I can't speak for Apple but I can say that the techs at Apple support have told me on 2 separate occasions that the only antivirus "Apple" recommends is Malwarebytes.
I used to recommend Malwarebytes. However, I no longer do. We've had a long discussion about this on this discussion list, and on others, including the Mac Consultant's list. Malwarebytes was a very nice little program when there was only a free version, and folks really only used it to get rid of adware. Things changed when the commercial version was released.
First, despite their advertising, Malwarebytes isn't a comprehensive anti-malware product. How do I know? Well, if you do a scan with Malwarebytes it takes what? Well less than a minute? (On my Mac it took 17 seconds.) How could any product be looking *everywhere* on my Mac for malware and only take 17 seconds to do so? A highly regarded anti-malware product like Virus Barrier will take an hour or two to do a full disk scan.
The answer is that Malwarebytes isn't, and couldn't be, looking everywhere for malware. It is looking for a few select bits of malware, and only in particular places, and it is only looking for particular file names. How hard do you think that it would be for malware writers to change the name of their malware to evade Malwarebytes, or to hide it somewhere that Malwarebytes doesn't look? My guess is that the answer is that it would be trivial. And what about malware that hides *within* infected legitimate files or apps? Isn't that important to detect too?
Now, that would all be fine if the Malwarebytes folks were honest and upfront about all this. But they aren't.
It's interesting that nowhere on Malwarebytes' Web site (as far as I can see) is there a list of all the malware that their product is designed to look for. It would be nice to be able to see if Mawarebytes is looking for all of the malware for the Mac that is known to exist. Of course, such a list, even if it was very comprehensive, would immediately show Mac users that there is relatively little malware currently in the wild for the Mac. Such a list would potentially be doubly bad for business for Malwarebytes, not only showing there there is not a lot of malware for the Mac to be worried about, but also showing that Malwarebytes doesn't look for everything one might want it to be looking for.
The Malwarebytes folks have also engaged in some blatantly false advertising in the past to try and scare Mac users about the existence and prevalence of malware for the Mac. I personally find that to be dishonest at worst, and not nice at the minimum.
But that's not all that is concerning about Malwarebytes. Download a search utility that looks everywhere on your hard drive (Spotlight, by design, doesn't look everywhere), like EasyFind (which is free):
A little collection of free utilities for the Mac to make your life easier.
www.devontechnologies.com
Set EasyFind to do a search of your hard drive looking for both files and folders, set it to NOT look within files, set it to look for both visible and invisible files, and then do a search for the term "Malwarebytes." Give it time to work. (EasyFind doesn't use a pre-made index to do searches, it works in real time.) See how many hits that you get.
We've done this exercise on several Mac discussion lists. My search came back with a scary 21 hits. Most deep within system folders. I've heard from folks who have found as many as 32 hits. What do you think all of these files are doing? I can't tell you...but I can tell you that I don't trust Malwarebytes anymore given how invasive their app is, and their lack of honesty and transparency.
It may be that the folks that you spoke with at Apple are still under the impression that Malwarebytes is as it was some time ago. But things have changed.
One last thing...you may want to listen to the advice from your fellow experienced Mac users here on this discussion list. (Or on any other Mac discussion list of your choice. However, this list has over a quarter million members, so you will likely find more experience here than just about anywhere else.) They are really the only folks that you can consistently trust. They aren't trying to sell you anything, and they aren't trying to cover their behind with regard to any products that they make.
