Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Mac

Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Mac could be seen as a bit of a contentious product. There are still those who firmly believe the phrase 'Mac malware' to be a contradiction in terms, a figment of the fervid imaginations of antivirus software manufacturers.

Yet the past year has seen further variations on the Mac Trojan OSX.RSPlug, as well as multiple versions of OSX.Trojan.iServices – not to mention MacSweeper, the first rogue application for Mac OS X.

It's against this background that Kaspersky – already makers of antivirus software for Windows – decided to venture into the Mac platform.

Complicated interface

Once installed on your Intel Mac (PowerPC Macs aren't supported), Kaspersky Anti-Virus for Mac (KAV) needs to have its virus definitions updated: unfortunately, its "user friendly and attractive" (according to Kaspersky) interface doesn't give you much clue as to how you do that.

So we consulted the manual – and found the relevant information on page 13. Duly armed, we decided we'd rather it didn't scan our Time Machine backup – but gave up after wading through a morass of criteria in KAV's extensive Preferences.

Should it take five pop-ups and two text fields to choose a file, folder or volume to exclude from a virus scan? Why not a drag-and-drop window?

On the positive side, KAV protects against Windows viruses, which means you can use it on a shared folder in a virtual environment.

At present, there's no dual platform pack, as there is for Intego and Norton AV, but Kaspersky tells us it's currently in production.