For those who need extensive antivirus protection without the frills, ESET Home Security is a good option that is also affordable. The Premium tier offers unusual features such as a gamer mode (which disables antivirus protection interruptions), parental filters, deep virus scanning tools, and a unique antitheft service. ESET Home Security should probably be more well-known than it is.
Part of the reason it’s not in the same league as some of the best antivirus software available has to do with both the features and the interface being fairly complex. The Premium tier is also conspicuously missing a VPN client, which is included with ESET Ultimate. While upgrading to Ultimate is more expensive it does include identity theft protection.
That means ESET Premium is caught in the middle -- you either choose a tier that doesn’t include a VPN (Premium version which covers 5 devices for $56 a year as an entry price) or pay more for the VPN and identity theft features (the Ultimate version which costs $126 a year to cover the same five devices). Another cold hard truth is that our overall top pick, Bitdefender Total Security, has more extensive antivirus protection for almost the same price.
For this review, we tested ESET Premium, but we’ll cover what you get with ESET’s other products as well.
ESET review: Costs and what’s covered
Essential |
Premium |
Ultimate |
|
Price |
$50 |
$60 |
$180 (five devices) |
VPN |
No |
No |
Yes |
Password manager |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Parental controls |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Webcam protection |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Identity protection |
No |
No |
Yes |
ESET offers three tiers for its Home security products.
Premium costs $49 currently for three devices if you pay annually (but that’s only for the first year). This is cheaper than both Norton 360 Deluxe and McAfee+ Premium, which are over $100 per year, and about $15 cheaper than Bitdefender Total Security (which costs $79.99 for the first year). ESET Premium is $79.99 after the first year pricing expires while Bitdefender jumps up to $139.99 after the first year deal.
The caveat with all of this is that ESET Premium does not include a VPN client. That’s a glaring omission since the only tier that includes the VPN also happens to include identity theft protection as well, which makes it both pricier and hard to compare to other antivirus programs. ESET Ultimate costs $126 for first year annual pricing, then $179.99 the second year. While other antivirus apps like Norton 360 also include identity theft protection, they are about the same price.
Fortunately, ESET Premium does include other frequently needed features like a password manager and parental filtering, ransomware protection (but not cloud back-ups), and a few interesting but useful extras, such as an antitheft system that notifies you if your computer was stolen and even allows you to capture a webcam image and look up the IP address to determine the device location.
ESET review: Antivirus features and performance
ESET Premium does offer extensive antivirus protection that goes far beyond the basics. You can do a quick scan or perform a custom scan. Unlike other antivirus apps, the custom scan isn’t just for selecting specific files and folders. Instead, it’s where you can choose to perform an “in-depth” scan that searches every last file on your computer including boot sector files.
Surprisingly, the more you dig into the app the more security protection you’ll find. For example, the ESET ThreatSense feature monitors the boot sector of your computer and actively scans for threats, comparing signature files against a database of known attacks (a feature known as ESET LiveGrid). But ESET Premium also scans for any suspicious activity using what ESET calls Deep Behavior Inspection. This is a more powerful form of antivirus scanning because it looks for suspicious activity, as opposed to just comparing files to a database.
Another feature called the Host Intrusion Protection System or HIPS provides some self-defense for ESET itself, preventing someone from tampering with the app. Ransomware Shield looks for suspicious app behavior and blocks access in real-time. There are also settings to protect against botnets, brute force attacks, and network-based attacks.
ESET Premium is a light and speedy app. During our testing, the quick scans only took about five minutes to find 300,000 files on the same PC used to test other antivirus apps which is comparable to other antivirus programs; Bitdefender's quick scan typically only ran for a few minutes. The in-depth scan took around 30 minutes and scanned about 750,000 files. ESET did not scan some lower-level system files that Bitdefender Total Security found. In fact, Bitdefender scanned around 1.5M files total in about the same amount of time that ESET did a full scan.
In independent testing, ESET performed well overall: During AV-Test’s May-June 2025 Protection testing, ESET scored a 6 out of 6 when it came to protection against zero-day malware attacks including web and email threats, and in detection of widespread and prevalent malware discovered in the last four weeks. In AV Comparatives March 2025 Malware Protection Test, ESET scored a 99.95% blocking 10,025 files and only producing 6 false alarms.
ESET Premium antivirus: Other features
Beyond all of the extensive antivirus protection features, ESET Premium does include many additional security tools. For example, it’s one of the few products we’ve tested that includes a full parental filter that can block a full range of harmful content from adult-oriented sites to deepfakes. The service allows you to select categories to filter and set the age limit for your kids. This makes it more useful than other parental controls that only allow you to limit screen time or block search terms.
The password manager is useful and performed adequately, even if it seems more like a browser extension that you might find online for free. The service can generate complex multi-character passwords, store credit card numbers, and provides a security report showing how many passwords you have saved, whether you are using two-factor authentication, and if your saved logins have been leaked.
Other features include the browser protections: a privacy and security extension that helps distinguish between safe and unsafe sites, and a secure browser mode that can help protect against keylogging and keep financial transactions safe. While again, there is no VPN, there is a firewall, as well as an antispam feature for your email, a file encryption feature, a Wi-Fi blocker that protects your home router and smart home devices, an anti-theft feature to track missing or stolen laptops and more. ESET Premium can also block your webcam and alerts you when an app like Microsoft Teams asks for permission to access the webcam.
ESET Premium antivirus: Interface
One reason ESET Premium did not score quite as high as competing products is that the interface is a bit complex and feels dated. Many of the antivirus scanning features are buried in an advanced settings menu which makes them time consuming to track down. There are very few graphical cues in the app, and even finding the in-depth scan option took time because it is located in the custom scanning section. (Most antivirus apps make it more obvious how you can do a quick scan or a full scan.)
That said, we do credit ESET in making the interface “light” in the sense that the app has a slim and text based interface that meant it was not bogged down with added graphics or images. It performed fast and well during use and while a few visual cues would have helped, at least you can find most of the features with some digging.
ESET Premium antivirus: Support
ESET offers phone support during limited hours: Monday–Friday from 6AM to 5PM PST. Email support is 24-hours and requires making a support ticket. Chat support varies but appears to function during normal business hours only. The extensive knowledge base allows you to find answers to common issues. From within the app, there’s an AI-based chat agent as well.
ESET Premium antivirus: Verdict
In the end, ESET Premium does offer an impressive set of antivirus tools, and the price is reasonable compared to some of our top picks such as McAfee+ Premium and Bitdefender Total Security. We wish the Premium version included a VPN, because the upgrade to the Ultimate version that includes that service costs more than every other antivirus app (even if Ultimate also includes identity threat protection). The interface is a bit confusing to use, but overall the security features are easily on par -- if a little less powerful -- than similar apps.
