Pros & Cons
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- Four perfect antivirus lab scores
- Full-powered VPN
- Protection for Windows, macOS, and Android
- File encryption system
- Folder Guard component enhances ransomware protection
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- No longer includes a password manager or Android parental control
- High price compared with the Essential suite
- VPN is limited to three licenses
- No secure deletion for originals after encryption
- No security enhancements for macOS
ESET Home Security Premium Specs
| Antispam | |
| Application Privacy Scan | |
| Blocks Unwanted Calls | |
| Firewall | |
| Hardened Browser | |
| Network Security Scan | |
| Protection Type | Security Suite |
| Snaps Photo of Thief | |
| VPN | Full |
| Warns of Insecure Wi-Fi | |
| Webcam Protection |
Security companies that offer multiple tiers of security suite protection must carefully balance which features to include at each tier. To the feature set of ESET Home Security Essential, ESET Home Security Premium adds simple encryption and a VPN, as well as enhanced ransomware protection. Since my last review, it has dropped some features, such as password management, and raised its price by $20 per year. As such, it effectively breaks even, so its score remains the same. At the five-device licensing level, Bitdefender Total Security and Norton 360 Deluxe cost more than ESET, but they both cost less per device at higher levels. They also both achieve excellent lab scores and include a broad selection of security features, making them our Editors' Choice winners for security suites.
What Do You Get With ESET Home Security Premium?
In ESET’s security program lineup, ESET Home Security Premium takes the position of a security mega-suite. To start, it includes everything found in ESET Home Security Essential, except that it upgrades the security suite component to ESET Smart Security Premium. On top of that, it adds a VPN and an encryption system to protect your important files.
This bundle has previously included ESET Password Manager, and technically still does for existing users. However, ESET discontinued new sales of the password manager in October 2025 and will eliminate it in October 2027. The parental control system for Android is likewise in limbo, set to die in June of 2026.
You manage all these components through the ESET Home online dashboard. Once you log in, you can easily check all your subscriptions and protected devices. From the subscriptions page, it’s a snap to download protection for the current device or send an email link to install it on another device.
(Credit: ESET/PCMag)On the Devices page, you can quickly see if any of your devices have security issues. You drill down for details if there’s a problem, but there’s no remote configuration like what you get with Sophos Home Premium and a few others. The online dashboard is also where you manage the anti-theft component.
How Much Does ESET Home Security Premium Cost?
In the past, ESET’s pricing scheme was as simple as it gets. A single license for the basic antivirus app costs $39.99 per year, the entry-level bundle was $49.99, and the bundle reviewed here used to cost $59.99 per year. For each of the three, additional licenses cost $5 per year, up to a maximum of five for the antivirus and 10 for the two suite bundles.
Pricing for the antivirus and the Essential security suite hasn’t changed. However, in the current Premium suite, pricing starts at $79.99 rather than $59.99. It still goes up by $5 per year for each additional license, maxing out at $124.99 for 10. That $79.99 fee for one ESET license would get you five licenses to install Malwarebytes Premium Security or Total Defense Premium Internet Security. With F-Secure Internet Security or ZoneAlarm Extreme Security, five licenses run $10 less than a single ESET installation.
At $119.99 per year for five licenses, Norton 360 Deluxe is more expensive than ESET’s $99.99 annual fee. However, with Norton, you get five cross-platform security suite licenses, five no-limits VPN licenses, and 50GB of hosted online storage for your backups. Depending on your needs, Norton could be a good deal.
Bitdefender offers two subscription types: individual and family. You pay $109.99 per year for an individual subscription that covers 5 devices. That’s $10 more than ESET’s five-device price. A family subscription covers 25 devices for $139.99 per year. If ESET’s pricing scheme went as high as 25 devices, that would cost $199.99, quite a bit more.
At the 10-license level, ESET’s yearly fee of $124.99 looks better. About as many similar suites have a lower yearly subscription as have a higher one. On the low side, AVG Internet Security costs $99.99 for 10 licenses, as do F-Secure Total and Total Defense Ultimate Internet Security. Looking to the high side, Webroot Premium charges $249.99 for a 10-license subscription, and Panda Dome Premium runs $259.99.
McAfee+ doesn’t cap the number of devices you can protect. A $149.99 yearly subscription covers every Windows, macOS, Android, ChromeOS, and iOS device in your household. However, if you don’t need more than 10 licenses, ESET is a better deal at $124.99 for 10.
Getting Started With ESET Home Security Premium
The ESET Home online dashboard is where you manage your subscriptions and devices. To install protection on a PC, just log in and download the ESET Smart Security Premium installer. From the dashboard, you can also install protection on a Mac or Android device or wrap an installation link in an email. Note that Mac protection consists of ESET Cyber Security for Mac, with no additional features beyond the basic antivirus. Given that you’d pay $40 per year more without any added macOS benefits, you’re better off purchasing the standalone antivirus separately for your Macs.
You manage your subscription’s installations by member and by device. In many cases, the only member will be “me”, but you can add friends or family members as needed. On the downloads page, you can choose to install the suite itself or the VPN. Past versions included links to parental control and password management, but, as noted, those features have been removed.
(Credit: ESET/PCMag)ESET’s security suites no longer feature the company’s blue-eyed cyborg mascot. The main window of Smart Security Premium looks very much like that of the entry-level suite. In both, four large panels represent four security areas: Browser Privacy & Security, Network Inspector, Anti-Theft, and Safe Banking & Browsing. The Premium edition adds buttons for VPN, ESET Folder Guard, and Secure Data.
Other than those three added features, the two suites are nearly identical. The other major addition is adding LiveGuard to the suite’s antivirus defense force. I’ll discuss LiveGuard below.
Given that this suite is so nearly identical to ESET Home Security Essential, there’s no sense in repeating the details of that review. Please take a moment to peruse that article, then come back here to learn about what’s different in the Premium edition.
Very briefly, ESET Home Security Essential provides antivirus protection that gets perfect lab scores but lags a bit in some of our hands-on tests. If you enable interactive program control, its pop-up system and related brouhaha are as annoying as it gets. For Android, ESET offers a comprehensive mobile security app. The very thorough Device Control system may be too technical for some users. Intrigued? Again, please read that review.
Can LiveGuard Defeat Ransomware?
LiveGuard is an additional antivirus component that aims to “discover and stop never-before-seen types of threats.” To function, LiveGuard requires that you enable ESET’s cloud-based LiveGrid system. If ESET can’t determine whether a file is safe or dangerous, LiveGuard sends it to the cloud for analysis. By default, it suspends execution of those unknown files pending a verdict from the cloud. That’s a good default. You won’t often encounter files unknown to ESET; when you do, a short wait is worthwhile for your protection.
(Credit: ESET/PCMag)The description of LiveGuard sounds like something that might handle a ransomware attack if it got past the standard real-time antivirus. To check that possibility, I repeated my ransomware protection test, turning off real-time protection but leaving LiveGuard and the ransomware component active. I then attempted to launch the same collection of real-world ransomware samples.
With LiveGuard participating, the results were only marginally different. The same samples were caught, the same samples were missed. It’s true that my samples aren’t “never-before-seen” threats. I can’t code up a zero-day ransomware program for testing purposes. But I had hoped to see some benefit from adding LiveGuard.
Can Folder Guard Defeat Ransomware?
ESET’s basic ransomware protection includes behavior-based detection, and LiveGuard is entirely behavior-based. Folder Guard, on the other hand, works by controlling what programs can make changes in protected folders. You’ll get a warning any time an unauthorized program tries to modify a protected file. If it’s a valid program, perhaps a word processor or image editor, you can mark it as trusted. Otherwise, you click to deny access.
This is a common ransomware protection method. Avast One Gold, K7 Total Security, and Norton, among others, also use it. Most competitors automatically populate the list of protected folders, but with ESET, the list starts out blank. I added Documents, Desktop, Music, Pictures, and Videos, matching what most of the others do.
(Credit: ESET/PCMag)With Folder Guard on duty, I ran my ransomware protection test again. Nothing changed with the two whole-disk encrypting ransomware attacks, since ESET’s ransomware-specific protection layers focus on the more common file-encrypting ransomware. One encrypted the disk and demanded ransom, the other simply wiped the disk.
(Credit: ESET/PCMag)In my previous tests, ESET caught eight of the file-encrypting samples, though some managed to encrypt as many as a thousand less important files before being caught. One sample did nothing—no activity means no behavioral detection. As for the other three, they ran rampant in my test virtual machine, encrypting tons of files and demanding ransom.
Folder Guard successfully caught all three of those holdouts, and it got ahead of regular ransomware detection for one more. They did manage to encrypt thousands of files outside the folders I had defined for protection, but a quick scan of the missed files revealed unimportant items, such as manifests and log files. Folder Guard is a welcome addition to ESET’s ransomware protection arsenal.
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The Secure Data Feature Encrypts Files
A laptop thief who guesses your too-simple Windows login password or grabs your device while it’s already logged in could hoover up all your sensitive data—unless you’ve encrypted your important files. Even a ransomware attack can’t touch your files when they’re sealed in an encrypted vault. Encrypting your most important files just makes good sense.
ESET Premium's Secure Data, which is installed the first time you access it, makes encryption simple. As with similar encryption systems from G Data Internet Security and others, you create one or more encrypted virtual drives to store your data. When the drive is unlocked, it behaves like any other drive; when it's locked, no one can access its files. Trend Micro Maximum Security takes the concept further, with the option to remotely seal the vault, foiling even a thief who stole your laptop and your vault password.
(Credit: ESET/PCMag)A wizard walks you through creating each new virtual drive. You choose a name and location for the vault file and select a drive capacity from a list of presets. You can also set a custom size, from 10MB to 2047GB. This step is important because, as with most such encryption systems, you can't change the vault size after creation. A similar feature in G Data’s encryption system cleverly offers preset sizes that match the capacities of CDs, DVDs, and other storage media.
Next, you create a password to lock the drive. ESET rates password strength as you type, and its rating skills have improved. It used to accept “Password” as a strong password. Now it notices embedded dictionary words and even zings something like "MyPassword7&." Whatever you choose, consider recording it as a secure note in your password manager because if you forget the password, you’ll lose access to the protected files.
(Credit: ESET/PCMag)Note that by default, ESET automatically decrypts the drive for the current Windows user account. If you walk away from your desk without logging out, you leave your files unprotected. Unless you've secured your Windows account with a strong password or biometric option and always lock it on stepping away, I suggest you disable this option.
ESET doesn't maintain a list of the encrypted drives you've created. Rather, you must locate the vault file and launch it to open the encrypted drive. Now, you can treat it like any other drive. When you’re done working with sensitive files, right-click the drive and choose Eject. Do be sure to save any open files on the drive.
You wouldn't stash one copy of a sensitive contract in your wall safe while leaving other copies lying around unprotected. Rather, you'd put the extras through the shredder. The same is true for the unencrypted originals of sensitive files, so suites that offer encryption often include a secure deletion utility. Alas, ESET lacks a file-shredding component. The best you can do is hold down Shift while deleting originals, so they at least don't wind up in the Recycle Bin.
ESET also lets you create an encrypted folder on any removable drive. You just supply the password; you don't have to enter a filename or choose the capacity. Here, too, I advise disabling automatic decryption for the current Windows user account. When you mount the drive and enter the password, ESET makes the encrypted folder available.
You can also make your portable encrypted files available on any computer. Doing so puts a program called ESET Secure Data on the unencrypted portion of the removable drive. Just run the program and enter your password to access the encrypted folder.
A Capable VPN With Global Spread
You’ve known for years that you need antivirus protection to prevent malware from infecting your devices. Your devices and data should be safe once you’ve cleared out any pre-existing conditions and activated real-time protection. However, when you send and receive data across the internet, your local antivirus protection no longer applies.
A virtual private network (VPN) protects your data in transit, encrypting it and sending it to a VPN server, which then forwards it to the wider internet. Nobody, not even the owner of the network you’re using, can interfere with that encrypted transmission, and the websites you’re connecting to see the VPN server as the traffic source, hiding your personal IP address and location.
Previously, ESET’s VPN component was only available at the Home Security Ultimate level. Now, even those who selected the Premium level get VPN access. There’s still a difference—Premium uses get three VPN licenses while those at the Ultimate level get 10. The VPN is licensed from Windscribe, though ESET doesn’t make much of this partnership. The standalone Windscribe VPN, which is an Editors’ Choice winner.
Getting Started With the VPN
Clicking the VPN panel in the Overview window doesn’t launch the VPN. Rather, it instructs you to install the app on your Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS devices and generate a one-time code to activate each installation. You can also generate a code to share VPN protection with friends.
(Credit: ESET/PCMag)When you launch the VPN, you see a tall window with a Connect button. By default, it chooses the best server location, displayed at the bottom of the window, but you can dig in to make your own choice. The mostly empty window displays the selected protocol and your current IP address—your true address when disconnected or the VPN server’s address otherwise. A world map very faintly backdrops these controls, though it doesn’t center or tag your chosen server, as some competitors do.
Plenty of Server Locations
Using a VPN with servers in plenty of locations worldwide has two benefits. First, your chances of finding a nearby server are better wherever you go. Second, if you need the VPN’s help to spoof your location, you have many choices. Windscribe’s comprehensive list of servers shows 192 locations across 71 countries, including three in Africa and seven in South America. That’s an unusually impressive spread, though CyberGhost VPN goes even further. CyberGhost has servers in 126 cities, spread across 100 countries.
I noticed in passing that ESET’s list of locations doesn’t include everything on Windscribe's online list. Oh, all the servers in the ESET list show up in Windscribe’s, right down to jokey server names like Hong Kong Phooey and Miami Vice. But quite a few of Windscribe’s servers don’t carry over to ESET’s server list. ESET has servers in 85 cities spread across 41 countries, which beats many competitors. However, over 90% of them are in Europe or North America. ESET offers no servers in Africa, and for South America, only Brazil is represented.
(Credit: ESET/PCMag)Clicking any item in the list opens a submenu of server locations within that country. Pointing the mouse at a three-bar icon to the right of a server displays a quick view of latency if known. Quite a few servers feature an icon indicating they offer a 10Gbps connection. A few servers display a different icon, indicating they frown on file sharing.
Plenty of Protocol Choices
I mentioned that your VPN uses an encryption system (called a protocol) to protect communication between your PC and the VPN server. The OpenVPN protocol is well-regarded because it’s an open-source project, allowing experts to audit it and identify potential problems. WireGuard is a newer, slicker open-source VPN protocol and a current favorite around PCMag.
Some VPN apps stick with a single protocol or make an internal choice of protocols without consulting the user. ESET uses WireGuard by default, but if you click the protocol name, you open a big menu of choices, more than in most competing VPNs. Topping the list is WireGuard, followed by the relatively antiquated IKEv2 protocol. The next three—UDP, TCP, and Stealth—are all variations of OpenVPN. The Stealth choice disguises your traffic as ordinary HTTPS traffic to evade anti-VPN technology. WSTunnel is another OpenVPN variant designed to bypass VPN blockers. It masquerades as WebSocket traffic rather than HTTPS.
(Credit: ESET/PCMag)If you’re connecting to or from a country that tries to suppress VPN use, consider the Stealth or WSTunnel protocols. These can also help with services like Netflix that actively discourage VPN use. Windscribe is among the VPNs that successfully evaded video streaming blocks in our testing, along with CyberGhost, NordVPN, Proton VPN, and others.
Advanced VPN Features and Settings
In the settings dialog, you can configure the locations list to display each server's system load. With this feature active, a green bar below each server location shows the current load on that server, so you can avoid choosing one that’s overloaded. The location list is sorted by geography out of the box, but you can choose to sort it by latency, or simply show an alphabetical list. I’d be happier if these sorting options were available in the location list itself. You can turn off the option to have the VPN launch at startup (but don’t, please), choose its display language, and set it to light or dark mode.
(Credit: ESET/PCMag)Running your traffic through a VPN necessarily impacts its speed. You may find some websites or apps for which you prefer speed over security. That’s where split tunneling comes in. In the default Exclusive mode, you list the websites or applications that should connect directly to the web without going through the VPN. The optional Inclusive mode applies VPN protection only to the apps and sites you specify. Most users should stick with the default Exclusive.
ESET also offers a VPN feature with the violent-sounding name kill switch. This just means that if the VPN loses connectivity with its server, it blocks all internet traffic until the connection is restored. This prevents exposing your traffic with no VPN protection.
ESET’s VPN doesn’t carry over some advanced features, like Windscribe’s ability to filter out malware and porn sites, and it doesn’t appear to reach Windscribe’s full range of server locations. Even so, its selection of server locations is impressive, especially if you focus on Europe and North America. It has an unusually broad selection of protocols, and its advanced features include split tunneling and a kill switch. In addition, it provides useful information about server latency and load to help you choose the best server for your needs. Ultimately, you won’t go wrong with the VPN included with the ESET Home Security Premium bundle.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: ESET)
ESET Home Security Premium
ESET Home Security Premium enhances the features in its entry-level suite with encryption and a VPN, but doesn't add enough value to fully justify the increase in price.