Sensible web browsing.
In all seriousness, macs are pretty good at keeping itself safe, but consider backup services or tools for important documents, notes and photos like OneDrive or iCloud or whatever.
Antiviruses are basically viruses. They hog all the computer resources, make it slow and pop up ads to upsell you and overall get in your way more than anything.
They won't stop or protect you from things like ransomware but backups do.
What do I do if I have been hacked
Wipe the computer, (usually there is a system restore feature) restore your files from your backups and move on.
What was the impact?
Ok this could be a good solution. Just back up everything and wipe it?!
I don't know. It's just acting weird, there lighting motion like taking screenshots and it's running slow and the other day this antivirus I use located a threat which I deleted. My camera stop workong some months ago also entirely out of the blue.
Just saw that you said your computer was being slow.
1. Jot down all the programs you have installed that you care about.
2. Backup important files but sacrifice folders like the download folder, the desktop and other dumping grounds.
3. System restore: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mh27903/mac
Note that you may want to follow one of the links in the important section at the beginning based on your mac model.
4. Re install apps as you see fit from your notes.
5. Restore your files.
This can be a theraputic thing for many people and anything you lose that you forgot about is likely something you can rebuild. In many cases, you may decide you didn't need it anyway.
Thank you! Why wouldn't I just transfer everything on an external drive where I can restore from later? I already went through some processes with a trial a couple of weeks ago and did a bunch of cleaning of duplicate files etc and was going to go through some sifting and sorting. But with your suggestions now I am thinking I can just let it live on an external drive and bring things in as needed. 🤷🏻♀️
I have definitely gone through losing stuff in the last and there has been just once I wished I'd had a back up. It was for some precious pictures with my grandmother uploaded to flicker or something that transitioning into some other service and erased what I'd had there. That was like 20 years ago.
Everything else a reset button has felt like it has served me. I've accepted it. I think this is indeed gonna be therapeutic. My plan was be to get on top of storage, files, security etc in November. I feel this suggestion may just make it easier.
Yes save everything (files) to external hard drive.
Then reset the computer
Then put the files back on or use the external hard drive as a backup
PNY 512GB Turbo Attaché 3 USB 3.2 Flash Drive, Grey, P-FD512TBOP-GE, 100MB/s, Light-Weight Durable - Data Storage and Transfer https://a.co/d/4ak4MF4
I recently purchased a back up drive. Thanks for the link. Will save for later.
If you already have one then good, the one I sent is nothing special just a cheap one I found quickly.
Good luck 🫡
Thank you! You are very helpful. Yes, this whole initiative has been on my mind and agenda for some time and I've been taking small actions to make sure I deal with storage overload, and then do whatever is needed to ensure privacy and security.
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