Second user account for security

Hi

I’m making a new, second user account on my mac that i plan to use for banking and sensitive personal information. I have alot of applications on my main account and i’m not entirely sure that i trust them all, so it seems like a good idea to use a different account that doesn’t have so many applications installed.

First off, i’m wondering- Is this a good idea/practice? Or could applications installed on the main user account still affect the second user account?



Secondly, I just tried creating a new user account but it had all of the same applications installed as my main user account ( and they just weren’t logged in). When i tried deleting an app from the new user account, it also deleted the app from the main user account.

My applications are currently in Daniels Imac> Macintosh HD > Applications. I’m guessing that this means that all of my applications are in a all-user folder now, is that correct? If so, is there any easy and safe way to move the applications to a specific user folder? Is it just a simple as moving the app to the applications folder in my main user account in the finder?

Or is there a better way to do this?

Thanks, Dan

Most applications install for all users of the system. I don't know if it's possible to restrict them to just one user easily, as the installation of most would benefit most users.

That said, what you want to do may or may not be needed. If you don't trust an application, get rid of it. For most purposes online banking is done with a browser like Safari, or Opera, or whatever browser you want to use. Other applications should not be involved. For security you might look at a VPN for banking and online transactions. If you have a lot of stuff that is set to start on login, a new user with NOTHING in the login startup would be one way to go, but some things get loaded at boot for all users, so you'll need to consider them.

Bottom line: It's hard to do what you want, but if you don't trust an application, get rid of it.