Lions, Tigers, and Malware. Oh, my.

While two of those things usually aren’t a danger to an Apple computer, malware is an issue.

I’ve had malware on this computer. I have no idea how I got it and I honestly don’t remember which variant it was. I don’t think it was all that bad but I’m not sure as it was a few years ago. All I know is that it was cleaned.

That’s not meant to be alarmist. I would much rather be on an Apple computer than a Windows-based machine. But you would be silly to continue to be a denier that Apple computers are immune to the bad stuff. Just because it appears to happen less frequently doesn’t mean you shouldn’t protect yourself especially if it’s easy.

Oh, I guess I should’ve stated up front that if you aren’t familiar with malware, this Wikipedia article makes it pretty clear. The good thing is that there is software out there that does a decent job at getting rid of malware on a Mac.

What I’m using is the free version of Malwarebytes.

My process is that I set a reminder for myself to run Malwarebytes manually every week. It takes a little over a minute for it to execute and determine if I have any malware and it cleans it up.

Now, I know what you are going to say and you are right.

I’m NOT protecting myself in real time. If I get some malware, I may have it a full week before I get rid of it which is pretty risky if it’s a bad variant. And maybe I’m about to jinx myself by saying this but I’m ok with that risk.

The other options are a) run it manually every day, therefore, minimizing my risk or b) paying for an annual subscription which is then continually monitoring my computer in real time.

It’s funny but as I read what I just wrote, I now think that I should just run it on a daily basis.

Update: I just ran it and it took two mins and 6 seconds. I’m now going to remind myself to run it daily.

Look at that. I’ve just helped myself.

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