A good antivirus solution is probably one of the most important tools you can have installed on your devices. Just like a good doctor, a good antivirus program isn???t something you need every day, but when your antivirus blocks a virus from invading your computer, or prevents a phishing website from stealing your data, you will be extremely happy that your device is protected.

For signature-based scanning, your antivirus compares files to a massive database of known malware files and flags any files with code that matches the ???signature??? of known malware. This is the most traditional method for virus scanning, and it???s an excellent tool for detecting most malware files.
Heuristic detection is similar to signature-based scanning ??? the scanner looks at a file???s code to determine if it???s similar enough to known malware to be considered dangerous. If a known malware file has been slightly altered to bypass signature-based detection methods, a heuristic scanner will still be able to detect it.
Machine learning engines are trained on millions of different malware files and identify suspicious files based on their behavior (instead of looking for similar malware signatures). If a brand new malware file is on your machine, and it does anything suspicious (like monitoring your browsing data, encrypting your files, accessing your webcam, etc.), a machine learning-based scanner will be able to flag and block this file.

Norton is #1 on our list of the top antiviruses in 2024. There are some close contenders, and many competitors provide unique perks, but overall, Norton provides excellent protection for PCs, Macs, Androids, and iOS devices.

Yes, a good antivirus suite can detect every type of malware, including sophisticated attacks like rootkits and less dangerous files like adware and PUPs (potentially unwanted programs).

At a minimum, a good antivirus should include excellent malware protections ??? it should be able to detect and remove both well-known and emerging threats, including ransomware, trojans, and spyware.

Yes. The number of Mac-based malware attacks has been increasing for years. macOS has pretty good built-in security tools, but they aren't strong enough to prevent all of the latest malware threats in 2024.