Pros & Cons
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- Cross-platform security suite
- Money-back virus protection pledge
- Perfect phishing protection score
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- No current lab test results
- Lacks features found in Windows edition
McAfee Total Protection for Mac Specs
| Firewall | |
| Malicious URL Blocking | |
| On-Access Malware Scan | |
| On-Demand Malware Scan | |
| Phishing Protection | |
| VPN | Full |
| Website Rating |
MacOS was designed with security in mind from the start, while security for Windows was bolted on later in life. That's why there’s more malware aimed at Windows systems than at Macs, but that doesn’t mean Macs are immune. You need antivirus protection for your Macs, like what the cross-platform McAfee Total Protection offers. However, its feature set is limited compared with the Windows or Android edition, and the antivirus testing labs don’t vouch for its efficacy. Bitdefender Antivirus and Norton 360 Deluxe, by contrast, hold perfect or near-perfect scores from both labs that test Mac antivirus software. These two are our Editors’ Choice winners for protecting your Macs against malware.
What Does McAfee Total Protection Cost?
You used to pay $64.99 per year to install McAfee AntiVirus Plus on every device in your household, including your Macs. That product is no longer available, so those who want McAfee protection for their Macs should start with McAfee Total Protection, reviewed here.
Pricing for McAfee Total Protection starts at $89.99 per year to protect a single Mac. That’s quite a bit more than most standalone macOS antivirus tools, which does make sense since this is a cross-platform security suite.
Three McAfee licenses cost $99.99 and let you install protection on your macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, and ChromeOS devices. As with the single-license tier, that price is quite reasonably higher than most standalone antivirus utilities for macOS. Malwarebytes Premium Security and Total Defense Essential Anti-Virus run $59.99 per year for three licenses, while Bitdefender and Webroot Essentials cost $69.99. A three-pack of ClamXAV goes for just $29.95.
The most logical comparison is McAfee against Norton 360 Deluxe. Norton is also a cross-platform suite, supporting macOS, Windows, and Android. At the five-license tier, both Norton and McAfee cost $119.99 per year. In addition to their other security features, both apps offer VPN protection for five devices with no limits on bandwidth or server choice.
A five-license subscription is as high as you go with McAfee Total Protection unless you jump ship from McAfee to a third-party supplier. Retailers like Best Buy and Amazon sometimes offer an unlimited-license package for $149.99 per year, usually with a steep discount the first year. However, you can get unlimited licenses for the advanced McAfee+ suite straight from McAfee at a starting price of that same $149.99 per year. At higher tiers, McAfee+ adds a comprehensive identity protection system, much like what you get in Norton 360 with LifeLock Select.
Of course, you can also get antivirus protection for your Mac for no charge by choosing Avast One Basic, AVG AntiVirus, or Avira Free Antivirus.
Like ESET Cyber Security and Malwarebytes, McAfee supports macOS versions back to 11 (Big Sur). Norton always supports the current macOS and the two previous versions, so as of this writing, it supports Sequoia, Sonoma, and Ventura. For those stuck running an old macOS version, Bitdefender or ClamXav may be a better choice, with support going back more than 10 years to 10.10 (Yosemite).
Getting Started With McAfee Antivirus
As with many cross-platform security programs, McAfee’s installation process starts online. You log in or create your account, enter your registration code, and download the installer to your Mac. At one point, the installer presents you with a serial number—don’t lose it! I found that later in the process, it requested this serial number, not the registration code from your purchase. If you ever need to reinstall the software on this device, that secondary serial number is essential. I’ve never understood this peculiar numbers game.
Installing any antivirus on a Mac always involves giving it Full Disk Access permission. McAfee’s handling of this necessary step remains unusually obtuse. Most antiviruses direct you to open security settings, select Full Disk Access, find their icon, and turn on the permission. With McAfee, you must search out four executable files using Finder, as the files don’t all show up in the Full Disk Access list. Only then can you enable the necessary permission.
(Credit: McAfee/PCMag)During installation, McAfee offers a Virus Protection Pledge. This pledge means that if a malware attack gets past an existing McAfee installation, McAfee's trained malware experts will remotely connect to your computer and fix the problem. If the experts can't fix the problem, McAfee will refund your purchase price (but isn’t liable for any ancillary damage from the malware).
To get this pledge from McAfee, you must make your own automatic renewal pledge, which seems reasonable. You get a similar pledge, with a similar requirement for automatic renewal, with Norton and ZoneAlarm Extreme Security.
As noted, your license lets you install McAfee on your Windows devices, as well as your iOS, ChromeOS, and Android devices. Please read my review of McAfee Total Protection for full details on what you get with the other platforms. Briefly, the Windows edition is loaded with features—including a tracker blocker and a file shredder—not found on the Mac. The Android edition offers features beyond antivirus with a strong focus on the new scam protection system, and the iOS edition (as expected) is relatively limited in its feature set.
(Credit: McAfee/PCMag)At one time, the layouts and color schemes of the Mac and Windows editions tracked very closely, but no more. A few years ago, the Windows edition went through a serious makeover, transitioning from an emphasis on security features and tasks to a focus on helping its users enjoy their online lives with confidence. The mobile apps have had a similar makeover, merging three separate apps into a single all-in-one wonder with a cheerful user interface. A user interface update for the Mac edition is clearly not a priority. For the most part, it looks just like it has for the last six years.
A menu across the top of the macOS version’s main window lets you choose Home, Mac Security, Identity, and Account. At left is a list of your protected devices, with a button to extend protection to even more devices. Icons across the bottom of the home page bear the labels Run a Scan, Updates, ID Protection, Secure VPN, and Help. The remaining space displays information and advice about improving your security status. If you’ve taken all its advice, it reports, “You’re good to go!”
(Credit: McAfee/PCMag)On the Mac Security page, the left panel displays links to control security components: Real-Time Scanning, Firewall, Automatic updates, and Scheduled scans. Icons along the bottom let you launch a scan, view quarantined items, or see protection history. As you open each page for the first time, McAfee offers a simple tour, highlighting that page’s important features.
(Credit: McAfee/PCMag)From the Identity page, you can track the status of the WebAdvisor component or launch the VPN. An ID Protection button has the same function as the one on the home page, meaning it opens the Protection Center dashboard online. I’ll discuss that dashboard below.
No Scores From Antivirus Labs
The teams of testers and researchers at independent antivirus testing labs can apply significant resources to the task of lining up antivirus tools and rating their efficacy. I follow five such labs for my Windows antivirus reviews, two of which also release regular reports on Mac antivirus. Since my hands-on testing setup, developed over many years, is entirely Windows-based, those two sets of lab results become especially important to my Mac antivirus reviews.
When I first evaluated McAfee's macOS antivirus more than 10 years ago, it had certification from AV-Comparatives, with perfect detection of Mac malware and excellent detection of Windows malware. McAfee hasn’t appeared in the test results from this lab in the last few years, nor has it been included in test reports from AV-Test Institute. Malwarebytes, Sophos Home Premium, and Webroot are among the numerous others that lack recent lab scores.
If you want to choose an antivirus for your Mac based on top lab test results, look to Avast, AVG, or Norton. All three earned the maximum of 18 points from AV-Test Institute and were rated 100% by AV-Comparatives. Bitdefender came close, with 18 points from AV-Test and 99.4% from AV-Comparatives. AV-Comparatives didn’t test TotalAV or Trend Micro Antivirus, but these two also earned a perfect 18 points from AV-Test.
Scans and Schedules
Like most Mac antivirus tools, McAfee aims to detect and remove any Windows malware it encounters. True, malware written for Windows won’t run under macOS, but you wouldn’t want your Mac to become a carrier.
To check this feature’s effectiveness, I challenged McAfee by mounting a USB drive containing the samples I use for Windows antivirus testing. My collection runs the gamut from potentially unwanted applications (PUAs) to pernicious ransomware. McAfee detected and eliminated 77% of the samples, quite a drop from the 96% detection it managed with my previous set of samples. In their latest instances of this test on the Mac, Webroot scored 99%, and Avast reached 97%.
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(Credit: McAfee/PCMag)Most of the Mac antivirus utilities I've evaluated offer two kinds of scans: a quick scan that looks for active malware and checks the most likely areas for infestation, and a full scan that covers your entire computer. McAfee sticks with the full scan and the custom scan of user-specified locations.
The scan preparation page notes that a full scan can take as long as 48 hours, which seems excessive. Over my last few reviews of this antivirus, the time required for a full scan has varied wildly. This time around, it needed 55 minutes, while the previous time it took. an hour and a half. In the review before that, it finished in five minutes. Its current scan time is just a bit longer than the current average of 50 minutes.
(Credit: McAfee/PCMag)In theory, once you’ve rooted out any lurking malware with a full scan, you should be able to rely on real-time protection to handle any new problems. Even so, a regularly scheduled scan can’t help but enhance your protection. Like ESET, Trend Micro, and a few others, McAfee schedules a weekly full scan out of the box. You can turn off scheduled scanning or change it to daily or monthly, but you can't set multiple scan schedules.
Phishing Detection
If you're a nefarious web design expert rather than a malicious coder, phishing is your perfect crime. All you need to do is create a website that precisely replicates the appearance of a sensitive site and then find a way to direct hapless victims to your site. When an unsuspecting user logs in to your fake site, you grab the credentials and own the account. You can now use those credentials to, say, log into the victim's bank and drain all the funds or take over an email account and use it to reset passwords for all the victim’s other accounts.
For my Windows antiphishing tests, I use a small utility that lets me launch a suspected phishing URL and click a button to indicate the antivirus blocked it, the antivirus missed it, or the page wasn't a proper phishing fraud after all. I use the utility to launch the same collection of URLs against the phishing protection built into Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, and on a system protected by the antivirus under test. When it's a macOS antivirus, testing phishing protection becomes a manual process involving a lot of copy/paste and button-mashing. I tested McAfee’s Windows and macOS editions at the same time, both in Chrome.
(Credit: McAfee/PCMag)Not surprisingly, the test results on the two platforms came in identical. On both macOS and Windows, McAfee diverted the browser away from 100% of the verified frauds. The macOS editions of AVG, Avira, Norton, and Webroot also achieved 100% detection in their latest tests.
Firewall
A typical personal firewall performs two tasks. First, it guards against attacks by outside agencies. Second, it manages network permissions to make sure local applications don't abuse the network. McAfee dropped the Application Control component several years ago. My contact at McAfee explained, "This was a business decision, based on usage relative to the cost of maintenance." That leaves a very simple firewall component.
(Credit: McAfee/PCMag)Like the similar firewall in Intego Mac Internet Security, McAfee asks you to identify each network you join as Public, Home, or Work. On a public network, the firewall allows all outgoing traffic but blocks unsolicited incoming traffic. If you flag the network as Home or Work, it allows unsolicited incoming traffic from within the local network. Simple!
(Credit: McAfee/PCMag)If you're a total network wizard, you can click Manage Rules in the firewall's settings dialog. But, even for me, the dialog that lets you create custom firewall rules is daunting. Most users shouldn't touch it.
WebAdvisor, Just Like on Windows
The WebAdvisor component serves to divert your browsing from malicious and fraudulent pages, and it works just the same on macOS as it does on Windows. It also marks up links in search results, red-flagging those that would be dangerous to visit. By default, it only does so if you use McAfee’s own search engine. To remove that limitation, click the WebAdvisor toolbar button, click the gear-shaped icon for settings, and scroll down. Choose the option that says “Tell me if a search result is safe in any search engine."
(Credit: McAfee/PCMag)WebAdvisor also marks up links in social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, X/Twitter, and YouTube. Social markup is enabled by default, so you don’t need to change anything to get it.
McAfee Identity Protection
When you click Identity in the menu across the top of the menu and then choose ID Protection from the choices at the bottom of the page, it takes you to the Identity Monitoring dashboard online. Out of the box, McAfee checks the email address associated with your account to see if it has appeared in any data breaches. You can add quite a few other elements of personal data for monitoring:
- Bank accounts (10)
- Credit cards (10)
- Date of birth (1)
- Driver’s licenses (2)
- Email addresses (10)
- Health IDs (2)
- Passports (2)
- Phone numbers (10)
- Social Security number (1)
- Tax IDs (2)
- Usernames (10)
I go into more detail on this feature in my main McAfee Total Protection review. Suffice it to say that McAfee reports when it finds any of this information exposed in a data breach. It’s up to you to take any appropriate action, such as changing your password. Once you’ve reviewed each result, you can acknowledge it, thereby moving it out of the active list.
(Credit: McAfee/PCMag)Reviewing breaches from the list and marking them as handled raises your protection score. For a full view of that score, click the Protection Score icon in the menu at left. This opens the Protection Center dashboard and displays your score as a figure on a scale from 0 to 1,000.
Whatever your score may be, McAfee offers several actions you can take to raise it. Hey, we all want a better score, right? McAfee’s own studies show that when presented with such recommendations, more than half of users take action to improve their security.
(Credit: McAfee/PCMag)Naturally, personal data monitoring isn’t specific to any device. Reported breaches that you deal with on your Mac will also show as managed on your other devices. Again, I’ll dig deeper into identity monitoring in my full review of the cross-platform McAfee Total Protection suite.
VPN Protection
This suite protects your data on your Mac, but when that data heads out to the wild internet, it becomes vulnerable. To secure your data in transit, you should run your connection through a VPN. The connection is encrypted between your device and the VPN server, so even if the Wi-Fi network you’re using is compromised, nobody can access your data. A VPN also masks your IP address, making it impossible to determine your location based on that address. With a one-license McAfee suite subscription, you quite logically get the ability to apply VPN protection on one device. At all other licensing levels, VPN protection expands to allow five simultaneous connections. As with its Windows counterpart, the VPN is integrated right into the suite.
Connecting through any VPN server, even one that’s right next to you, gets you the advantages described above. But running your traffic through a server in another country can have the added benefit of unblocking region-locked content. And of course, when you’re traveling, it’s convenient to have the option to connect with a nearby server.
Some VPNs let you choose a particular server or type of server in the city of your choice. Others just let you choose the city (smaller countries may have just one city choice). McAfee’s server choices are more limited—all you can do is choose from a list of four dozen countries. If you choose the United States, your server could be anywhere, from Humptulips, WA, to Okeefenokee, FL.
Once you’ve selected a country, engaging VPN protection is as simple as flipping the switch to On. By default, the VPN is only active when you manually turn it on. You can set it to automatically engage any time you connect to a network or limit auto-connect to Wi-Fi networks. For fine-tuning, you can tell it to skip the VPN protection on known and trusted Wi-Fi networks.
(Credit: McAfee/PCMag)That’s it for settings. On the Mac, McAfee doesn’t offer split tunneling (the ability to divert less sensitive traffic outside the VPN’s protection). It doesn’t have the Safe Reconnect feature, sometimes called a kill switch. On the plus side, it's very easy to use, and it comes without the painful bandwidth limitations imposed in some competing suites. It adds significant value to this security suite.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: PCMag Composite; McAfee)
McAfee Total Protection for Mac
A McAfee Total Protection subscription defends your Macs and other devices. However, the macOS edition doesn't have all the features of the Windows version, and the independent labs haven't rated it.