MSRP: $24.99 per year, 1 Mac

Intego's Mac Internet Security X9 suite is a pair of utilities designed to help you keep your Mac safe and running smoothly. These are VirusBarrier and NetBarrier, which catch and kill malware threats plus spot potential intrusion attempts from outside as well as outgoing attempts from rogue software.

You can get Intego Mac Internet Security X9 here.

The Mac Premium Bundle X9 adds three more sets of capabilities to these: the backup prowess of Personal Backup (a good ‘belt' addition to your Time Machine ‘braces'), the useful cleaning, tidying and general speed optimising 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.

MSRP: US$34.99 (1 year, 5 devices), $104.99 subsequent years

Total Protection from McAfee is a dedicated software security tool that will monitor your Mac as you work, looking for unauthorised 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.

MSRP: $49.99 (1 year, 5 devices), $104.99 subsequent years

Norton 360 Deluxe 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.

It 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.

There are three different versions, two of which can also be used to secure your iPhone as well as Android smartphones and Windows PCs, should you require that. In tests it proved to have little to no detectable impact on performance, and it spotted all the challenges in our test macOS setup.

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.

MSRP: $44.99 (1 year, 10 devices), $89.99 subsequent years

Avast Premium Security for Mac does its job well overall. There are a few niggles such as the unwanted upselling for Cleanup Premium and the fact that the File Shield monitoring slows down file copy times a bit.

Otherwise, it's a well-featured suite which 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 customising its behaviour can be a little fiddly.

MSRP: $39.98 (1 year, 5 devices), $89.999 subsequent years

Bitdefender Total Security is a very 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.

Bitdefender is also lagging behind its rivals with no identity protection. 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.

MSRP: $49.95 (1 year, 1 device)

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 unauthorised software behaviour, 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.

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.

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. 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.

MSRP: $99.99 for five devices, one year (Deal price: $49.99)

The 2022 version of Kaspersky Total Security offers a raft of features, including antivirus and anti-phishing protection, ad blocking and private browsing, webcam spying protection, a VPN, a child locator with parental controls, screen time management, and a password manager.

The main disappointment with Kaspersky Total Security 2022 is the installation process on the Mac – made all the more frustrating by the fact that installing on Windows is quick and easy.

Mac users have to download and install the Internet Security product and then download and install the password manager and Safe Kids tools as separate apps. Kaspersky doesn't make this clear.

Once installed, the product is robust and effective. Based on 2021 testing for anti-virus products, Kaspersky received top marks for protection, performance, and usability from AV-Test and solid grades from AV Comparatives. The product also was rated the best antivirus software for 2022 from Security.org.

Total Security offers access four key features: scanning, updating, privacy, and Safe Kids. To hunt down malware, you can run a full scan, a quick scan, or a scheduled scan. The Safe Money feature protects your credentials when you shop or bank online, while the Kaspersky password manager sets up strong passwords.

There is also an easy to configure VPN and the Safe Kids app (which can be accessed via a smartphone app) brings parental controls.

MSRP: $59.99 for one year, up to 10 devices

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 £37.46/$44.99 for the first year and £49.95/$59.99 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 at 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. 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 clearer set up and the ability to do more locally.

MacKeeper 5 is the reborn version of a security utility that has been around for many years. The reputation of previous versions seems just old news now – today, it's a useful and comprehensive tool for keeping your Mac secure and optimised as you work, play and use the internet.

The range of tools it offers in addition to watching for unwelcome software is wide ranging. There's a memory optimiser, an update tracker to spot outdated applications, a smart uninstaller to clean up after other software and a VPN feature for secure browsing.

There's even identify protection, which monitors password databases to catch possible ID theft efforts. While we noted occasional performance impacts from its real-time antivirus monitoring, it wasn't something that happened all the time.

Ultimately, we liked MacKeeper's easy and helpful interface, which makes what could be a daunting task quite approachable.

MSRP: $109.99 (1 year, 5 devices)

F-Secure Total 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. These range from the fairly common simple browser hacks and search engine hijack attempts through to the more rare but also more risky actual malware and ransomware attacks.

It performs these jobs well, although the real-time scanning behaviour – important in this kind of tool – did have some impact on the overall performance of our test Mac.

The price is high, though, its passwords management feature doesn't directly support Safari and we noticed some interface quirks as we used it. If you want a solid and capable security utility this does fit the bill, but at the same time it's not as convincing an option as some of its competitors.