware-specific protection at a range of security levels. Unfortunately, even at its highest security level, the latest version failed when we tested it with real-world ransomware.
This isn’t the first time we’ve put CryptoPrevent through rigorous testing. It didn’t do well in our previous review, but four years and 11 versions have elapsed, so we opted to give it another try. At the time of that earlier review, it was one of about a dozen ransomware-specific utilities. That list has dwindled to just a handful, making a new review of CryptoPrevent all the more important.
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It’s taken a while to get the word out, but almost all Mac users now understand that their devices are not immune to virus attack. Antivirus protection is important. However, that doesn’t mean everyone wants to
pay for such protection. AVG AntiVirus for Mac is one of several totally free antivirus solutions designed to protect your Macs. This bare-bones software doesn t do much beyond taking care of basic antivirus tasks, but its protection against malicious and fraudulent URLs has improved since our last review.
Since Avast s acquisition of AVG a couple years ago, this product and Avast Security (for Mac) are now, if not siblings, at least cousins. On the PC side, the two free antivirus products are extremely similar under the hood, and company contacts assure me that the same is true of the Mac products. Note, though, that Avast offers Mac users a bit more than AVG does. In addition to basic antivirus protection, it includes a network
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For too many years common knowledge promoted the myth that Macs don t need antivirus protection. Sure, the OS is intrinsically more secure than Windows, though that gap is shrinking as Microsoft gets wise. But malware, even ransomware, can attack Macs too, and that s where Vipre Advanced Security for Mac comes in. The name suggests a suite, but this is, instead, a simple, bare-bones antivirus utility, without any bonus features. It even lacks some expected features such as the ability to steer your browser away from dangerous and fraudulent websites. It does have an ultra-cool user interface, but apart from that, it s pricey for what it offers.
You ve probably heard that Macs don t need antivirus software. Whoever told you that was wrong.
The idea that Macs are generally more secure than PCs isn t totally off-base. Windows
does tend to have more security vulnerabilities because, while Apple does everything in-house, Windows operates on hardware from a handful of manufacturers. Apple s closed-loop system simply makes holes smaller and harder to infiltrate.
But that doesn t mean Mac s security is hole-free. Antivirus software is still a worthwhile purchase.
Do hackers prefer Macs or PCs?Â
It s been a handful of years since Apple revealed that PC has it beat popularity-wise (by about four times, or 300 million active users). Apple s been chomping away at the market share, but still, fewer people own Macs. Fewer Mac owners, fewer targets for criminals, right? Hackers are obviously more likely to create malware that ll affect more people s computers rather than spend extra time working around a tricky OS that fewer peop