The Best Security Suites for 2024 (2024)

• Perfect scores in independent antivirus lab tests
• Effective ransomware protection
• VPN included
• Full-featured parental control
• Many bonus features

• Parental content filter not fully effective
• VPN requires separate subscription to remove limits

Bitdefender’s standalone antivirus packs in more features than some self-proclaimed suites, and Bitdefender Internet Security piles on even more. The core antivirus technology consistently earns perfect and near-perfect scores from independent testing labs, and its ransomware-specific protection aced our tests. Other key features include a no-hassle firewall, a simple spam filter, password management, file shredding, a full-powered parental control system, and more. And it wraps all this protection in an AutoPilot system that lets you sit back and enjoy your protection with minimal interaction.

Bitdefender does include a VPN, but with limits. You can’t pick and choose among available servers, and you can only use 200MB of bandwidth per day. That’s enough to try out the VPN protection, but if you plan to make serious use of the VPN you’ll have to pay for an upgrade.

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• Award-winning antivirus
• VPN with no bandwidth or server limits
• Hosted online storage for backups
• Protection against dangerous and fraudulent websites
• Streamlined mobile apps
• Data-broker opt-out system
• Powerful, self-sufficient firewall

• Parental control unavailable on macOS
• Online backup strictly for Windows

When you buy a security suite, there’s an implied promise it will keep you safe. Norton 360 Deluxe makes that promise explicit. As long as you choose auto-renewal, you’ve got a guarantee Norton support will handle any malware that gets past the app’s protection. And that’s some powerful protection—the independent labs we follow frequently give Norton perfect to near-perfect scores. It also aces many of our hands-on tests.

This suite includes a robust, intelligent firewall, a basic password manager, and a local spam filter, as well as a dark web monitoring system to warn if your private data is exposed. Your subscription lets you protect up to five devices running Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS. It also gets you five full licenses for Norton’s VPN. That’s a rarity; many other suites make you pay extra to remove limits from their included VPN components. And the 50GB of online storage for your backups is a nice bonus.

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• Award-winning antivirus
• Protects Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS devices
• Online management and remote control
• Many bonus features, including VPN and system tune-up

• Full VPN access requires separate subscription
• Parental content filter not fully effective
• Support for iOS is limited

You almost certainly have security protection for your PCs, but have you protected your other devices? Bitdefender Total Security pours all the excellent, well-behaved features of Bitdefender Internet Security into your Windows boxes and goes on to offer protection for your macOS, Android, and iOS devices. It also kicks its Windows game up a notch with system optimization and an unusual anti-theft component.

You can manage your installations (or launch new ones) from the handy Bitdefender Central online console. When installing protection on a Mac, you get Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac, an Editors’ Choice in its own realm, and the same limited VPN you see in Windows. The password manager and parental control features also support macOS.

Installed on Android, Total Protection brings a comprehensive collection of security features. It scans for malware on demand and scans every new application. If you lose your phone, you can log in to Bitdefender Central and locate, lock, or wipe it. Scam Alert flags suspicious text messages, Web Protection fends off malicious and fraudulent web pages, App Lock adds a second PIN for your most sensitive apps, and Account Privacy checks known data breaches to see if your email was involved. This is an impressive Android app.

The same Apple-enforced strictures that make writing iOS malware difficult also interfere with creating security software for iOS. As with all cross-platform suites, Bitdefender’s iOS protection is relatively limited. You do get Account Privacy and the same limited VPN as on other platforms. However, there’s no antivirus component, nor does anti-theft make an appearance. Web Protection is limited. On the plus side, as long as you don’t enable Web Protection, your iOS installation doesn’t use up one of your licenses.

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• LifeLock identity theft mitigation
• Excellent device-level security protection
• Full VPN with no bandwidth limits
• Supports Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS
• Identity theft remediation guarantee

• Security protection is limited on iOS devices
• No parental control or backup for macOS
• Cannot actually prevent identity theft

Norton’s security software can protect your devices and your local data, but it can’t reach out into the real world and protect your identity. That’s why you want Norton 360 with LifeLock. This suite starts with everything we like about Norton 360 Deluxe and adds identity monitoring and identity theft remediation supplied by identity pioneer (and Norton property) LifeLock.

Once you’ve set up LifeLock, Norton monitors the dark web for any sign that your identity has been compromised. It tracks possible misuse of your SSN, unexpected new accounts in your name, and anomalous financial transactions. If you lose your wallet (or have it stolen), Norton can help deal with the fallout. You get periodic credit reports, along with help freezing your credit if necessary. And if the worst happens and your identity is stolen, Norton will spend up to a million dollars on remediating the theft.

At the basic Select level, this suite costs about $30 more than Norton 360 Deluxe alone, and you still get just five security suite licenses and five VPN licenses, though storage for your backups rises to 100GB. At the Advantage level, which costs $100 more per year, you get 10 of each license type and 250GB of storage, along with enhancements to monitoring and larger payouts for losses. Spend another $100 and you reach Ultimate Plus, which maxes out monitoring options and payouts and lets you install security suite and VPN protection on every device in your household.

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• Identity theft protection for you and five family members
• Device-level security for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows
• Excellent antivirus lab scores
• 24/7 support for all tech problems
• Thorough monitoring of credit and data breaches
• Dedicated resolution specialists help remediate identity theft

• Device-level protection limited on Android, more so on iOS
• Doesn't add much to security suite features available in free edition
• Cannot actually prevent identity theft

Instead of the typical geometric shapes, Avast One Platinum decorates its display with color splotches, doodles, and happy people. If you like top-notch lab scores, you’ll be happy too. The labs all keep an eye on Avast, and it earns perfect scores in almost all of them. It rates near the top in our hands-on tests, too, and its full scan is faster than most. If malware interferes with Windows itself, Avast’s boot-time scan takes care of it, and it balks ransomware by banning unauthorized file changes.

Antivirus protects your data locally, while a VPN protects it in transit. Avast’s VPN isn’t the most feature-rich, but you can use it with no limits. Among other unusual security features, Avast can protect sensitive documents from others, including other accounts on the same PC, prevent the use of the webcam by untrusted programs, and check to see if any of your passwords gotexposed in a breach.You also get a set of performance enhancement features liberated from the limits imposed in Avast’s free edition.

In addition to powerful device-level protection, the Platinum subscription includes identity theft protection for you and five family members. It alerts you to data breaches and other dangers, with easy access to dedicated resolution specialists and a promise to spend up to $2 million to remedy the damage. You also get concierge-level 24/7 support for all your tech problems.

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• Excellent price for family identity protection
• Global VPN coverage
• Good antivirus lab scores
• Cross-platform password manager

• Identity protection lacks advanced tracking
• Poor score in hands-on malware protection test
• Annoying firewall pop-ups
• Password manager lacks secure sharing and inheritance

Though ESET's blue-eyed cyborg mascot no longer graces its main window, ESET Home Security Ultimate still leans toward high technology. For example, it offers a Device Control system that gives you granular control over what device types and devices can connect to your PC. You could block USB drives in general but allow the use of those you’ve personally vetted, for example. This suite has a big set of security tools, some that are fine for all users and some that require serious tech expertise. Going beyond ESET's other suites, it offers a capable VPN and identity protection for the whole family.

An impressive Network Inspector lets you see all the devices connected to your network, with an option to get notified when new devices connect. It also checks your devices for security problems, such as ports open that shouldn’t be. Avast once boasted a similar feature but no longer does so. Other ESET features include a firewall, a spam filter, an anti-theft for laptops, webcam security, banking protection, and a limited parental control system.

As for the core antivirus protection, ESET earned very good test scores from two labs but tanked our malware protection test. On the positive side, it scored well when we tested its protection against malicious and fraudulent websites. ESET’s Android edition provides a comprehensive set of security features, and the labs give it top marks. On a Mac, ESET offers antivirus, firewall, parental control, and simplified device control.

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• Identity protection and remediation available
• Protects all devices in your household
• Helps remove abandoned online accounts
• Effective social media privacy control
• Excellent antivirus lab test scores
• No-limits VPN

• Missed one hand-modified real-world ransomware attack
• Familiar features no longer present
• Children's identity features limited in Family Plan

You've installed security on your PC, your Mac, and your mobile devices. But what about your partner’s devices and all those electronic devices that so enrapture your children? You could be looking at quite an expense to get them all secured. Unless that is, you turn to McAfee+. This generous suite lets you protect every device in your household, whether it runs Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS. It even supports Chromebooks and ARM-based laptops. That protection includes the use of McAfee’s VPN with no limits on bandwidth or server choices, as well as numerous security bonus features. Better still, the antivirus component aces our hands-on protection tests.

McAfee+ comes in three tiers: Premium, Advanced, and Ultimate. You get basic Dark Web monitoring of personal information at all three levels. The Advanced and Ultimate levels include full-scale identity theft monitoring and remediation, roughly parallel to Norton’s LifeLock. It doesn’t monitor quite as many different aspects of your identity, but it hits the important ones. And, like LifeLock, it comes with a guarantee. If you suffer identity theft, McAfee will spend up to a million dollars helping you to a full recovery.

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• Excellent scores in our phishing and malicious download tests
• Comprehensive Android security
• Protection for macOS beyond the basics
• Unusually feature-rich iOS protection
• Many useful security features

• Lab scores from perfect to dismal
• Poor score in hands-on malware protection test
• Parental control weak

What kind of security do you want for your devices? Maximum security, naturally! Trend Micro Maximum Security has you covered, with protection for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS devices. Three of the four antivirus testing labs we follow consider the Trend Micro antivirus engine important enough to merit examination, though it doesn’t always get the best scores. It did score very well in our hands-on tests defending against malware-hosting websites and phishing frauds.

On Windows, Trend Micro presents a wide array of features, among them multi-layered ransomware protection, protection for online transactions, a PC Health Checkup system, a scanner for privacy lapses in social media, an advanced encryption system for your sensitive documents, and a file shredder to securely delete originals after encryption. A few of its features aren’t quite as stellar. The parental control system is limited, password management handles just the basics, and spam filtering works only with Outlook. Even so, the collection of security features is impressive.

In cross-platform suites, it’s not uncommon for Windows to get all the goodies, leaving Macs with just a basic antivirus. Not so with Trend Micro. The macOS edition gets top scores from the testing labs. It scans for malware on access, on demand, and on schedule and also scans any removable drives you mount. Other features include ransomware protection, detection of web-based threats, prevention of misuse of the camera and mic, parental control, and the same social network scan as on Windows. Android users likewise get a feature-complete security suite, and it offers more protection than most on iOS devices.

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