- Review of Avast Free Antivirus for Mac. Avast is one of the most popular free antivirus programs, and they have a version for Mac OS X. Avast Free Antivirus for Mac offers most of the same features, is free to download, doesn’t include advertisements, and is generally unobtrusive.
- Best free antivirus for Mac: Avast Free Mac Security Many antivirus suites provide a decent level of protection, but a few rise above all others by providing the very best in performance.
Feb 05, 2013 I started a new job a couple of months ago and I got a MacBook Pro. I now use ClamXav but I want to change it to Avast for Mac. My question is: Am I allowed to use Avast for Mac on my business computer? I am wondering this since I can only find a free Avast for Mac version and not one for a business.
Download and installation
What are the system requirements for Avast Security?
The system requirements for Avast Security and Avast Premium Security are:
- Apple macOS 10.14.x (Mojave), Apple macOS 10.13.x (High Sierra), Apple macOS 10.12.x (Sierra), Apple Mac OS X 10.11.x (El Capitan), Apple Mac OS X 10.10.x (Yosemite).
- Intel based Mac computer with 64-bit processor.
- 512 MB RAM or above (1 GB RAM or higher preferred).
- 256 MB minimum hard disk free space.
- Internet connection (to download and register the product, for automatic updates of the program and virus database).
- Optimally standard screen resolution not less than 1024 x 768 pixels.
Avast Security does not run properly if you have any other antivirus software installed.
How do I download and install Avast Security?
To download and install Avast Security or Avast Premium Security:
- Click the link below to download the Avast Security setup file:
- Double-click the downloaded file
avast_security_online.dmg
. - In the dialog that appears, double-click the Avast Security icon and follow the on-screen instructions.
- When installation is complete, click Close.
For detailed installation instructions, refer to the following article:
If you have purchased Avast Premium Security, activate your subscription by going to ☰ Menu ▸ Activate paid features and entering your activation code.
Do I need a subscription to use Avast Security?
No, a subscription is not necessary for the free version of Avast Security. After installation, Avast Security is ready to use. You can connect Avast Security to your Avast Account to benefit from the device management feature.
For additional features, upgrade to a paid subscription of Avast Premium Security. You must activate this product with a valid activation code.
How do I upgrade from Avast Security to Avast Premium Security?
To upgrade to Avast Premium Security:
- In your Applications folder, double-click the Avast icon to open the application.
- Click Upgrade on the main Avast Security screen.
- Follow the on-screen purchase instructions.
After purchase, Avast Premium Security automatically activates. If necessary, you can manually activate the product by going to ☰ Menu ▸ Activate paid features and entering your activation code.
How do I activate Avast Premium Security?
To manually activate Avast Premium Security:
- Open the order confirmation email you received after purchasing Avast Premium Security.
- Locate and copy the activation code from the confirmation email.
- In your Applications folder, double-click the Avast icon to open the application.
- Go to ☰ Menu ▸ Activate paid features.
- Type or paste your activation code into the text box, then click Activate.
To view the duration of your subscription, go to ☰ Menu ▸ My subscriptions. For detailed activation instructions, refer to the following article:
How do I connect Avast Security to my Avast Account?
After you download and install Avast Security, you can connect the product to your Avast Account to benefit from the device management feature.
To connect Avast Security to your Avast Account:
- In your Applications folder, double-click the Avast icon to open the application.
- Go to ☰ Menu ▸ Log in to Avast account.
- Enter your Avast Account credentials, then click Log In.
For detailed instructions, refer to the following article:
What is the difference between Avast Security and Avast Premium Security?
Avast Security is a free product that does not require a paid subscription to use.
How to use avast security for mac once you run a scan mac. Avast Premium Security includes additional features and requires a paid subscription. https://mauitree142.weebly.com/blog/avast-anti-virus-for-mac-review. The additional features include Ransomware Shield and Wi-Fi Inspector.
Features
What is File Shield?
File Shield is the main layer of active protection in Avast Security. It scans programs and files saved on your Mac for malicious threats in real-time before allowing them to be opened, run, modified, or saved. If malware is detected, File Shield prevents the program or file from infecting your Mac.
What is Web Shield?
Web Shield is an additional layer of active protection in Avast Security. It scans data that is transferred when you browse the internet in real-time to prevent malware, such as malicious scripts, from being downloaded and run on your Mac.
What is Email Shield?
Email Shield is an additional layer of active protection in Avast Security. It scans your incoming and outgoing email messages in real-time for malicious content such as viruses. Scanning applies only to messages sent or received using a mail management software (email clients, such as Mail, Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird). If you access your web based email account via an internet browser, your Mac is protected by other Avast Security shields.
Avast For Mac 10.7.5
What is Ransomware Shield?
Ransomware Shield, available in Avast Premium Security, secures your personal photos, documents, and files from being modified, deleted, or encrypted by ransomware attacks. This feature automatically secures your Pictures and Documents folders and allows you to specify which other folders you want to protect from untrusted applications. Additionally, you can specify which applications are allowed to modify the files in your protected folders.
What is Wi-Fi Inspector?
Wi-Fi Inspector, available in Avast Premium Security, is an active protection component which continuously monitors your network and connected devices for threats.
What is the Virus Chest?
The Virus Chest is a safe place for storing potentially harmful files, completely isolated from the rest of the operating system. Files inside the Virus Chest are not accessible to any outside process, software application, or virus.
For more information about the Virus Chest including how to send files to the Avast Threat Labs, refer to the following article:
How do I run a scan?
To run an Avast Security scan:
- In your Applications folder, double-click the Avast icon to open the application.
- Click
…
(three dots) next to Run Mac Scan. - Click Run Mac Scan or Scan Now on the tile of the scan you want to run.
You can run a quick scan of the most vulnerable areas of your Mac, or a thorough scan of the whole system, or quickly scan a particular folder or removable drive, or create and schedule your own scans.
For more information about each type of scan as well as scan settings, refer to the following article:
General settings
How do I check which version of Avast Security is installed?
To check which version of Avast Security is installed on your Mac, go to ☰ Menu ▸ Settings and select the General tab. The version number is displayed at the top of the screen.
How do I exclude files or websites from scanning by the Core Shields?
To set an exclusion for a Core Shield:
- In your Applications folder, double-click the Avast icon to open the application.
- Go to ☰ Menu ▸ Settings and select the Core Shields tab.
- Click Add Exceptions under the shield you want to set an exclusion for.
- If you are adding an exclusion for File Shield, select the file and click Open. For Web Shield and Email Shield, specify the server and service, then click Add.
For detailed instructions on how to set exclusions for Core Shields, refer to the following article:
How do I exclude files or folders from the pre-defined scans?
To set an exclusion for one of the pre-defined scans:
- In your Applications folder, double-click the Avast icon to open the application.
- Go to ☰ Menu ▸ Settings and select the Scans tab.
- Click Add Exceptions under the scan you want to set an exclusion for.
- Select a file or folder, then click Open.
For detailed instructions on how to set exclusions for the pre-defined scans, refer to the following article:
Troubleshooting
What does the status message 'Unable to scan' mean in scan results?
The status message 'Unable to scan' means that the file could not be scanned, possibly due to an encrypted ZIP archive or because the files are currently in use. The status does not mean that there is anything wrong with the file, only that it is not available for scanning.
What does the status message 'You are in passive mode' mean?
If you see the status You are in passive mode, you need to manually allow Avast Software extensions on your Mac. For detailed instructions, refer to the following article:
What should I do if I'm unable to browse the web or use other software on my Mac?
Avast Security shields detect and block suspicious files, dangerous websites, and unauthorized connections. In some cases, a Core Shield may cause connectivity issues. If you are unable to use online software or browse certain sites, use the troubleshooting steps below to determine if a shield is causing the issue:
- In your Applications folder, double-click the Avast icon to open the application.
- Click Core Shields.
- Click the ON (green) slider above File Shield and perform your original action (for example, if you were unable to access a certain site, try to access the site again).
- If the connectivity issue persists, click the OFF (red) slider to turn the shield on again, then repeat the above steps for each shield.
When you determine which shield is causing the connectivity issue, you can set an exclusion for a certain file, site, or mail server by using the steps in the following article:
How do I uninstall Avast Security?
Avast Security cannot be fully uninstalled by dragging the application to the Trash. To uninstall Avast Security:
- In your Applications folder, double-click the Avast icon to open the application.
- Click Avast in the menu bar, then select Uninstall Avast Security from the context menu.
- Click Uninstall.
For detailed uninstallation instructions, refer to the following article:
- Avast Security 14.x for Mac
- Avast Premium Security 14.x for Mac
- Apple macOS 10.14.x (Mojave)
- Apple macOS 10.13.x (High Sierra)
- Apple macOS 10.12.x (Sierra)
- Apple Mac OS X 10.11.x (El Capitan)
- Apple Mac OS X 10.10.x (Yosemite)
Avast For Mac Laptop Price
Active1 year, 8 months ago
Yesterday I ran a full system scan using my Avast antivirus software and it found a infection file. The file's location is :
Avast categorizes the infection file as :
So, after deleting the file I did several more full system scans to check to see if there were any more files. I found nothing, until I restarted my macbook pro today. The file reappeared in the same location. So I decided to let Avast put it in the virus chest, restarted the laptop, and again the file was in the same location again. Therefore the virus is re-creating the file every restart of the laptop.
I want to avoid wiping the laptop and re-installing everything, so that is why I am here. I researched the file path and cryptonight and found out that cryptonight is/can be malicious code that can run in the background of someone's computer to mine cryptocurrency. I've been monitoring my CPU usage, Memory, and Network and I haven't seen a single odd process running. My CPU is running below 30%, my RAM is generally below 5GB (installed 16GB), and my network hasn't had any processes sending out/receiving large amount of data. So if something is mining in the background, I can't tell at all. I have no clue what to do.
My Avast runs full system scans every week, so this just recently became an issue this week. I checked all of my chrome extensions and nothing is out of order, I haven't downloaded anything special within the past week, besides the new Mac operating system (macOS High Sierra 10.13.1). So I have no clue where this has came from to be honest and I have no clue how to get rid of it. Can someone please help me out.
Avast For Mac Laptop Windows 7
I suspect that this supposed “virus” is coming from the Apple update and that it is just a pre-installed file that is created and runs every time the OS is booted/rebooted. But I am unsure since I only have one MacBook and no one else that I know that has a mac has updated the OS to High Sierra. But Avast keeps labeling this as a potential “Cryptonight” virus and no one else online has posted anything about this issue. Therefore, a common virus removal forum isn't helpful in my situation, since I've already attempted to remove it with both Avast, malwarebytes, and manually.
JakeGould35k1010 gold badges109109 silver badges151151 bronze badges
![Windows Windows](/uploads/1/3/3/4/133400015/598821384.jpg)
Lonely TwinkyLonely Twinky
1 Answer
Pretty sure there is no virus, malware or trojan at play and his is all a highly coincidental false positive.
It’s most likely a false positive since
/var/db/uuidtext/
is related to the new “Unified Logging” subsystem that was introduced in macOS Sierra (10.2). As this article explains:The first file path (
/var/db/diagnostics/
) contains the log files. These files are named with a timestamp filename following the pattern logdata.Persistent.YYYYMMDDTHHMMSS.tracev3
. These files are binary files that we’ll have to use a new utility on macOS to parse them. This directory contains some other files as well including additional log *.tracev3 files and others that contain logging metadata. The second file path (/var/db/uuidtext/
) contains files that are references in the main *.tracev3 log files.But in your case the “magic” seems to come from the hash: Avast antivirus.
Just check out this reference for known Windows malware files that references that one specific hash. Congratulations! Your Mac has magically created a filename that matches a known vector that has been primarily seen on Windows systems… But you are on a Mac and this filename is just a hash that is connected to the “Unified Logging” database system’s file structure and it is completely coincidental that it matches that malware filename and should not mean anything.
And the reason that specific file seems to regenerate is based on this detail from the above explanation:
The second file path (
/var/db/uuidtext/
) contains files that are references in the main *.tracev3 log files.So you delete the file in
/var/db/uuidtext/
, but all it is is a reference to what is in /var/db/diagnostics/
. So when you reboot, it sees it is missing and recreates it in /var/db/uuidtext/
.As for what to do now? Well, you can either tolerate the Avast alerts or you can download a cache cleaning tool such as Onyx and just force the logs to be recreated by truly purging them from your system; not just that one
BC8EE8D09234D99DD8B85A99E46C64
file. How to add a script exclusion for avast for mac. Hopefully the hash names of the files it regenerates after a full cleaning won’t accidentally match a known malware file again.UPDATE 1: It seems like Avast staff acknowledges the issue in this post on their forums:
I can confirm this is a false positive. The superuser.com post describes the issue quite well - MacOS seems to have accidentally created a file that contains fragments of malicious cryptocurrency miner which also happen to trigger one of our detections.
Now what is really odd about this statement is the phrase, “…MacOS seems to have accidentally created a file that contains fragments of malicious cryptocurrency miner.”
What? Is this implying that someone on the core macOS software development team at Apple somehow “accidentally” setup the system so it generates neutered fragments of a known malicious cryptocurrency miner? Has anyone contacted Apple directly about this? This all seems a bit crazy.
UPDATE 2: This issue is further explained by someone Radek Brich the Avast forums as simply Avast self-identifying itself:
Hello, I'll just add a bit more information.
The file is created by MacOS system, it's actually part of 'cpu usage' diagnostic report. The report is created because Avast uses the CPU heavily during the scan.
The UUID (7BBC8EE8-D092-34D9-9DD8-B85A99E46C64) identifies a library which is a part of Avast detections DB (algo.so). The content of the file is debugging information extracted from the library. Unfortunately, this seems to contain a string which is in return detected by Avast as a malware.
(The 'rude' texts are probably just names of malware.)
Avast For Mac 10.6.8
JakeGouldJakeGould35k1010 gold badges109109 silver badges151151 bronze badges
protected by Community♦Nov 26 '17 at 20:07
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