Name: Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac
Brand: Kaspersky

Editors' Note: We are aware of the allegations of Kaspersky's inappropriate ties to the Russian government. Until we see some actual proof of these allegations, we will treat them as unproven, and continue to recommend Kaspersky's security products as long as their performance continues to merit our endorsement.

Antivirus utilities for macOS vary widely in the features they provide, just like their cousins running on Windows. The core protection against malware is always present, of course, and for some that's all there is. In addition to an effective antivirus component, Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac gives you secure browsing with the Safe Money tool, privacy protection components, a modicum of VPN protection, and an enhanced parental control system. For the same price as many simple Mac antivirus tools, Kaspersky gives you a full suite.

A big image of a MacBook dominates the product's main window. If the pictured monitor is green, with a check mark, everything is fine. As in the Windows product, a red screen indicates that something's wrong, and it also shows an explanation and a button you can click to fix the problem. Four icons occupy a strip across the bottom: Scan, Update, Privacy, and Parental Control. Despite having more features than most competitors, this product maintains an uncluttered main window.

A big blue button opens the Protection Center, which has three pages. On the Protection page, you can confirm that important features are enabled. The Recommendations page offers advice to get the most from your antivirus. For example, it advised installing the extension for Chrome and Safari, connecting to My Kaspersky online, and installing the VPN. Finally, the News page offers product information, such as what's new in the current edition.

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Pricing and OS Support

A single license for this product costs $39.99 per year, while extending protection to three Macs raises that to $59.99. Kaspersky's Windows antivirus product also costs $59.99 per year for three licenses. Bitdefender and ESET precisely match that price plan, while Webroot charges $49.99 for three licenses. You can also get away with paying nothing at all—Sophos Home Free (for Mac) and Avira don't cost a thing. As for Trend Micro, it, too, costs $39.99 per year for a single license. However, the price for the three-license plan, which lets you install a full security suite on PCs or antivirus on Macs, jumps to $79.95 per year.

You pay more for Intego, which lists at $99.99 per year for three licenses, but you get more security features, too. At $99.99 per year for five licenses, Symantec Norton 360 Deluxe (for Mac)($49.99 For 1 Year Plan at NortonLifeLock) also looks pricey. However, on a per-device basis it's about the same as Kaspersky, and it also offers a full suite of features. As you can see, there is quite a range of pricing for Mac antivirus software.

Some Mac antivirus products, among them Bitdefender and Norton, only support the very latest few iterations of the Mac operating system. Others extend support back to much older versions. ESET, for example, runs on anything from Mavericks (10.9) on, while ClamXAV (for Mac) and ProtectWorks go back to Snow Leopard (10.6). Kaspersky swings two ways. The current 2020 edition requires Sierra (10.12) or later, but the 2018 edition remains available for those using El Capitan (10.11).

Excellent Malware Protection Test Results

When writing a review of a Windows-based antivirus program, I study the reports from four independent testing labs around the world, and supplement what I learn with hands-on testing. Kaspersky's Windows antivirus earned a near-perfect score in all the latest tests from the four labs. Only two of those labs perform tests on macOS antivirus, alas. Their reports are all the more important, because my hands-on testing routine heavily favors Windows.

Both AV-Test and AV-Comparatives certify Kaspersky for Mac malware protection. Like most tested products, it detected 100 percent of macOS malware in a test by AV-Comparatives. It also detected 100 percent of Windows-focused malware. Why does that even matter? It's important because your Mac could conceivably serve to transmit such threats to one of your Windows machines, where they could do some damage.

AV-Test Institute rates antivirus products on three criteria: the all-important malware protection, a small impact on performance, and few false positives (valid URLs and programs slammed as malicious). A product can get six points in each category. Kaspersky took the full six for protection, and for avoiding false positives, but slipped to 5.5 in the performance category. Nobody can call 17.5 of 18 a bad score, but Bitdefender, Norton, Trend Micro, and Vipre all managed a perfect 18 points.

You'll notice in the chart that quite a few products don't show results from either lab. All of these did appear in one or more previous reports, just not in the current ones.

Excellent Phishing Protection

Almost all viruses, Trojans, and other types of malware work on only one operating system. Some may even require a specific, vulnerable version of that platform. Phishing attacks, on the other hand, are totally platform-agnostic. If your Linux-powered internet-aware trouser press includes a web browser, a phishing site can trick you into giving away your login credentials. Kaspersky's plug-in for Safari, Chrome, and Firefox scans your internet traffic for fraudulent or malicious pages and steers the browser to safety.

To test phishing protection, I first collect several hundred possible fraudulent URLs, making sure to include ones that haven't yet been analyzed and blacklisted. I use a hand-coded utility to launch each URL simultaneously in three browsers, relying on the protection built into. Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. My utility is Windows-specific, so, for Mac product testing, I simply copy/paste each URL into the browser and record the results manually.

If any browser displays an error message, I discard that URL. If the page isn't very clearly an imitation of a sensitive site, with fields to capture your username and password, I also discard it. When the test is finished, I compare the detection rate of the product under test with that of the three browsers.

The last time I tested this component, it fared poorly compared to the amazing 100 percent protection exhibited by Kaspersky Anti-Virus ($29.99 at Kaspersky) for Windows. At that time, my Kaspersky contacts confirmed a problem on the Mac edition. That problem has clearly been solved, because the Mac and Windows products got exactly the same score, 100 percent protection.

McAfee AntiVirus Plus (for Mac) also earned a score of 100 percent on both platforms. Bitdefender came close with 99 percent, also on both platforms.

Scans and Schedules

In addition to the expected quick and full scans for malware, Kaspersky offers a custom scan that lets you choose drives or folders for scanning, scan for active malware in memory, or just scan items that launch at startup. New in this edition, it automatically offers to scan any removable drive you mount.

A quick test scan finished in less than a minute, while a full scan took 23 minutes. Norton scanned even faster, finishing a full scan in 12 minutes and a quick scan in 55 seconds. However, Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus (for Mac) is the speed demon of the bunch. Its full scan finished in just two minutes, and it completed a quick scan in 5 seconds. A few really slow scans have pulled the average full scan time up to 39 minutes, so Kaspersky seems plenty fast.

I'm not equipped to release actual macOS malware on the test system, but I did mount a thumb drive containing malware from my Windows antivirus testing. As promised, it offered to scan the drive. The scan wiped out 78 percent of the samples, including all the ransomware samples, which is a bit better than the current average.

ESET Cyber Security (for Mac) includes an elaborate scheduling system that even lets you schedule the launch of third-party applications. Bitdefender and Webroot, among others, let you create a daily or weekly scan schedule. Kaspersky now includes the ability to schedule a daily or weekly run of a full or quick scan.

Safe Money for Safe Browsing

Kaspersky Internet Security and Kaspersky Total Security both include a feature called Safe Money. When you're about to visit a financial website or other sensitive site, it offers to open the site in a special browser that's hardened against outside interference. In the Windows version, a glowing green border serves as a visual reminder that you're using the safe browser.

The Mac antivirus also has a feature called Safe Money, but it's a completely different thing. When you visit what appears to be a sensitive website, Kaspersky double-checks it with the Kaspersky Security Network online and slides out a notification to let you know whether the site is legitimate.

Full-Scale Parental Control

Both Sophos and Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac offer a degree of parental control in their Mac products. Specifically, they let the administrator block access to websites matching categories deemed inappropriate. That simple content filter is as far as those products go. Kaspersky offers more to those who need parental control.

Previously Kaspersky's parental control system offered content filtering, time control, private data protection, and more. However, its content filter let through sites that it shouldn't have in testing. In addition, a smart teen could connect through a secure anonymizing proxy to totally defeat the content filter. With the 2020 release, Kaspersky now offers Kaspersky Safe Kids as its parental control component.

Note, though, that what you get is the free, feature-limited version. As with Kaspersky Security Cloud Free, a shield icon identifies premium features. You get a content filter that lets you either block access to specified categories or display a warning before the child visits a matching site. Likewise, you can set a daily limit on device usage and either warn when time's up or block further usage. (Setting a schedule for usage is a premium feature). Finally, you can ban or time-limit specific apps.

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Premium features include the ability to locate the child's device, get a geofencing notification when the child enters or leaves a location, monitor social network activity, get a warning if the battery is low on the child's device, and get real-time alerts on risky activity. Read our review of Kaspersky Safe Kids if you need this feature. You may decide that an extra $14.99 per year for unlimited kids and unlimited devices is a bargain.

The Windows equivalent of this product, Kaspersky Internet Security, also gets the free version of Safe Kids. Only at the top tier, with Kaspersky Total Security or Kaspersky Security Cloud, do you get premium features built in. [[Query to Kaspersky]]

Privacy Protection

Do you ever worry that someone might be spying on you through your MacBook's webcam? Kaspersky's Privacy Protection features include a simple webcam block. Under Windows, you can set Kaspersky to allow specific programs while blocking unknowns, and you can also block spying through the microphone. The macOS version is just an on/off switch for the webcam, so you must unblock the camera for tasks like video conferencing.

To confirm that this feature works, I blocked the webcam and then launched FaceTime. FaceTime reported "no camera available," and a slide-in notification reported that Kaspersky blocked access.

You can also turn on website tracker blocking, to prevent advertisers and other trackers from following you around the web. This feature lets you choose whether to block four types of trackers: ad agencies, social networks, web analytics, and web behavior trackers. Note that blocking social networks doesn't prevent you from clicking links to like or share a page.

Bandwidth-Limited VPN

All programs in the current Kaspersky product line come with a bandwidth-capped copy of Kaspersky Secure Connection VPN. You can use 200MB of secured connectivity on each device, and the VPN chooses the server you'll use. For $4.99 per month you can upgrade to the premium edition, which removes the bandwidth cap and lets you choose the country you want to use for your connection. Please read our review of the VPN for full details.

Bitdefender's product line now offers a very similar VPN arrangement, with 200MB total bandwidth and no server choice for free, or unlimited bandwidth and choice of servers for a premium. It's no surprise that the two are similar, since both are backed by the server network of AnchorFree Hotspot Shield Elite. We have dinged Hotspot Shield in past reviews for some iffy privacy policies; this problem seems to be resolved. In any case, both Bitdefender and Kaspersky put severe limits on the user info they share with AnchorFree.

Bonus Tools

This suite costs no more than several of the Mac antivirus utilities I've reviewed, but it offers quite a lot more. While not precisely a full-scale firewall like that found in Intego Mac Internet Security X9 ($24.99 at Intego) and Norton, its Network Attack Blocker watches for port scans and other attacks from the internet. When Kaspersky detects an attack, it imposes a temporary block on all traffic from the offending site.

In addition to fending off fraudulent and malicious websites, Kaspersky's URL Advisor marks up dangerous links in search results. Under Windows, this feature puts a green icon next to safe links as well. On the Mac, it marks only dangerous links. Norton's similar feature lets you bring up a full analysis of the page, showing exactly why it's marked as dangerous.

You can also install an onscreen keyboard in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, to eliminate the possibility of password capture by a software or hardware keylogger. New in this edition, Kaspersky supports Dark Mode.

Among the product's many recommendations is a suggestion to install Kaspersky Password Manager. Note, though, that this is the free, feature-limited edition, something anyone can download and use.

A Wealth of Features

Kaspersky doesn't offer a stand-alone Mac antivirus, so Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac is this company's entry-level security product for macOS. In addition to high-scoring malware protection, you get a full parental control system, effective protection against fraudulent and malicious URLs, privacy protection features, a firewall-like Network Attack Blocker, a bandwidth-limited VPN service, and more. It's an impressive array of features.

Symantec Norton 360 Deluxe isn't just for macOS; you can install its protection on Windows, Android, and iOS devices as well. Like Kaspersky, it's more than just antivirus. Notably, its included VPN comes without limits on bandwidth or server choices. Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac scores a hair better than Kaspersky in the lab tests. It, too, includes a VPN, though like Kaspersky's this feature has limits. Bitdefender, Norton, and Kaspersky are our Editors' Choice Mac antivirus products. You won't go wrong with any of these three.