Shortlists by use case

Best Antivirus, By Scenario

Curated top picks for free budgets, home users, small business fleets, and every major platform.

Best antivirus

Best Antivirus for Mac

macOS ships with solid baseline defenses, but these suites add real-time scanning, phishing protection, and network monitoring on top.

Best antivirus

Battery draw and permission auditing matter more than raw signature count on a locked-down mobile OS.

Best antivirus

iOS's sandboxing limits what any app can scan, so the strongest iPhone suites focus on Wi-Fi safety, web protection, and…

Best antivirus

Windows remains the most-targeted desktop OS, so detection depth and performance impact both matter more here than anywhere else.

Best antivirus

Idle CPU numbers look great on a spec sheet — what actually matters is the hit you take during a…

Best antivirus

You don't have to pay for solid baseline protection. These are the strongest free tiers and trials we've tested, ranked…

Best antivirus

Robust real-time protection with native performance optimizations built for everyday laptops and desktops.

Best antivirus

Centralized visibility and low per-endpoint overhead matter more than consumer extras once you are securing a fleet.