Symantec Norton Security Deluxe (for Mac)
Norton Security retails for £49.99/USD$69.99 for a single Mac, but is often available at a discount. At time of writing it's got 50% off, making it just £24.99 for the first year. Norton 2018 software offers the latest technology to protect your PC, Mac, smartphone, and tablet. Find out more about Norton's lineup of products and services. Products & Services. Internet Security Articles. Norton Security Standard offers comprehensive protection recommended for your Windows PC or Mac. Defends against viruses, spyware, malware and other online threats. Safeguards your personal information and online transactions. These days it's possible to get all sorts of protection for your PC, Mac and smartphone. But where to start? Our list of the best Internet Security software suites in 2018 can help.
Pros
Certified by one independent testing lab. Fast scan. Firewall blocks exploit attacks.Cons
Expensive. So-so scores against phishing sites and Windows malware. Firewall's application control generates tons of pop-ups.Bottom Line
Symantec's Norton Security Deluxe delivers excellent Mac antivirus protection with a powerful firewall, and you can use your licenses to protect your Android, iOS, and Windows devices, too.
There are two main types of Mac antivirus products. Some started life as Mac products and remain focused on the Mac platform. But many others are simply the macOS manifestation of a product that exists on multiple platforms. That is just how Symantec Norton 360 Deluxe for Mac rolls. The macOS edition, reviewed here, doesn't have every feature that you get on Windows, but it goes way beyond simple antivirus. It includes a firewall, exploit prevention, and phishing detection, and the latest release gives you full-featured VPN protection. Mac protection is just one of its skills; you can also use your licenses to protect Windows, Android, or iOS devices. Norton 360 Deluxe costs more than a simple Mac antivirus, but it's well worth the price.
Signup and Installation
To start, you create a Norton account online and register the subscription you bought. You can then download and install Norton protection on your Mac, or email a link to install it on another device. Like Intego Mac Internet Security X9, Norton requires a reboot to complete the installation. All the other Mac antivirus utilities I've evaluated install without a reboot.
Symantec has brought back the Norton 360 name for the current product line, to reflect an emphasis on universal protection for your devices, your identity, your data, and more. In keeping with this new focus, the My Norton dashboard becomes this service's main window. Here you can see all the elements of your protection: Device Security, Dark Web Monitoring, Secure VPN, Cloud Backup, Password Manager, and Parental Controls. I'll cover these in detail below.
Don't get too excited about seeing Cloud Backup in the list. While you can access backups from your Windows devices online, there isn't a component to back up files from your Mac. Likewise, you can click to manage Parental Controls online, but there's no local agent to enforce rules on the Mac.
Dark Web Monitoring is a wholly online service, so the current platform doesn't matter. Norton 360 Deluxe doesn't include a LifeLock subscription the way higher protection tiers do, but the Dark Web feature does get some information from LifeLock. I cover these alerts in detail in my review of Symantec Norton 360 Deluxe.
Clicking Device Security brings up the familiar local protection window. As with the previous edition, it has a white background with a security status indicator occupying most of the real estate and five green icons across the bottom: Security, Scans, LiveUpdate, Clean, and My Norton. Clicking My Norton takes you back to the dashboard, as on other platforms. When you click one of the other icons, its details and settings slide in to replace the status indicator. It looks a lot like the Device Security component in the Windows edition.
Norton also prompts you to install its protective extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. These include: Safe Web, which and keeps you away from dangerous and fraudulent sites; Safe Search, which suppresses dangerous links in search results; Norton Home Page, which puts Safe Search front and center; and Password Manager, which I'll discuss below.
Pricing and OS Support
You pay $99.99 per year for a Norton subscription, which lets you install protection on up to five macOS, Windows, iOS, or Android devices. Among current Mac antivirus products, only Intego costs as much, though its $99.99 list price only gets you three licenses. However, both Norton and Intego offer more than just antivirus protection. Norton in particular gives you five licenses to install the Norton Secure VPN on your devices. Given that this product alone costs $79.99 after the first year, that's a huge bonus.
The price range for the Mac antivirus products I've covered starts at zero. You don't have to pay a penny for Sophos Home, Avast, or Avira. As with Windows antivirus, the most common single-license yearly price is $39.99, and several products, including Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac, offer three licenses for $59.99. That same $59.99 per year lets you install McAfee antivirus on all the macOS, Windows, Android, and iOS devices in your household. There's quite a spread here, both in pricing and in what you get for the price.
A ridiculous number of Windows computers still run antique versions of the OS, including the officially defunct Windows XP. Old versions are much less common on Macs, as most Mac users keep up with the latest. Norton supports the current macOS plus the two previous versions, so now that macOS Mojave is out, you'll need Sierra (10.12) or better—the same as what Kaspersky and Trend Micro support.
Those stuck on an outmoded operating system, perhaps due to antique hardware, should probably consider Webroot or ProtectWorks AntiVirus for Mac, which extend support back to Lion (10.7) and Snow Leopard (10.6), respectively.
Norton's malware scan and real-time protection should take care of any malware attack, but on the off-chance it doesn't, the company's Virus Protection Promise kicks in. You only qualify for this service if you enable automatic renewal, which seems reasonable. Norton's tech support experts will analyze your problem and, if necessary, remote control your computer to engage the sneaky attacker mano a mano. In the unlikely event that malware wins the fight, you can apply for a refund. McAfee AntiVirus Plus for Mac offers a similar promise.
Top Scores From One Malware Protection Lab
When I test Windows antivirus products, I evaluate their reaction to real-world malware, and to very fresh malware-hosting URLs. I have a collection of hand-coded tools to help with running tests and recording results. None of those tools run on a Mac, and my malware collections are Windows-only, so I can't apply the same level of hands-on testing to macOS security products. Fortunately, a couple of the big international antivirus testing labs test Mac antivirus too.
Two of the labs that I follow regularly report test results for Mac products, but only one of them includes Norton in its collection of tested products. Specifically. the latest report from AV-Comparatives doesn't include Norton.
As it does with Windows antivirus utilities, AV-Test Institute rates Mac antivirus tools in three categories: Protection, Performance, and Usability. In layman's terms, that means accurate protection against malware, small effect on performance, and few false positive results (valid files or websites identified as malicious). Products can earn up to six points in each category, and Norton swept the field, for a perfect score of 18 points. Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac and Trend Micro also managed a perfect 18 points in this test.
Bitdefender and Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac also earned top scores from AV-Comparatives, making them the lab test darlings. Avast Security for Mac, Avira, Intego, and Kaspersky also earned certification from both labs.
Schedules and Scans
Like most Mac antivirus products, Norton lets you choose between a full scan of your entire Mac and a quick scan that just looks at common malware locations. The time required for these scans varies wildly from product to product, but Norton is faster than many. Its quick scan proved to be truly quick in my testing, finishing in 55 seconds. Malwarebytes for Mac Premium ran even faster, with a 30-second quick scan, but Webroot beat the pack, completing a quick scan in just five seconds.
The average full-scan time for recent Mac antivirus tools is 38 minutes. Norton finished a full scan of the MacBook I use for testing in less than 13 minutes, way ahead of that average. Here again, Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus for Mac is even quicker, completing its full scan in two minutes. At the other end of the scale, ESET took an hour and a half and Sophos took two hours to plod through a scan on the same Mac.
I copied the malware collection from my Windows antivirus testing to a thumb drive and challenged Norton to clean up the mess. It didn't do so well, detecting just 62 percent of my assorted threats. It's true that Windows malware can't hurt your Mac, but eliminating it ensures that your Mac won't be a carrier bringing infection to other devices on your network. Sophos and AVG AntiVirus for Mac caught 86 percent of Windows malware, ESET got 93 percent, and Webroot wiped out 100 percent of the samples.
In theory, once you've installed your antivirus and completed a full scan, real-time protection should handle any new infestations that crop up. That being the case, Bitdefender, Kaspersky, Sophos Home Free for Mac, and a few others don't bother with scheduling scans. Symantec, on the other hand, lets you schedule a weekly scan on the day and time of your choice. You can choose whether to schedule a full system scan, a scan of all user folders, or a scan of just the startup disk.
Phishing Protection Successful
Phishing websites are convincing frauds that masquerade as financial sites or other sensitive sites, hoping to steal login credentials from unwary victims. Where malware coders must match their attacks to one operating system, or even a particular operating system version, phishing is totally platform-agnostic. If you fall for a phishing scam and give it your credentials, you're hosed, whether you succumbed on your Mac or on a browser-equipped refrigerator.
To test a product's ability to detect and deter phishing sites, I start by scraping hundreds of reported frauds from phish-tracking websites. I set up four browsers, one protected by the product, the other three by the antiphishing built into Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer. I launch each suspected phishing URL in all four browsers at once and note what happens. For this test, any URL that fails to load in all four browsers or that doesn't clearly fit the phishing profile gets axed.
I tested the macOS product shortly after testing Symantec Norton AntiVirus Basic on Windows. It caught a few verified phishing URLs that the Windows edition missed, but I chalked that up to the fact that Norton Headquarters had time to further analyze the URL. Discounting that advantage, Norton scored the same on macOS and on Windows, 94 percent protection.
That score is good on Windows, and even better on macOS. In the Mac antivirus realm, McAfee has the top score, with 100 percent detection, and Webroot is next, with 97 percent. Only those two did better than Norton.
A Thorough Firewall
Like Intego and McAfee, Norton includes a firewall on the Mac. It warns when you're connected to an insecure network, and automatically configures protection when you return to a trusted network. By default, it allows all outgoing network connections and blocks unsolicited incoming connections.
As on Windows, Norton goes beyond simple firewall features, adding active protection against exploit attacks on vulnerabilities in the operating system and popular applications. You can view the lengthy list of attacks it recognizes, though these won't mean much to most users. A feature called DeepSight blocks any contact coming from a list of known attackers reported by other Norton instances.
Application blocking, disabled by default, keeps unauthorized programs from using your network and internet connections. If you turn it on, you get a pop-up query each time Norton sees a new program attempting a connection. When I turned it on for testing, it didn't generate many popups, to my relief. I did have to give permission for Chrome and Firefox to access the internet, but that was about it.
Norton's Windows firewall is vastly more sophisticated. To start, it automatically configures permissions for a huge collection of known and trusted programs. The Mac edition clearly doesn't; as noted, it asked my permission to let Chrome to go online. When the Windows version doesn't recognize a program, it monitors that program closely for suspect behavior and cuts the network connection if it detects abuse.
Even though it doesn't come up to the level of the Windows firewall, the firewall in Norton's Mac edition does more than most. If you enable application control, be prepared for a few pop-ups to start. Once those are past, it should be smooth sailing.
Decent Password Management
The inclusion of Symantec Norton Password Manager isn't precisely a bonus, since you can get it for free, but it's a nice addition. Read my review for full details. Briefly, Norton Password Manager handles basic password manager tasks such as password capture, password replay, and filling web forms, and it can sync your data across all your Windows, Android, iOS devices, and macOS devices. It now includes an actionable password strength report with automatic password updates for popular sites. However, it lacks advanced features, among them secure password sharing, digital inheritance, and two-factor authentication.
Norton Clean
No matter how big your device's hard disk, it eventually gets too full. Norton Clean aims to reclaim some disk space for you by deleting files you don't need. It can remove duplicate files, including duplicates in your photo collection and iTunes account. Advanced users can set it to flag similar files, for example 720p and 1080p versions of the same movie. Finally, it gets rid of junk files left by applications and other temporary files.
On my test system it quickly found many unnecessary files. I let it eliminate the junk and temporary files, but I wasn't so sure about the handful of duplicates. Indeed, when I checked its list of similar files, I found many that shouldn't be deleted. For example, it listed a set of files created around the same time, with filenames differing only in a digit at the end. However, these weren't duplicates. Rather, they were notes on a day's worth of conference talks, all different. As for the actual duplicates, most were CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) files. To be fair, on a Mac that someone uses for day-to-day work, Norton would very likely find many more actual duplicates and junk files.
Full-Powered VPN
Over the last few years, consumers have become more and more aware of the need to enhance local antivirus protection with a virtual private network, or VPN. Security companies have responded by creating their own VPNs or licensing VPN technology, and many have begun to add the VPN as a security suite component. However, all too often suite users get nothing more than the equivalent of the company's free, feature-limited VPN.
As an example, the entire Panda product line, starting with the free antivirus, includes a VPN. However, in every product except the expensive top-tier Panda Dome Premium, VPN use is limited to 150GB per day. Kaspersky and Bitdefender also offer bandwidth-limited VPN support, and charge $4.99 per month (Kaspersky) or $49.99 per year (Bitdefender) to lift that limitation.
With Norton, you get the full power of Symantec Norton Secure VPN on all five of your devices. After a first-year discount, that would cost $79.99 per year as a standalone. Getting it as part of Norton 360 is a huge bargain.
Please read PCMag's review of Norton Secure VPN for a deep dive into this product. Briefly, it's a simple but effective VPN, with a decent number of servers in a variety of locations. It earned better than average results in our speed tests, the company maintains a no-log policy for your privacy, and as a bonus it can block ad trackers. However, it lacks advanced features and bans BitTorrent. You could do better choosing a standalone VPN, but you won't go wrong using it as part of Norton 360.
A Sweet Suite Deal
With Symantec Norton Security 360 Deluxe, you get the antivirus protection your macOS devices need, and quite a bit more. At $99.99 per year, the suite looks expensive, but the price gets you five licenses, including five installations of Norton's powerful VPN. Considering the standalone price of the VPN, this product is a bargain. Its been lab-certified as effective, and once you've installed it on all your Macs you can use the remaining licenses on your Windows, Android, or iOS devices.
Norton Internet Security 2018 Review
Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac is also a suite, though with a different feature set from Norton, and it's priced the same as many standalone Mac antivirus utilities. In addition, it has certifications from two independent labs to Norton's one. Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac also earned two lab certifications. Along with Norton 360 Deluxe, these are our Editors' Choice picks for macOS antivirus.
Norton Internet Security Free Trial
Bottom Line: Symantec's Norton Security 360 delivers lab-certified Mac antivirus protection along with a two-way firewall, a password manager, and a full-powered VPN.