Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac: Best Parental Controls
Our Verdict
Kaspersky Net Security for Mac delivers fantabulous malware protection, simply the weak extra features hold it back.
For
- Affordably priced plans
- Flawless malware protection
- Helpful recommendations system
Against
- Wearisome scanning
- Somewhat confusing UI
- Actress features are all limited
Tom's Guide Verdict
Kaspersky Cyberspace Security for Mac delivers excellent malware protection, but the weak extra features concur it back.
Pros
- +
Affordably priced plans
- +
Flawless malware protection
- +
Helpful recommendations system
Cons
- -
Slow scanning
- -
Somewhat confusing UI
- -
Extra features are all limited
Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac: Specs
Malware protection: Excellent
System impact, background: Moderate
System bear upon, scans: Low-cal
macOS compatibility: macOS 10.12 Sierra or later
Browser extensions: Yes
Firewall: No
Hardened/secure browser: Yes
Parental controls: Yes, but express
Password manager: Yes, just limited
Ransomware file protection: No
Scan scheduling: Yes
Webcam protection: Yes
VPN: Yes, only limited to 300MB per day
Support options: 24/7 telephone, conversation or email support; FAQs and documents
At first glance, Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac feels like information technology will be an easy recommendation, thank you to its perfect malware performance, extensive features and affordable pricing. But equally you dig deeper, you first to uncover some flaws.
The extensive feature set is filled out with some extremely limited extras, such equally a congenital-in VPN, password manager and parental controls, the latter two beingness trial versions that aren't worth your time. All these features are jammed into a user interface that gets confusing to navigate at times.
The good withal outweighs the bad, so if you are a fan of Kaspersky, I wouldn't specifically tell yous to avoid this app. But other options, similar Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac or Norton 360 Standard, offer amend overall packages among the all-time Mac antivirus programs.
Read on for the residual of our Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac review.
Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac: Costs and what'due south covered
Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac offers basic antivirus protection, phishing protection, privacy features and encrypted browsing for online purchases. It starts at $xl for a unmarried device for ane yr; you can too cover upward to iii Macs for $60 per year. Unlike most of its competitors, Kaspersky does non offering discount for purchasing multiple years of service. (Most of these plans give you lot a large discount for the first twelvemonth of a subscription.)
If you need to cover a wider variety of devices, Kaspersky Internet Security adds support for Windows and mobile devices but otherwise offers identical features. That package starts at $80 per year for iii devices or $ninety per year for v devices.
Kaspersky Total Security adds the full versions of Kaspersky Safe Kids and Kaspersky Countersign Manager along with file fill-in for Windows users. These plans start at $100 per twelvemonth for upwardly to v devices or $150 per year for upwards to ten devices.
Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac volition run on whatever Mac with macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or later.
Kaspersky Cyberspace Security for Mac: Antivirus protection
Kaspersky offers excellent real-time protection against malware. Like most of its competitors, it relies on both car learning as well as its network of more than than 400 1000000 computers running Kaspersky antivirus software to detect both known and new malware.
Customers tin can cull whether to upload anything detected equally potentially unsafe to the Kaspersky Security Network, but regardless of whether or not you participate, y'all do good from the malware database, which is updated daily.
Kaspersky Net Security for Mac: Antivirus operation
In social club to make up one's mind the overall efficacy of Kaspersky Net Security for Mac's malware scanning, we relied on the Germany-based AV-Test lab and Austria-based AV-Comparatives lab, which conduct regular evaluations of major antivirus apps and services.
During the May-June 2020 round of testing past AV-Test, the most recent time it was evaluated, Kaspersky Net Security for Mac detected 100% of Mac malware as well as more than 99% of potentially unwanted programs for Mac and more than 99% of Windows malware, which sometimes lurks on Macs.
During that same round of testing, Avast Gratis Mac Security (100%), Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac (98.8%), Norton 360 Standard (100%) and Tendency Micro Antivirus for Mac (100%) at all-time matched Kaspersky's perfect performance.
Intego Mac Cyberspace Security X9 was not tested at that time but accomplished a Mac malware-detection charge per unit of 98.5% in AV-Examination's November-Dec 2020 circular. Avast, Bitdefender, Norton and Trend Micro all scored 100% in AV-Examination's March-April 2021 evaluations.
| AV-Test, most recent | AV-Test, previous | AV-Comparatives, most recent | AV-Comparatives, previous | |
| Avast | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Bitdefender | 100% | 97.3% | 100% | 100% |
| Intego | 98.5% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Kaspersky | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| Norton | 100% | 100% | Non tested | Not tested |
| Trend Micro | 100% | 100% | 99.half-dozen% | 100% |
Kaspersky Net Security for Mac avert registering whatever false positives, meaning all its malware detections were accurate, but this was true of its competitors as well.
This was not a shocking outcome for Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac, which has managed a perfect 100% detection rate each fourth dimension information technology has been function of AV-Test'south evaluations since April of 2017.
Turning to the AV-Comparatives testing, Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac identified 100% of the Mac malware threats, 96% of the Mac potentially unwanted programs, and 100% of the Windows malware.
It has had perfect Mac-malware detection rates on each of the almanac AV-Comparatives tests going back through July 2017. Avast, Bitdefender, Intego and Tendency Micro were all office of the June 2021 examination too; the showtime iii also received perfect 100% detection rates, while Trend Micro detected 99.half dozen% of Mac malware. Norton was not tested.
Kaspersky Cyberspace Security for Mac: Security and privacy features
Kaspersky Cyberspace Security for Mac has an all-encompassing feature prepare, simply as you lot'll come across, in some cases you just go access to the gratuitous limited versions of some of Kasperky's apps, which aren't necessarily worth your time or drive space.
Kaspersky offers its web protection via browser extensions that are bachelor for Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox. This provides a variety of protections including basic monitoring for malicious content, tracking blockers and a URL advisor to assist you steer clear of dangerous sites before you visit them.
Kaspersky also has one fairly unique tool as part of its browser extensions. Prophylactic Money defaults y'all to HTTPS securely encrypted sites when possible, blocks other extensions, volition observe when you lot are going to make a payment online and gives you an onscreen keyboard to enter your payment information to avert keyloggers.
Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac also allows you to cake your webcam at a software level to ensure it can't be accessed by another application. With our increased reliance on video conferencing, it's particularly nice to have additional reassurance that you aren't being spied on.
Kaspersky Countersign Manager is included, only it is merely the gratis version, which is limited to only 15 passwords, and the link to the password director just serves equally a launcher for the standalone app. You can unlock the full version of the password director for $15 a year, only you lot are going to exist much amend served by ane of the all-time password managers.
Kaspersky's Secure Connection VPN is somewhat like in that it is merely a launcher for the standalone app and is restricted to 300MB of data traffic per 24-hour interval. If you lot are just looking for something to apply when cyberbanking or performing some other very minimally data-intensive task, then that small amount of information might piece of work.
Just otherwise, yous would need to pay an extra $30 per year to unlock the unlimited version of Kaspersky Secure Connection, which besides gives yous the pick to select different server locations. That is pretty reasonable pricing and on par with our value choice for the best VPN, Surfshark.
The last of these add-on apps is the Safety Kids parental controls. Once more, this is a free version of that service, which limits you to monitoring a single child device and lacks premium features such every bit location tracking and existent-time alerts. The paid version is just $fifteen a yr, so if yous are in the market for an affordable parental-control app, you can accept a wait at our review of Kaspersky Safety Kids to see if information technology's right for you.
Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac: Performance and system bear on
In order to measure the functioning touch of Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac, nosotros ran the Geekbench 5 benchmarking exam prior to installing the app and so ran a series of tests with the tool after installation. The 2016 MacBook Pro 13-inch laptop that nosotros used for the review had a two.9Ghz Intel Core i5-6267U processor, 8GB of LPDDR3 RAM and a 256GB SSD with 42.18GB of files installed.
Before we installed Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac, the MacBook Pro achieved a Geekbench 5 score of one,868, which dropped to one,816 following the installation of the app.
While not terribly significant by Windows antivirus standards, this was the largest performance hit we saw after installation of any Mac antivirus plan, with Trend Micro (1%) the simply other Mac antivirus app that generated whatever perceptible groundwork slowdown.
| Post-installation | Full scan | Quick scan | |
| Avast | 0% | 27% | 3% |
| Bitdefender | 0% | 19% | 1% |
| Intego | 0% | 34% | 3% |
| Kaspersky | 3% | 12% | 4% |
| Norton | 0% | 12% | 0% |
| Trend Micro | 1% | 46% | 1% |
The full browse went much better for Kaspersky's functioning impact, with a mere 12% drop-off, tied with Norton for the most minimal slowdown during a full browse. Bitdefender (xix%) wasn't too far behind, but from there Avast (27%), Intego (34%) and Tendency Micro (46%) were all far from challenging Kaspersky.
A quick scan saw a render to the bottom of the pile with a four% drib, which was just backside Avast (iii%) and Intego (three%). Bitdefender (1%) and Tendency Micro (ane%) were almost perfect on this test, with Norton (0%) crowned the champ.
Kaspersky Net Security for Mac's first total scan took 39 minutes and 5 seconds and scanned 808,142 files. This was hands the slowest full browse of whatever Mac antivirus app that I reviewed, with Bitdefender (27:55) next upward. The residue of the group was notably faster with Tendency Micro (12:03), Norton (11:45) and Avast (ten:25) in a cluster and Intego (6:22) in a commanding first place position. Fortunately, Kaspersky'south full-browse system impact is so lite that you probably won't notice any slowdown.
Kaspersky'southward quick browse looks at the most common areas for viruses or malware. For my arrangement, this scanned xiii,339 files in 53 seconds. Information technology avoided another last-place end here with Trend Micro (1:06) sparing it. The rest barely crossed into double digits, including Avast (00:18), Bitdefender (00:16), Norton (00:xiii) and Intego (00:11).
Kaspersky Cyberspace Security for Mac: Interface
In the battle for the most stripped-down and streamlined dashboard interface, Kaspersky nearly unquestionably comes out on top, particularly when you consider the number of features it actually offers. This holds true throughout the app with a very minimal look to every screen. However, as you'll see, things can still become a little confusing as you attempt to navigate its full characteristic prepare.
That primary dashboard includes an image of a MacBook with a green screen and a check alongside the text "Your Mac is protected," assuming everything is running every bit expected. Immediately below that is a button to "Open up Protection Middle," but despite its prominent placement and of import-sounding name, this isn't something yous'll regularly use. That screen just confirms whether your virus databases are up to date, shows your recommendations and displays app news.
Recommendations are indeed of import, simply if you accept whatever, they will show upwards in the center of the dashboard with a link taking you lot to the recommendations screen anyway.
Beyond the lesser of the dashboard are four additional icons that take yous to the other major features of Kaspersky Cyberspace Security: Scan, Update, Privacy and Safe Kids.
Scan gives y'all a pretty typical array of virus scans, and this feature specifically is one of the clearest and well laid out implementations of whatever Mac antivirus app that I reviewed.
If you have a specific folder or set of files you want to scan, y'all tin can just drag and driblet them into the box at the top of the Kaspersky scan screen. Or you tin can browse for them using the "Choose" button and it will immediately scan them. Below the drib box is a trio of buttons to run a full scan, quick scan or fix upward scheduled full or quick scans to run as frequently as daily or only once a week.
Update confirms that your virus databases are up-to-date. This happens automatically in the background, only yous can force it to bank check for an update manually as well. Privacy houses a few features including webcam blocking, web-tracker blocking and a launcher for both Kaspersky Password Manager and Kaspersky Secure Connection VPN. Finally, the Safe Kids icon naturally volition take you to the parental-command app, although you need to click on the launcher on the next screen to get there.
Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac: Installation and support
Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac can be downloaded directly from the Kaspersky website. The beachhead installation file is a small four.1MB, merely that simply connects you to download the full 480MB installer app. After y'all have Kaspersky's privacy policies, the installer app will be downloaded and run. This part of the process took approximately 5 minutes every bit Kaspersky's download speeds were relatively slow.
Setup with Kaspersky was the best that I encountered doing this circular of Mac antivirus reviews. Information technology gave a very specific, guided view of what yous demand to do to grant the appropriate permissions for the Kaspersky antivirus software and its components to run properly.
The only affair that took a bit longer was installing the separate standalone apps for the password manager, VPN and parental controls. All 3 are bundled with Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac but aren't integrated into the app If you don't plan on using whatsoever or all of them, yous can skip the installation. The App Store has iOS versions of all 3, and Mac apps for the password managing director and the VPN; y'all can also discover them on Kaspersky's website.
Kaspersky offers 24/7 technical support via phone, online chat or email. The online knowledge base and articles prepared by the Kaspersky team are first-class resources as well.
Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac review: Bottom line
Kaspersky Net Security for Mac is a solid antivirus app that is slightly held back past its bloatware, slow scans and relatively confusing user interface.
With that said, while I don't consider it the best choice, Kaspersky Internet Security isn't a bad pick, particularly for those who are willing to pay the extra $30 to unlock the premium VPN. 70 dollars a year for both your malware protection and your VPN needs is a proficient value.
If the VPN component is less critical to you, expect to Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac. If yous desire a amend case of a Mac antivirus app with a lot of extra features, including a VPN and a password manager that are unlimited right out of the box, then consider Norton 360 Standard.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/kaspersky-internet-security-mac
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