A new PC almost always comes with antivirus protection installed; a new Mac, not so much. If you want antivirus protection for your Mac, you must install it yourself. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus for Mac doesn’t have the abundance of bonus features its Windows equivalent does, but unlike many macOS-focused competitors, it goes well beyond the minimum in its protective capabilities. Among other things, it comes with VPN protection, online tracker blocking, and protection against ransomware. Independent labs give it excellent marks in testing, and so do our tests. Like Norton 360 Deluxe, it earns our Editors’ Choice award for Mac antivirus.
Getting Started With Bitdefender Antivirus Plus for Mac
As with the Windows edition, your path to Bitdefender protection starts with the Bitdefender Central dashboard online. Create or log into your account, activate your license key, and you’re ready. You can download the app or send a link in an email to protect another device. If you’re new to Bitdefender, a simple tour takes you through essential features.
Do follow the recommendations displayed in the AutoPilot banner across the top. Among other tasks, you’ll enable ransomware remediation and protection for your Time Machine backups. You'll also want to protect your browsers by enabling the Traffic Light browser extension, which identifies dangerous links in search results, and the Anti-tracker feature, which prevents advertisers from profiling you on the web.
The main window of the macOS antivirus almost precisely duplicates that of Bitdefender Antivirus Plus on Windows. You see a simple menu at the left and the AutoPilot recommendations banner at the top. Below are five button panels: Quick Scan, System Scan, Antivirus for Mac, Safe Files, and Web Protection. The Windows edition has six buttons: Quick Scan, System Scan, Vulnerability Scan, VPN, Safepay, and Add a quick action. That last one lets you configure the buttons so they launch the security features you use the most.
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Where the Windows edition’s menu links to pages for Protection, Privacy, and Utilities, the macOS version just has Protection and Privacy. You can launch a quick, full, or custom scan from the Protection page. This is also where you check your quarantined files and manage browser extensions. The Privacy page is fully devoted to the VPN and Anti-tracker components (more about them later).
As with the Windows edition, Bitdefender on the Mac defaults to running in Autopilot mode, making all necessary security decisions without unnecessarily hassling the user with questions. Also, as on Windows, AutoPilot goes beyond merely making decisions. It uses a panel in the main window for recommendations to ensure you take advantage of all the available features.
How Much Does Bitdefender Antivirus Plus for Mac Cost?
For $49.99 per year, you can install Bitdefender on a single Mac, the same price as Intego Mac Internet Security. The most common one-Mac price is just under $40; CleanMyMac, G Data, Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac, ESET, and Webroot all match that price. You pay $69.99 per year for a three-license Bitdefender subscription, a bit more than Malwarebytes and a bit less than F-Secure.
Avast, Avira, and AVG all have free versions, which is handy if you didn't budget for antivirus on your macOS devices. Sorry, Mac users, but Bitdefender’s free antivirus is strictly for Windows. At the other end of the price spectrum, Norton costs $119.99 per year for five licenses. Note, though, that Norton is a full suite, and that subscription gets you no-limits VPN protection for your five devices and 50GB of hosted online backup for your Windows boxes.
Norton is fully cross-platform and, with this year’s edition, so is Bitdefender. You can use your three licenses on Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS devices. I discuss the additional platforms in my review of the Windows product.
It's Surprisingly Easy to Be More Secure Online
If your Mac is brand new, it has the latest and greatest operating system. Even if it’s just new-ish, you’ve probably kept up with upgrades. But if you're stuck running an older macOS version, your need for antivirus is even greater. Like ClamXav and Panda, Bitdefender works on anything from Yosemite (version 10.10 of macOS) to the current edition. Many competitors require a more recent version. For example, Norton supports the current version and the two previous, while Webroot supports the current and three previous.
Perfect Lab Test Scores
I have an elaborate set of hand-coded tools, developed over many years, that help in hands-on Windows antivirus testing. On a Mac, those tools do exactly nothing. I can run a few tests manually, but I rely heavily on reports from the major labs. Four of the labs I follow report on Windows antivirus apps, and two of those also evaluate Mac apps.
Both testing labs I follow for macOS antivirus include Bitdefender in their reports, and both give it their top scores. In the latest test by AV-Comparatives, most programs achieved 100% success protecting against Mac-specific malware. Intego didn’t quite reach the top, earning 99.10%.
Because a Mac can act as a carrier for malware that attacks Windows, the researchers also check how well each antivirus detects Windows threats. Bitdefender managed 100% in this test, as did most tested antivirus tools.
Just as with Windows antivirus tools, the experts at AV-Test Institute rate apps on protection, performance, and usability, assigning up to six points in each category. Bitdefender aced all three tests for a perfect score of 18 points, as did most competing antiviruses. Total AV lost a half-point for too many false positives, and Intego dropped a full point for imperfect protection. Avast, AVG, and Bitdefender earned perfect scores from both labs.
Scanning With Bitdefender for Mac
ESET Cyber Security for Mac, Intego, Trend Micro, and others include an automatic scheduler for regular scans. Bitdefender omits this feature because its real-time protection should catch any new malware before a scheduled scan could. That means it's important to run a full System Scan as soon as you've installed the antivirus to ensure nothing infected your Mac while it was unprotected.
A full scan with Bitdefender took over two hours, about three times as long as when last tested and about four times the current average. That initial scan clearly performed some kind of optimization, as a repeat scan finished in just six minutes. The initial scan with CleanMyMac, Sophos Home Premium for Mac, and Webroot Antivirus for Mac finished in less than five minutes. Running a quick scan, which looks for active malware and checks system areas typically used by malware, took Bitdefender just over a minute.
All the Mac antivirus utilities we've reviewed recently promise to detect and remove Windows malware, too, so your Mac doesn't become a Typhoid Mary, passing infections to your Windows boxes.
During my last review, Bitdefender immediately (and silently) started eliminating my Windows malware samples as soon as I opened their containing folder. This time around, I found I needed to drag that folder onto the app for a custom scan. The scan detected and quarantined 82% of them, including all ransomware samples. Others have done better—Avast’s Mac antivirus wiped out 97%, for example. But again, these samples can’t possibly infect your Mac directly.
Excellent Phishing Protection
Viruses, Trojans, and other malware are necessarily locked to a specific operating system. As noted, Windows malware won’t run on a Mac, and the reverse is also true. Phishing websites, by contrast, are completely platform-agnostic. It doesn’t matter if you’re browsing on a Mac, a game console, or an internet-connected ice crusher. If you log into a fake financial website, you’ve given away your credentials to the fraudsters. Yes, these fakes get blacklisted and terminated quickly, but the perpetrators just pop up with new ones.
To test how well an antivirus utility protects against phishing scams, I start by collecting the newest phishing URLs I can find on the web, with an eye out for those that haven't made it onto blacklists. Whether I’m testing a Windows or macOS antivirus, I use a hand-coded test utility to simultaneously launch each URL in Windows instances of Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, relying on each browser's built-in fraud protection. I use the same utility when testing a Windows antivirus. As for testing on the Mac, well, just as Windows malware runs only on Windows, so does my utility. On the Mac, testing involves a lot of fancy cut-and-paste button-mashing between the list of phishing URLs and the browser's Address bar.
I tested this edition simultaneously with Bitdefender’s Windows version, and the two performed in lockstep, both reaching 99% detection. Avast, AVG, Malwarebytes, and Norton also reached 99% in their most recent antiphishing Mac-based tests, while McAfee Total Protection for Mac and Trend Micro top the list with 100%. All the rest scored lower than Bitdefender.
Traffic Light and Web Protection
If you try to navigate to a fake or dangerous site, Bitdefender's Web Protection steers you back to safety. As the test results above show, this protection is quite effective.
The Traffic Light browser extension (for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari) adds another layer of protection. It marks up search results, using green and red icons to identify safe and dangerous links. If you stay away from red-light links, you should be safe. Even if you do slip up and click a bad link, Bitdefender will steer your browser away from it.
Hovering the mouse over a red icon displays a popup explaining the rating, and clicking the red icon opens a page with detailed information about why the link is dangerous. You get a laundry list of reasons, with relevant icons highlighted. In most cases, it's phishing or malware, but other reasons include Facebook scams, sending unsolicited emails, and piracy.
Flexible, Effective Anti-Tracker
Every time you visit a web page, the site gets a boatload of information about you, but it’s not just the page you chose that gets this data dump. Any ads or third-party components on the page get your info, too. Advertisers and other trackers use this data to track your online habits, creating a profile they can use to target you or sell to others. Web standards bodies have defined a Do Not Track header your browser can send to say, “No tracking, please.” And trackers routinely ignore this powerless header because it’s just a request.
Like Traffic Light, Bitdefender’s Anti-tracker browser extension supports Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. In Chrome and Firefox, when you visit a site that contains ad trackers, site analytics trackers, or other trackers, Bitdefender puts the number of trackers on the extension's toolbar icon. By default, its active Do Not Track system blocks them all. You can click for a summary by category, which includes an estimate of the page load time saved. You can disable blocking for specific categories, too.
The Safari version of the extension works a bit differently. It doesn't overlay the number of trackers on the toolbar icon, list categories, or let you fine-tune blocking by category. You'll find similar Do Not Track functionality in various security tools, including Avast One Basic for Mac and Trend Micro Antivirus for Mac.
Ransomware Protection Keeps Files Safe
Ransomware is a never-ending threat, and dedicated ransomware protection is becoming a must for top antivirus programs. Some add a monitoring layer that looks for behavior that suggests encrypting ransomware. Others, Bitdefender included, hinder ransomware activity by limiting access to files in the folders typically affected by ransomware.
A ransomware attack doesn't aim to disable your computer. The perpetrators know you'll need a working computer if you decide to pay up. Ransomware attacks documents, images, and other personal files, working in the background until dirty deeds are done. Bitdefender's Safe Files feature defaults to protecting your Desktop, Documents, Downloads, and Pictures folder. You can add any other folders in which you routinely keep important documents. Of course, you’ll want to add that same set of folders for any other users of the Mac.
Known and trusted applications can access your files just as they always would, but when an unknown program attempts to create or modify files in a protected folder, Safe Files prevents the change and pops up a warning. If you recognize the program, if it's something you're actively using, you can add it to the trusted list. If not, let Bitdefender keep blocking the attack.
Signed apps from the App Store are trusted automatically, so I had to dig up an untrusted app to test this feature. When I tried to modify a protected file, Bitdefender correctly blocked its access and popped up a warning. The warning message gave me the option to keep blocking the app or add it to the trusted list. When I chose to keep blocking, it prevented the app from saving any changes.
Savvy Mac users know Time Machine keeps regular backups, theoretically allowing recovery from ransomware. Did your files get encrypted by ransomware? Just restore from backup! However, since the Time Machine backup drive is often left connected to the Mac, there's a faint possibility your backups could also be compromised by ransomware. Just as it prevents unauthorized access to your documents, Bitdefender also protects your Time Machine files.
Feature-Limited VPN
Bitdefender's many layers of antivirus, web, and network protection keep you, your devices, and your data safe. However, your privacy could be at risk when you connect to the internet. A VPN (virtual private network) can help. When you connect using a VPN, nobody, not your ISP or even the owner of the shady Wi-Fi network you're using, can see your network traffic, and you'll be harder to track as you move across the web.
The VPN that comes with Bitdefender for Mac limits you to 200MB of bandwidth per day, and it doesn’t let you select a VPN server by location. If you want to remove those limits, you must pay for Bitdefender Premium VPN, which lists for $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year.
The Bitdefender VPN looks nearly identical to its Windows equivalent. A button at the lower left lets you choose a server location, and panels stacked down the right-hand side offer information such as connection time, ads and trackers blocked, and the amount of upstream and downstream data secured by the VPN. Just click the big button to connect or disconnect.
The Locations button reveals available server locations, but only Premium users can select anything other than the app-selected default. Basic users also see a counter at the top right showing how much of the current day’s 200MB of bandwidth remains. For test purposes, I watched nine minutes of a two-hour video and blew through three-quarters of my daily allowance. The bandwidth-limited edition gives you a taste of VPN functionality, but that’s all.
Bitdefender’s VPN includes a kill switch feature, meaning if the VPN connection drops, it cuts the unprotected internet connection until the VPN returns online. Blocking ads and trackers is an optional feature. It doesn’t replace the anti-tracker browser extension but rather keeps other programs from connecting to tracker-related domains.
As on Windows, you get an unusually comprehensive collection of Autoconnect options. You can configure the VPN to connect automatically when you start the system, log into unsecured Wi-Fi, or use peer-to-peer sharing. You can also configure the VPN for split tunneling, meaning that your system will always connect directly to websites you specify rather than routing their traffic through the VPN.
Streaming services like Netflix don’t get along with VPNs because VPN users can spoof their device location to circumvent location-based content limitations. Premium users get access to servers specially configured to support streaming (and avoid being caught).
In previous years, Bitdefender licensed VPN technology from Aura’s Hotspot Shield VPN, and the Mac edition was locked into using Aura’s proprietary Catapult Hydra VPN protocol. Bitdefender has switched its licensing partnership to IPVanish VPN, and Mac users now get more choices. (Editors' Note: IPVanish VPN is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company.) You can select WireGuard or one of two variations on OpenVPN, or let the VPN choose. WireGuard and OpenVPN are modern options, and as they’re both open-source projects, they’ve been scrutinized by all interested parties. We like to see VPNs using these two protocols.
A major concern with using a VPN is its impact on internet connection speeds. Using the Ookla Speedtest tool, we find a percent change between speed measurements with and without the VPN. (Editors' Note: Speedtest by Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company.) When we last tested it, Bitdefender’s impact on the all-important download speed was slightly higher than the median of current VPNs, as was its impact on upload speed. It didn’t increase latency as much as most competitors, though. It’s important to remember variations in network traffic can affect speed test results. The fastest VPN today may not be the fastest tomorrow; the fastest VPN in New York may not be the fastest VPN in Las Vegas. We don’t recommend choosing a VPN on speed alone.
Unless you spring for a Premium VPN subscription, you’ll have to be sparing with your use of the VPN. As noted, using up your daily limit of 200MB doesn't take long, especially if you’re doing streaming or other data-intensive activities. Your best bet is to leave all the Autoconnect options off, connecting only during the most sensitive activities. Unlike the Windows edition, Bitdefender on the Mac doesn’t help out by suggesting that you enable the VPN when you visit websites matching categories such as Health, Financial, or Online Payments.
You might also consider Norton 360 Deluxe for Mac if you want powerful security that includes VPN protection. At $119.99 per year for five licenses, it's more expensive than Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, which charges $69.99 for three. However, with Norton, you get a full-featured VPN at no extra charge and 50GB of online storage for your backups. And Norton 360 goes beyond just antivirus for your Mac, with a firewall, a password manager, a backup system, and more.
Verdict: A Superlative Mac Protector
Bitdefender has long been a top name in Windows security software, and Bitdefender Antivirus Plus for Mac carries that tradition forward. Two labs certify its protection with perfect scores. In our own hands-on antiphishing test, Bitdefender beat all but a few Mac-based competitors. It also protects your files and backups against ransomware. This tool doesn't have the colossal collection of security bonus features found in its Windows equivalent, but it brings more to the table than most macOS competitors. As such, Bitdefender is an Editors' Choice for Mac antivirus alongside Norton 360 Deluxe, which offers a full-scale VPN without the limits Bitdefender imposes, but at a significantly higher price.
Bitdefender Antivirus Plus for Mac gets high marks in our own hands-on testing and from independent labs. You can set it, forget it, and have confidence that your Mac is protected.
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