There’s intent, and there’s execution, and sometimes the two don’t always mesh perfectly, but still yield an impressive result. This is the case with ESET Home Security Premium, the latest offering from Slovakian security firm ESET.

ESET, which is continuing its foray into the Mac marketplace, has subtly updated its offerings for 2025. The new version, which retails for $39.99/£27.99 and up for one device for one year at an introductory price point, requires macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or later to install and run, and a free 30-day trial period is in place that doesn’t require a credit or debit card to be entered, albeit you’ll have to set up an ESET account.

The software is centered on its antiviral/anti-malware core and also features a VPN client that’s designed to get you up and running quickly without battling with the settings VPN users sometimes find themselves tied up with.

If there’s a poignant obstacle to ESET Home Security Premium, it came early, and while it was easy enough to download the software from the ESET website, installation turned into a struggle. (And it was confusing that the software name switched to ESET Cyber Security).

The software installs a number of extensions, proxies, and modules into macOS, which have to be granted permission, making the setup a bit more manual than might be expected, as opposed to a typical software installation. Once permission was granted for everything involved, the software hit a strange bug in installing its SSL certificate, which required troubleshooting, a Terminal command workaround, and reinstallation to allow the certificate to pass through and for normal web traffic to resume.

This took some finagling, and perhaps it’s a unique case or something more widespread; it’s something for the developers to take a look at should it surface again.

Where its core elements are concerned, ESET Home Security Premium knocks it out of the park. The antiviral/anti-malware function offers a typical scan mode, a custom scan mode, and allows you to submit viral samples to ESET to help identify viruses and offer updates to protect against them. [Find out how ESET compares to the best Mac Antivirus apps in our group test].

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Scanning the computer

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Foundry

The scanning module is capable of multiple simultaneous scans (such as a typical scan and a custom scan on a specific folder or external volume), and the feature offers both .zip and .dmg file format scan support, but has to be configured within a deeper scan. 

As for the scan results themselves, these are impressive, and next to nothing out of an extensive sample library was in a position to get through outside of a few instances where you’d have to go through multiple warning screens and bypass macOS-level system protections to execute virus and malware samples.

The software itself meshes well with the macOS’ Gatekeeper and Xprotect functions, pinning down just about everything before it has a chance to install itself and upend your system functionality.

In addition to this, the scan essentially nukes the vast majority of the sample malware after it was decompressed, offering little to work with in the way of potential viral and malware infections, which proved impressive. 

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Foundry

ESET seems to have heard the clarion call where its Protections module was concerned, and amidst the multitude of extensions the software installs, the software offers Computer, Network Access, and Web and Email protections, which, for the first time I’ve ever seen, were able to bat 1,000 on spam and phishing emails from my Gmail’s Spam folder.

Here, the software provided adequate warnings as to links from questionable spam and phishing websites, but still allowed you to travel to the site if you wanted to. The sites offering free power tools that I’d won? There was a warning about this. The sites telling me I had a $17,000 Cash App payment that I didn’t know about? There was a warning. Websites offering questionable medical and casino access? The warning was there, and this proved genuinely impressive.

ESET’s VPN client may be somewhat bare-bones compared to a dedicated client, but it excels in terms of reliability and ease of use. The proxy settings are useful; there’s an overall internet kill switch if needed, as well as easy geolocation options to choose the country and region you’re logging in from. This may not appease the hardcore VPN user who needs more extensive options, but it’s impressive for everyday use.

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