I reviewed McAfee+ Premium for Mac and found it to be a questionable bargain

If you’re looking for antivirus software for your Mac, you might be drawn to the pleasingly familiar name McAfee, a well-rated cybersecurity solution that recently added AI phishing detection to help protect you from convincing scams.

While Apple includes some safeguards in macOS to help keep your data secure, third-party solutions often go further, bridging the platform divide to protect your Mac, iPhone, Windows PC, and Android devices with one subscription.

McAfee is one of the best antivirus solutions for Windows, but Macs run macOS and use M-series processors that are quite different from PC chips. I reviewed McAfee on my MacBook Air to test how well it integrates and how much protection it provides.

Tiers and pricing

McAfee offers several price tiers for Mac owners, but its free antivirus app only works on Windows. However, prices start at a very affordable $30 per year and a 30-day free trial, so you can check that it suits your needs before committing.

There are some great free antivirus apps for the Mac, so you can get by without paying if you only need the basics. A subscription is usually worthwhile for more comprehensive protection.

For example, an annual $36 McAfee Essential subscription supports up to five devices running macOS, iOS, Windows, and Android. The $45 McAfee+ Premium plan covers unlimited devices and adds an uncapped VPN, privacy monitoring, and social media alerts.

McAfee+ Advanced ($80) and McAfee+ Ultimate ($200) include identity theft insurance, ransomware coverage, financial monitoring, and more. It’s important to note that these are prices for the first year and renewal rates could be significantly higher.

McAfee family subscriptions cover two adults with parental controls to add free child accounts. The price is less than buying two personal plans, helping to reduce group costs considerably.

Design

McAfee+ Premium for Mac comes with the McAfee Total Protection app. I downloaded the DMG, opened the installer, and gave it the required permissions to protect my MacBook. The McAfee Total Protection app gave a brief overview of the features as it synced my account and checked for app updates.

McAfee gave a tour of the app, showing the at-a-glance protection status, how to activate more features, and how to get help. I went through the list of suggestions at the top to clear the red warning status.

I selected the big blue button to switch on the firewall, but it didn’t work. I suspected the macOS firewall was interfering, so I switched it off and tried again with no success. I skipped that step to resolve it later with customer support.

McAfee Total Protection needed disk access and this time, the blue button worked, popping to the right section of System Settings to toggle switches for four McAfee apps. However, I only found two of the four mentioned and something called McAfee Network Extension. I enabled all three and made another note to ask support about the two missing apps and the extra extension.

I ran a full scan, proceeding with setup while it continued to seek malware in the background. A note advised me the scan could take as long as 48 hours. Next, I set up identity protection, an online and dark web scan for my email address, and switched on McAfee’s virtual private network (VPN). For some reason, it defaulted to a server in Argentina.

I selected a closer location so my internet speed wasn’t too slow, but the app crashed. I decided to restart my MacBook to get a clean start since I had multiple unexpected events. The missing disk access toggles for GenUtility and VShieldScanner appeared. I switched them on and tried the VPN again. This time I was able to select the correct country without a crash.

Soon after, the virus scan finished, taking only half an hour to verify my MacBook’s 256GB internal SSD was clean. With everything but the firewall working, I tried the help button. The help guide that opened didn’t have any useful tips to fix the firewall issue.

The app design is nice, but I had several glitches during setup and ultimately, I had to reach out to support to get everything working.

Features

McAfee+ Premium comes with a password manager, VPN, and identity theft protection, which are nice extras. However, the primary purpose of antivirus software is to protect my computer and data from hackers and malware.

I can do spot checks to test for obvious weaknesses but independent cybersecurity research labs are more thorough. I checked AV-Test and AV-Comparatives to see how well McAfee for Mac scored.

Unfortunately, the newest tests were four years old. From 2018 to 2020, McAfee Endpoint Security scored a perfect six for protection with a minor miss in 2017 dropping the rating to 5.5. That’s encouraging, but old tests aren’t really relevant to current threats.

If you want the assurance of rigorous third-party testing, Bitdefender for Mac has earned a nearly perfect record for the past seven years. Norton’s Mac antivirus software is equally impressive.

AV-Test had up-to-date information when I reviewed McAfee’s Windows app, showing a perfect protection rating over the last four years. All signs suggest McAfee+ Premium should offer reliable antivirus protection.

I used Wicar’s malware test website to get hands-on feedback on McAfee’s effectiveness on my MacBook. McAfee+ Premium’s Total Protection app and WebAdvisor browser extension successfully blocked all browser exploits. The software also detected and quarantined all infected downloads. That’s 13 threats neutralized.

I also tested the VPN included with McAfee+ Premium. I measured around 200Mbps on most servers, which is fast enough for browsing and downloads, but it might not be the best choice for streaming. I had a choice of 48 countries, but when I selected the U.K., BBC’s iPlayer still detected I was accessing the website from another country.

Support

McAfee+ Premium includes 24/7 support via live chat, so I knew I could get further help to resolve the problem I had with setting up the firewall. First, I searched for the answer and found a solution that required installing an extension, removing McAfee Total Protection, and starting over from the beginning.

I selected the chat button in the bottom right of McAfee’s support center and suffered for a moment with the chatbot before asking for a human. I had to supply my account email and phone number to proceed. An agent joined immediately and asked how they could help.

Within a few minutes, McAfee support offered a much easier solution. It turned out there was one more extension to enable. This critical step wasn’t mentioned during setup and was buried three layers deep in System Settings.

Unfortunately, the first agent stopped responding. I refreshed the page and someone else came on to help. Perhaps switching on the extension interrupted my connection. Overall, support was fast and helpful.

Privacy and security

McAfee’s privacy policy allows it to share some data with third-party advertisers. That said, I’ve been on McAfee’s list for three months and haven’t noticed any spam or ad tracking increase.

You can use McAfee’s opt-out request form to stop sharing that data if it concerns you.

McAfee’s internal security seems good — I couldn’t find any record of a McAfee data breach. Your personal and financial information should be safe from hackers.

McAfee protects all your devices

McAfee+ Premium for Mac is a complete cybersecurity solution that includes malware prevention and protection, a fast VPN, a password manager, and more. The company has recently added AI enhancements to block test scams on mobile devices.

In my spot tests, McAfee protected my MacBook. Unfortunately, security researchers haven’t verified its effectiveness in ongoing tests across a wide range of threats.

I found a recent support document about the firewall setup problem, so McAfee is aware of the issue. Installation bugs should be resolved immediately since it’s the customer’s first introduction to the software.

I had doubts about McAfee’s commitment to the Mac at that moment. However, McAfee support quickly resolved the problem and everything seemed good after that fix.

Price-wise, McAfee is one of the best deals on antivirus software. Just watch out for price increases when it’s time to renew.

For more options, check out our guide to the best antivirus software, which summarizes our reviews of several top cybersecurity solutions.