Best Mac antivirus software 2023: Security software compared

VirusBarrier from Intego is well known among Mac users, with the solution being one of the first virus scanners on the Mac. Intego’s Mac Internet Security X9 suite combines VirusBarrier with NetBarrier to create a pair of utilities designed to catch and kill malware threats, and spot potential intrusion attempts from outside as well as outgoing attempts from rogue software. The job of VirusBarrier is self-explanatory, but the second is a two-way firewall, a component you don’t often see included with security software at this sort of price. Together these tools offer a high level of protection against direct and indirect unwanted software and malware threats.

VirusBarrier X9 can scan every file on any connected disk, including within compressed archives, and it can scan emails and connected iOS devices. Suspicious files are quarantined, and these can then be marked as trusted, left quarantined or a repair attempt can be made.

In the June 2023 test by AV-Comparatives, Intego’s VirusBarrier received an “Approved” rating and showed good performance and improvement compared to previous years. According to AV-Comparitives, it detected a good 99.4 percent of Mac malware, 97 percent of PUAs (Potentially Unwanted Programs) and 100 percent of Windows viruses, so it can be recommended. The AV-Test in June 2023 scored 5.5 out of 6 for protection, 5 out of 6 for performance and full marks for usability.

In our testing, Intego VirusBarrier caught all our malware and ‘uninvited software’ samples including ones for other platforms. We were also warned when we opened a disk image with a malicious installer.

The tool offers good compatibility with macOS, and unlike some of the competitors, it looks like a real Mac program.

Intego’s Internet Security bundle costs $24.99/£20.00 for the first year (if you use this link). There’s also a free VirusBarrier Scanner, which you can download on the Mac App Store,

The Mac Premium Bundle X9 adds three more sets of capabilities for $39.99/£23.99 for the first year: the backup prowess of Personal Backup (a good ‘belt’ addition to your Time Machine ‘braces’), the useful cleaning, tidying and general speed optimizing tricks of Mac Washing Machine, and finally the multi-user safe surfing intelligence of ContentBarrier. Sure, that last one is not something everyone needs, but it’s great for parents. Whichever one of these software suites you choose, you can be sure they offer some of the best protection available for your Mac.

You can get Intego Mac Internet Security X9 here.

AVG Antivirus for the Mac is one of a handful of free antivirus for Mac programs. As such it is basic, but it’s effective at protecting you from viruses, spyware, and malware.

Despite being free, AVG covers all the bases: blocking viruses and malware from websites, downloads, and email attachments. AVG will scan applications and check every file and remove threats from your Mac. It auto updates so you shouldn’t miss out on protection from the latest threats.

In the AV-Test for 2023, AVG was certified and was considered Outstanding for protection, performance and usability. AV-Comparatives June 2023 tests saw AVG Antivirus Free for Mac score 100% for Mac Malware Protection, 99% for Mac PUA Protection, and 100% for detecting Windows malware, which were better results than some paid-for options.

Though it lacks the advanced features of paid antivirus products, it handles the core tasks cleanly and seamlessly. However, if you need to resolve any advanced issues you will need to pay to upgrade to the full version of the software, which is about $2/£2 per month for a one-year subscription. There is a 60-day free trial though, which could be enough for your purposes.

All in all, this is a great option, despite being basic. You get much more than you ‘pay’ for.

You can get AVG Antivirus for the Mac here.

Norton 360 is a security utility that performs a range of different monitoring and safeguarding operations to keep your Mac free from threats such as browser hacks and search engine hijack scripts to intrusion attempts and actual malware.

There are various options. Norton 360 is available in Plus, Standard and Deluxe (there is also an Advanced edition in the U.K., and a Select +LifeLock edition in the U.S. both of which support up to 10 devices). The core Norton 360 protection features do a good job, but the cloud backup benefits are missing from the Mac edition. If you go beyond the Standard edition you get Dark Web Monitoring, Parental Control and School Time, and licenses for up to five devices (for the Deluxe edition) or 10 (for the Advanced or Select versions).

Norton 360 focuses on catching unwanted software, but it also offers some useful additional features including a VPN for securing personal data while online, and a tool for managing passwords, bank card details and similar data. You’ll also get protection against identity theft with some editions, Norton calls this Dark Web Monitoring. The service regularly checks whether your email, telephone number, credit card number or other contact details have fallen into the wrong hands. Note that the Cloud Backup feature doesn’t work on macOS, but that is more of an extra rather than a vital part of the package.

There is also protection against unwanted, uninvited and possibly malicious software. A Norton Password Manager utility that also helps manage wallet data for autofill payments, addresses, notes and favorites. Much of these are things that macOS does already, but the clear interface makes it easy to understand.

Beware that the first year is discounted, so you will be charged more in subsequent years. The price currently varies between $19.99/£19.99 and $29.99/£29.99 for the first year (renewing at a higher price, as is so often the case with antivirus suites).

Norton performed well in tests and was efficient at spotting unwanted and potentially risky software, from browser search engine hack scripts to actual trojans. In a test by the auditors at AV-Test in June 2023, the program’s detection of Mac malware was recognized with a 5.5 out of 6 score for protection, full marks for performance and usability.

You can get Norton 360 here.

There are four Mac antivirus products from Avast. The paid for Avast Premium Security for Mac and Avast One, and the free Avast Free Antivirus and Avast One Essential. If you want just a virus scanner, Avast’s Free Antivirus, which is the free version of Avast Premium Security, gets our recommendation. Avast One Essential is the free version of Avast One, and offers some additional functions compared to Avast Free Antivirus. It includes options such as ransomware protection, privacy protection, recommends cleaning up the hard drive without being asked, and searches for data leaks. There’s also a free VPN service with 5GB data volume per week, but, you can only select the location in another country for an additional charge.

Avast Premium Security for Mac does its job well overall. It’s a well-featured suite that will protect from all sorts of nasties including watching for browser script hacks, potential ransomware and other remote attack activity. It will, of course, also scan for potentially unwanted programs and actual malware threats, whether on your Mac or your removable media or in email attachments.

Custom scheduled scans can be set up, although the automatic background monitoring teamed with occasional specific manual scans is likely to be enough for most requirements. Wi-Fi network monitoring for vulnerabilities is another feature this software offers, and the Real Site option watches for fake sites pretending to be legitimate shopping or banking sites, a serious risk that goes beyond just watching for unwanted files on your own Mac. It is very effective at all these things, although we found that customizing its behavior can be a little fiddly.

There are a few niggles such as the fact that the File Shield monitoring slows down file copy times a bit and the unwanted upselling for Cleanup Premium and. If you are using the free versions of Avast’s apps expect even more upselling!

If you’d prefer to save your money, or get an idea of what’s on offer before parting with your cash, you might like to try the two free Antivirus for Mac solutions from Avast.

Just because they are free doesn’t mean these solutions are ineffective. In a test by AV-Comparatives in June 2023, Avast’s Free antivirus for Mac was among the best products, detecting 100 percent of Mac malware, 99 percent of potentially unwanted applications and 100 percent of Windows viruses. Avast also performed well in AV-Test’s investigations in June 2023, scoring full marks for protection, performance and usability.

When we ran the free version of Avast we experienced no slowdowns and no negative effect on system performance. One of the biggest challenges was installation. In order to be able to check files, a virus scanner must install some background programs and needs access to the file system, so you will have to jump through some hoops to allow access. None of this is Avast’s fault, of course.

As for the interface, we found the three-column overview with all the listed functions to be very cluttered and a bit overwhelming, but by far the biggest annoyance was the exaggerated warnings about alleged security gaps, with Avast One classifying our home WLAN as insecure and recommending the use of a VPN.

You can get Avast Premium Security for Mac here. Also consider Avast One, Avast Free Antivirus and Avast One Essential.

Read our full Avast Free Antivirus and Avast One Essential for Mac review

Bitdefender is another maker of antivirus solutions that has a number of solutions for the Mac, including a free option. There’s Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac, which offers basic protection for up to three Macs, Bitdefender Total Security, which protects up to five devices (macOS, iOS, Windows and Android), and Bitdefender’s free Virus Scanner for Mac. We’ve looked at them all.

Bitdefender Total Security ($39.99/£29.99 for the first year and then $99.99/£74.99) is an effective tool for keeping your Mac safe, and it will also protect Windows PC, an iOS and Android devices. The bundled VPN is very basic and gives you only 200MB of data per day, but the rest of the suite of tools is effective and easy to manage.

But when you compare what the Mac version offers compared to the Windows version, you’ll feel quite hard done by. There’s no password manager, no social network protection, no webcam or microphone protection, no Wi-Fi security advisor and plenty of other features that Windows users get for the same price. If your goal is simply to keep your Mac protected from malware, then Bitdefender does a great job. But you can find better value elsewhere.

Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac ($29.99/£24.98 for the first year and then $59.99/£39.99) offers good virus detection (of both Mac and Windows viruses). Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac performed well in AV Comparatives tests for 2023, detecting 99.7% percent of Mac viruses as well as 100 percent of Windows and 98 percent of PUAs (potentially unwanted applications). Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac also got top marks in all categories in AV-Test’s June 2023 tests.

It also offers additional security features such as VPN, identity theft protection, and ransomware protection, but these are not necessary for most home users.

The free Bitdefender Virus Scanner for Mac (reviewed here) can be easily installed via this Mac App Store link. The free version must be manually run. Once on your Mac, it offers Quick Scan, Deep Scan, and custom location scan options, which allow for a quick overview scan of critical components, a deep scan of every file and archive on your drive, and the ability to scan custom folders or external volumes as needed.

While Bitdefender Virus Scanner can locate, quarantine, and delete malware, there were instances in which the application was unable to delete infected files and instead held them in quarantine at which point we had to go hunting for them as the Reveal in Finder button didn’t work. Ominously, Bitdefender has retired the free Virus Scanner for Windows, so the free Mac version’s days may be numbered.

Trend Micro Antivirus is a good program with well-rated antivirus protection and a simple, straightforward interface that users will appreciate.

Anyone looking for additional features will be disappointed with this suite, but it offers good protection at a fair price.

In June 2023 AV-Test gave Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac full marks for protection, performance and usability. In their tests AV-Comparatives gave Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac 100% for Mac malware protection, 99% for PUA protection and 100% for Windows malware detection.

Our own spot checks produced similarly good results. Lining up against the Objective See malware library Trend Micro had no trouble detecting most threats. However, in a few cases, it didn’t detect all the malware contained in a folder until a scan had been run.

Trend Micro is an excellent choice for those looking for something that’s simple and easy to use. There are options with better protection, but Trend Micro’s protection is still good and pricing is fair.

Like Avast, Avira makes a paid-for and a free version of its antivirus solution. Avira Prime is a security utility designed to keep your Mac safe from potentially unwanted programs; which covers everything from simple scripts designed to compromise and redirect your browser searches through to actual malware. While Avira Free Security for Mac lets you run a quick scan to check out system files and other vulnerable areas, or a full scan to analyze your entire Mac for malware, but not much else.

In Avira Prime a single large window presents the various features, from scans to app management and cleanup, although a couple of its features use a separate panel for a web-based console. In our tests it detected all our compromised files and installers. It doesn’t look inside zip archives or disk images, but it pounces as soon as items are extracted from these.

Most importantly, even while Avira Prime is actively scanning for trouble it has such a small impact on the general performance of our Mac that we wouldn’t notice it without comparing timings.

Avira Prime scored well in AV-Comparatives’ June 2023 tests, with 99% Mac Malware Protection, 99% PUA protection and 100% Windows Malware detection. Avira also features in AV-Test’s June 2023 tests, with a score of 5.5 out of 6 for protection, and full marks for performance and usability.

You can get the basics of the security features with Avira Free Security, but Prime’s annual subscription provides useful additional capabilities if you can stomach the high cost.

Avira Free Security for Mac seems to offer a lot of features for free. But most actually require a paid subscription, so the product’s overall usefulness is limited and the constant sales pitches are annoying.

The free app will run scans daily, weekly, or monthly. You can also create a custom scan. There are also real-time virus protection scans to scan new files saved to your computer or downloaded from the internet. You have to pay to scan a USB drive. Malware discovered is automatically quarantined. Avira was effective at detecting and stopping malware when we tested it.

The free version of Avira includes a junk cleaner that can identify issues via a smart scan, but you need to pay to actually clean up anything beyond the junk files.

The old adage of “you get what you pay for” is certainly true with Avira Free Security. Take away the tools that require a subscription, and you’re left with the antivirus feature, a limited VPN, a password manager that works only in Safari, and a junk file cleaner.

You can get Avira Prime here. Also consider Avira Free Security for Mac.

Read our full Avira Free Security for Mac review.

McAfee Total Protection is a dedicated software security tool that will monitor your Mac as you work, looking for unauthorized software activity such as browser search engine hacks, attempts to trick you into installing unwanted software, and actual malware and virus attacks.

It is very simple to use; once you’ve walked through the guided steps for giving it permission to work behind the scenes it is essentially something you can just leave to get on with its job.

Total Protection also offers WebAdvisor as an option, steering you from known problem sites and warning you when you visit questionable ones. It also offers a software firewall for two-way network traffic monitoring.

We noted some occasional performance impacts as it ran in the background, but it was largely unobtrusive in its efforts. The option of protecting other devices is useful as well, covering smartphones and Windows PCs as you require.

It’s worth noting that the Windows version in particular offers more features, such as a native VPN, which you don’t get in the Mac app.

You can get McAfee Total Protection here.

Eset Cyber Security Pro is a useful security tool that protects your Mac – and your Windows PC, Linux box and even Android phones, although not your iPhone – against unauthorized software behavior, network intrusions, search engine hijack scripts and worse.

It stands out from its competition through its comprehensive range of preferences controls that can fine-tune many aspects of its behaviour, and its relatively low price.

It isn’t the most unobtrusive in terms of background performance impact, although most of the time this was minor enough to be not really noticeable.

As well as real-time and on-demand monitoring it also provides a useful firewall, dedicated tools for spotting web-based threats including spyware, and protection against phishing attempts to trick users into divulging private data. It also offers parental controls with three user categories and detailed control over what kinds of sites each user is allowed to visit.

Sophos used to offer a free version of its Home product with antivirus protection and website protection, but in 2021 that version was discontinued, leaving Sophos Home Premium as the only option for personal use.

There’s now a 30 days full trial, but after that it costs $44.99/£37.46 for the first year and $59.99/£49.95 for each subsequent year. You can install on 10 Macs or PCs though.

Setup was confusing. Initially, the software guides you through the process, but then setup stops and you have to sign into your Sophos Home dashboard to complete setup (it’s not clear that you need to do this step).

There’s also no Dock icon to launch the program, instead, you use a menu bar icon to access the online dashboard where you can control the five types of protection including:

• Antivirus protection – real-time scanning for local and network drives, perform a manual scan or schedule one, plus a quick scan can be triggered from the menu bar icon.
• Web protection
• Ransomware protection
• Privacy protection
• Malicious traffic detection
• Web filtering

A 2017 evaluation of macOS security software by AV-Test gave Sophos Home outstanding grades for protection, performance, and usability, however, Sophos hasn’t been tested by the team at AV-Test since.

When we tested, we ran the EICAR test, which simulates a virus, and Sophos detected and blocked it with no trouble. The website filtering worked well.

Sophos Home Premium provides effective protection, but the setup process and cloud-only features are drawbacks. It needs a clearer set up and the ability to do more locally.

Installing ClamXAV from the ClamXAV website is quick and easy. Either click the Free Trial button or sign up for a $29.95/£24 a year subscription and the installation file is automatically downloaded. After the initial setup, where you need to grant permission to access the Downloads folder and modify security settings, you are all set.

You can run a manual scan from the main screen, but there are several other options. A quick scan checks system files and other areas on your Mac, you can select just your hard drive to run a scan on all folders and files on the disk, and dragging and dropping a single folder or file onto the scanning pane checks it for malware. You can also select an external drive or connected USB stick for scanning. There’s also a real-time scanning component–Sentry–that is always on guard.

It is possible to schedule any type of scan to run on specific days and times. By default, any malicious files are automatically quarantined, but you can decide whether or not to quarantine infected files. You can open the quarantine folder to see what files were caught.

ClamXAV scored perfectly in AV-Test’s June 2022 tests, but hasn’t been evaluated since.

ClamXAV proved effective at detecting and stopping test malware files, but there’s nothing more to the program beyond the basic antivirus scanning and options. ClamXAV is certainly effective at virus scanning, but that’s a capability found in many free and equally effective security products for the Mac.

Malwarebytes comes in both free and premium editions for personal use. Unfortunately, the Mac version falls short of many of the features of the Windows version. Malwarebytes Premium for Mac includes the basic virus and malware scanning as well as the ability to detect malicious apps, or PUPs (potentially unwanted program). The real-time protection constantly monitors your system for security threats, automatically blocking and quarantining anything that could infect your computer.

But it doesn’t directly come with protection against malicious links and phishing attempts. Nor does it offer safeguards against ransomware and zero-day exploits.

There is a free version of Malwarebytes, but that just includes just basic virus scanning. The premium version costs $3.33/£2.50 billed monthly or $39.99/£29.99 billed annually for one device, and $6.67/£5.83 billed monthly or $79.99/£69.99 billed annually for five devices. There’s a free 14-day trial.

Malwarebytes Premium on a Mac is accessible through a menu bar icon. Clicking the icon displays a menu with options to start a scan, temporarily turn off the malware protection and malicious app blocker, update the program, view and tweak its settings, and open the management console.

From the management console, you can trigger a manual scan and set up scheduled scans to run on a recurring basis. A detection history displays all quarantined items. There’s an Allow list to add legitimate files or programs that were mistakenly flagged as malware to.

The Window’s version of Malwarebytes Premium got almost top marks from AV-Test in April 2023 (but fell short with 5 out of 6 for protection). The Mac version of the software hasn’t been tested by AV-Test. During July to October of 2022, AV Comparatives tested Malwarebytes and gave it 99%, but the software hasn’t been tested since.

It’s just a shame that the Mac version feels like an also-ran compared with the Windows edition.

F-Secure Total for Mac is a simple-to-use security software suite that works on macOS, iOS, Windows and Android devices and protects your data from a wide range of threats. It includes several useful features, but lacks certain key options, especially in virus scanning.

The program is $59.99 a year for one device, which is steep, but there’s a free 30-day trial that requires no credit card and even gives you free technical support if you need it.

Clicking the Scan button runs a full virus scan that checks your entire system, while clicking the link for Viruses & Threats takes you to another screen where you can scan just specific folders. But there are no options to run a quick scan or even to schedule a scan, unlike the Windows version which includes a quick scan. It provides real-time virus and spyware scanning to automatically block malware, and ‘DeepGuard’ monitors applications for any changes indicative of a malware infection.

You can set up ID monitoring to check your email address for data breaches among your online accounts. The VPN is another defense and includes tracking protection to prevent advertisers from monitoring your online activity and a kill switch to quickly cut off all internet traffic.

F-Secure offers a password vault that creates and stores secure logins for all your accounts. The password vault requires an extension that supports Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. Safari isn’t yet supported.

Unfortunately, F-Secure doesn’t let you review blocked or deleted malicious files, and no setting allows you to quarantine files instead of removing them.

F-Secure’s Safe (which was the old name for F-Secure Internet Security) was tested by AV-Test in June 2023 and scored 5 out of 6 for protection, 5.5 out of 6 for performance and 6 for usability.