Is macFUSE safe to install? (required for Veracrypt on MacOS)

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Hi! To install Veracrypt on MacOS, you need to install macFUSE – is that safe in terms of no backdoors, etc?
Thanks!

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macFUSE itself shouldn’t pose any direct risks assuming you download it from a trusted, safe place. (as far as I can tell :P) However, keep in mind you’ll have to run your Mac in reduced security mode if you’re on a M chip. How important this is will depend on your individual circumstances :slight_smile:

I personally opted to mount veracrypt volumes in a VM to avoid disabling these security precautions.

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Thanks Henry!
Is it easy to completely uninstall and remove macFUSE? I don’t want to reduce the security of my Mac, so I guess one alternative is to install macFUSE and Veracrypt, encrypt the backup files that I need to encrypt, and once that is done I uninstall macFUSE?

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Thank you! I never knew about the various security modes and just went through the process to ensure my Mac was in Full Security mode.

Always learning good stuff around here.

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I tried this using Parellels with my WD hard drive, but unfortunately I can’t make it work the nfts-3G module or paragon nfts, an additional driver WD disks require. I could not install the driver in VM or Mac itself due to the compatibility and security issues. I am not sure which one was the exact reason.
Even if you use VM, I don’t know if I still need to install this module, or not in order to write to NFTS.

So, I strongly suggest formatting hard drives in exfat instead of NFTS to get rid of such problems ON Mac.

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just for info
there’s a kext-less implementation of macfuse fuse-t.org which works with cryptomator.
however seems like it doesn’t work with veracrypt yet veracrypt/VeraCrypt/issues/1055