GData Antivirus 2024 Review

In this post, we focus on GData’s antivirus for macOS. It’s a pretty lean offering from the company that claims to have released the world’s first antivirus product in 1987. The subscription includes:

• The antivirus itself
• Web Protection browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome

I recommend reading the entire GData antivirus review if you want all the details. If you’re pressed for time, you can find a summary of my thoughts below.

GData summary

GData antivirus provides a basic antivirus and not much else. That’s not a critique. I appreciate lean antivirus offerings when most competitors bloat their apps with extra features of questionable utility (do you really want a password manager from your antivirus vendor?).

While GData for macOS hasn’t been recently rated on AVTests or AVComparatives, the antivirus performed well in our tests. It detected all of our virus samples (EICAR), whether zipped or unzipped. But it didn’t detect any of the zipped malware samples. Once unzipped, however, it blocked the files immediately.

GData does pretty well on the pricing front. At $39.95 a year for the 1-device plan, that works out to roughly $3.33 per month—lower than most competitors. GData collects strictly what’s necessary for services rendered and much less personal data than most of its competitors—I like that.

Its customer service is excellent. It provides phone numbers from multiple countries for live telephone support, which is practically unheard of today. Its email support (which I opted for) is also excellent: prompt, polite, and knowledgeable.

Overall, GData is an excellent choice if you want a no-nonsense antivirus that respects your privacy and doesn’t break the bank.

GData pros and cons

System requirements

I was unable to find recent system requirements on GData’s website. But my test machine is running the latest version of GData for macOS on macOS Sonoma.

How to sign up for GData

GData offers a free 30-day trial of its macOS antivirus software (no credit card required), so I recommend using it before purchasing a subscription to see if it suits your needs.

If you opt to purchase immediately or after your trial expires, the sign-up process is the same as you’re used to: select your plan, enter your details, and pay. GData will email you your activation code, preset username, and password so you can log into your GData account.

The GData installation process

The installation process is your standard click-through installation.

1. Purchase a GData subscription or not (if you’re going for the free trial)
2. Download the GData installer for Mac from its Downloads page.
3. Locate the downloaded .dmg file in your Downloads folder and double-click it.
4. In the window that opens, double-click the GData Installer to begin the installation.
5. If prompted with a security warning, click “Allow” to allow the installation.
6. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the setup.
7. When prompted, enter your Mac’s administrator password to allow GData to install its components.
8. Once installation is complete, GData will launch automatically with basic antivirus protection enabled.

After installation, the antivirus’ real-time protection is not enabled by default. Select Settings from the left side of the app and click the Real Time Protection header. From there, set Real Time Protection to Enable.

Let’s now turn to the app’s functionality.

GData app and features

The antivirus engine is the app’s flagship feature, and the few extras make this even more evident.

Security status

When you launch GData antivirus, you’ll be in the Security Status menu by default. This page lists any issues the app may detect, like when a security feature is disabled. It also displays the validity of your current license (mine will expire in 30 days as I’m running the trial).

Scan for infections

The Scan for Infections menu contains three submenus, which let you fine-tune the app’s behavior when performing virus scans.

Scan scope

The Scan Scope sub-menu is the custom scan menu. It lets you select files and folders for a custom scan and clear the file list when you are done. To start the custom scan, click the yellow Scan computer button.

Exclusions

As its name indicates, the Exclusions sub-menu allows you to exclude files and folders from virus scans.

Advanced Scan Options

From the Advanced Scan Options sub-menu, you can turn on or off scanning of network shares and Time Machine backup drives.

Quarantine

The quarantine menu displays the detected malicious files (if you opted to quarantine them rather than immediately delete them, there will be more later). From here, you can choose to:

• Move the infected files back to their original location (if you know they are false positives)
• Attempt to disinfect the files
• Delete the quarantined files
• Clear the quarantine list

Reports

The Reports menu displays the app’s scan logs (scans run, infections found). You can get more details by clicking on the small white arrow to the left of each entry.

Settings

The Settings page contains a collection of submenus that allow you to customize the app further. We’ll go through all of them.

Update

From the Update sub-menu, you can turn automatic updates on or off for both the GData app and its virus definitions. You can also configure the app to use a proxy server to connect to the Internet.

Real-time protection

From the Real-Time Protection menu, turn real-time protection on or off and fine-tune behavior.

Web protection

You can install GData’s Chrome or Firefox extension from the Web Protection menu. The extension blocks malicious sites.

To install the extension, click the Install extension button for your browser (Chrome or Firefox).

This launches your browser (Firefox, in my case) and prompts you to add the extension.

Once installed, the extension will block malicious traffic as you browse the internet. Be warned, however, that the extension is not an ad blocker. So, websites that recommend you ‘take a swig of olive oil at night’ will continue to do so.

License

The License sub-menu simply displays the status of your license.

Preferences

I’ll admit that having a Preferences sub-menu in the Settings menu is somewhat pleonastic. Still, you can set your preferred language from here and scale the app’s UI.

About

Finally, the About sub-menu displays the app version and various links to GData web pages and lists open-source licensing information.

Let’s now move on to the antivirus tests.

How GData handles malware

GData hasn’t been recently rated on either AVTests or AVComparatives, so we don’t have that data to share. We’ll be relying exclusively on our in-house testing.

I ran my first tests using malware samples from the European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research (EICAR). GData’s real-time engine detected all four EICAR samples, whether zipped or unzipped.

The same thing occurred when running a manual scan. GData detected and quarantined all four EICAR samples.

I moved on to testing GData with malware samples, and it failed to detect them when zipped. Once unzipped, however, they were all immediately detected and quarantined. The result was the same with manual scans.

Impact on system resources

GData only runs full system scans with no option for a quick scan, as you’ll find in most other antiviruses. Here’s an overview of GData’s impact on system resources when running scans:

GData scans

As it is becoming increasingly common these days, I can use my computer without any lag or freeze-ups while running a full scan. I was thankful for that because GData’s scans take quite a long time to complete.

GData Antivirus pricing

GData offers three subscriptions. They are all one-year terms. The difference is the number of devices they include. The plans are for:

• One device
• Three devices
• Five devices

I’d say these prices are pretty good. They’re lower than many competitors’ pricing. I also like how the subscriptions are streamlined. All three plans include the same features, and the price bump is for more devices.

It still makes sense to start with the trial. But it’s nice that you won’t be gouged if you commit to GData.

Support

GData’s support goes above and beyond what we’ve grown accustomed to these past few years. Speaking to a human being is a bit of a luxury. While I didn’t test it, GData offers its customers live telephone support in multiple countries and languages.

I had to truncate the screenshot to fit, but more numbers (locations) are displayed on the page.

To get support from GData, log into your account and click the Support tile from the main dashboard.

This brings up a prompt window for you to detail your issue.

I received a brief, polite, and knowledgeable answer in under 12 hours. The reply provided a link to the macOS antivirus privacy policy page. I read through it and was thoroughly impressed by how little user data GData collects. This proves that organizations don’t need to hoover up user data to render antivirus services (including real-time protection).

Another thing that impressed me was that data sharing for marketing purposes was turned off by default on the GData Account page.

Good stuff.

Do I recommend GData antivirus?

Absolutely, I do.

First, its antivirus engine is very good despite not detecting malware samples in compressed format—this is actually pretty common. Zipped malware is innocuous. As soon as the samples are unzipped, GData quarantines the files within a fraction of a second. The engine also includes real-time protection.

Another thing I liked about GData’s offering is the absence of fluff. The app is an antivirus app, not a digital Swiss Army knife. The only extra offering is a malicious site blocker packaged as an extension for Chrome and Firefox. It would have been nice if the extension blocked ads or included a VPN, but it doesn’t.

GData offers reasonable prices and provides excellent support, even over the phone. Its data collection practices are some of the leanest I’ve seen.

My biggest gripe with the service is that its scans are pretty slow. A full scan of my test machine (which does not have many files saved to disk) took over an hour. But given that my computer remained completely responsive and usable during the scans, I can live with it.

GData is recommended.

Antivirus testing methodology

We’ve structured our antivirus testing methodology to provide reliable data on the software’s effectiveness at malware protection and performance.

Our testing process includes:

• Using malware test samples from EICAR
• Testing live malware samples, including Adware and Trojans
• Comparing our own tests with independent antivirus lab test results
• Measuring the impact on PC performance

In addition, we analyze pricing, ease of use, compatibility, and additional features.

We have a dedicated post on our antivirus research and testing methodology if you want to know more about how we analyze antivirus software.