ESET Home Security Premium Review: Excellent protection, but there are bugs

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Essential: $49.99 per year per device; Premium: $79.99 per year per device.

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There is intention and there is execution, and sometimes they don't always go together perfectly but still produce an impressive result. This is the case with ESET Home Security Premiumthe latest offering from Slovakian security firm ESET.

ESETcontinuing its penetration of the Mac market, has slightly updated its offerings for 2025. The new version, which retails for $39.99/£27.99 and up per device for one year at the introductory price, requires macOS 10.12 (Sierra) or later to install and run, and free 30-day trial There is a period that does not require you to enter a credit or debit card, although you will have to set up an ESET account.

The software is based on an antivirus engine that protects against malware and also has VPN client it's designed to get you up and running quickly without the hassle of settings that VPN users sometimes face.

If there's a major hurdle to ESET Home Security Premium, it came early, and while downloading the software from ESET's website was easy enough, installation became a hassle. (And what was confusing was that the name of the software changed to ESET Cyber ​​Security).

The software installs a number of extensions, proxies, and modules into macOS that you must obtain permission for, making setup a little more manual than you might expect, unlike a typical software installation. Once permission was granted for everything involved, the software encountered a strange error when installing its SSL certificate, requiring troubleshooting, a workaround using a Terminal command, and a reinstall to allow the certificate to pass through and normal web traffic to resume.

This required some tweaking and may be a unique case or something more widespread; Developers should pay attention to this if it comes up again.

When it comes to the basics, ESET Home Security Premium knocks it out of the park. Virus and malware protection offers a standard scan mode, a custom scan mode, and allows you to send virus samples to ESET to help identify viruses and suggest updates to protect against them. [Find out how ESET compares to the best Mac Antivirus apps in our group test].

The scan engine is capable of performing multiple simultaneous scans (for example, a regular scan and a custom scan of a specific folder or external volume), and this feature provides support for scanning .zip and .dmg files, but must be configured as part of a deeper scan.

As for the scan results themselves, they're impressive, and almost nothing from the extensive library of samples failed, save for a few instances where you had to jump through multiple warning screens and bypass macOS-level system protections to run virus and malware samples.

The software itself plays well with macOS Gatekeeper and Xprotect features, catching almost everything before it can install and disrupt your system's functionality.

In addition to this, the scan essentially destroys the vast majority of malware samples once it is unpacked, offering little in the way of fighting potential virus and malware infections, which turned out to be impressive.

Foundry

ESET seems to have heard the clarion call for its Protection module, and among the many extensions the software installs, it offers computer protection, network access protection, and web and email protection, which, for the first time I've ever seen, was able to defeat 1,000s of spam and phishing emails from the Spam folder in my Gmail.

Here, the software provided adequate warnings about links from questionable spam and phishing websites, but still allowed you to navigate to the site if you wanted to. Sites offering free power tools that I won? There was a warning about this. Sites telling me I had a $17,000 Cash App payment that I didn't know about? There was a warning. Websites offering dubious access to medicine and casinos? There was a warning, and it turned out to be truly impressive.

ESET's VPN client may seem a bit basic compared to the dedicated client, but it beats it in terms of reliability and ease of use. Proxy settings are useful; There's a general internet kill switch if needed, as well as simple geolocation options to select the country and region you're logging in from. This may not appease the avid VPN user who wants more features, but for everyday use it's impressive.

Foundry

ESET's settings seem a little hidden, but they're actually quite impressive and give you enormous control over the modules, their performance, the severity of blocking and filters, firewall settings, what exclusions/whitelists you can create, and how external volumes are recognized and handled on your Mac.

The settings are well categorized, and there's a significant amount of control here if you decide to take a few minutes and play with things. This is coupled with an easy-to-access Help and Support module that provides quick access to ESET Help, technical support and knowledge base, and serves as a useful starting point for navigating to specific areas of the ESET website.

Apart from installation shortcomings and SSL certificate issues, ESET Home Security Premium installs easily and works well, although there are a few things to watch out for. Scanning and deleting .dmg and .zip seems a little strange as the scan detected them but seemed to be handled differently, which could perhaps be adjusted in the settings.

The settings themselves are a powerful part of the program, but seem hidden and a short introduction/guide can easily point them out and encourage the user to adjust them as needed. The scheduler feature, hidden in settings, supposedly allows scanning and other functions to be programmed and executed, but has not activated after two tests, which is surprising and could stand some debugging.

If there's anything special about ESET Home Security Premium, it's that it's a powerful set of tools, but without enough of the polish needed to become a must-buy utility.

The settings felt hidden under layers, drawing little attention to them and what they were capable of, the installer offered a semi-battle royale to get the SSL certificate up and running, the app's scheduler feature felt hidden away and didn't run during testing, and despite the incredibly powerful antivirus, malware, spam and phishing protection element, the app needs some debugging while ESET itself needs to decide what tools to provide to the user instead of choosing minimal simplicity in the main screen interface.

In the end, ESET Home Security Premium is impressive and worth a try, and some of its features are as impressive as I've ever seen, but it does require some tuning and polishing to get over the final hurdle. However, with a free 30-day trial and no need to enter a credit or debit card, it might be worth a try to see how it fits into your daily Mac lifestyle.

Is ESET Home Security Premium worth buying?

Some bugs and rough edges aside, ESET Home Security Premium offers impressive value with its tough security features. Elements like antivirus and malware detection, email filtering, and commendable integration with macOS's own security systems provide excellent performance, and the simple but powerful VPN client offers everything everyday users need. This, combined with the 30-day trial, allows for a good evaluation period without having to provide payment information.