Intego Mac Internet Security X9 Review

Among Mac users, Intego’s Virus Barrier antivirus scanner is well known because the solution was one of the first virus scanners on Mac.

Intego’s Mac Internet Security X9 is a collection of two security tools: VirusBarrier X9 and NetBarrier X9. The former’s job is self-explanatory, but the latter is a two-way firewall, a component you don’t often see included with security software at this price point. Together, they promise a high level of protection against direct and indirect threats from unwanted software and malware.

The app is often available at a discount, you can get the best deal by following this link for Mac Internet Security at $24.99/£23.99 for the first year, after which the usual price is $49.99/£49.99 per year. You can also buy Intego Mac Premium Bundle X9 for $39.99/£33.99 for the first year (with a normal retail price of $84.99/£84.99). This includes other tools like the Mac Washing Machine X9 system cleaning application, ContentBarrier X9 for parental controls, and Personal Backup 10.9.

Features

What VirusBarrier X9 does is quite comprehensive: it can scan all files on any connected disk, including compressed archives, and it can scan email and connected iOS devices. Suspicious files are quarantined, and these can then be marked as safe, left in quarantine, or attempted to be repaired. Repairs may leave the original file usable, or it may delete all of its data if it’s malware entirely, but it did a stellar job of finding threats on our Mac testbed.

With an antivirus, the quality of virus detection is crucial, but it is not only Mac virus protection that matters, Windows viruses must also be detected as an important function of the Mac scanner. Annoying adware, such as a malicious program that redirects your browser to advertising pages, should also be tracked down. Intego does all of this, with Windows virus detection improving a lot in recent years.

Malware definitions are frequently updated. You can install them automatically or just be notified when an update is available.

Unlike some competitors, Intego does not offer features such as VPN or identity protection.

Intego’s NetBarrier is the other part of the Internet Security suite. This has proven to be very effective in monitoring and reporting all outward and inward communication attempts; it is a two-way firewall that monitors “landline phone” attempts as well as intrusions.

You’ll be surprised how much of this net chatter continues. Adobe Creative Cloud was expected, but even Apple’s Pages wanted to have remote conversations. The vast majority of this is completely legitimate, but attempts are flagged and you can choose to allow them or not.

We would have liked there to be general information about connection attempts; sometimes process names can be alarmingly named despite being kosher. That said, the configuration options are really clear, and once you sort out what you’re happy to give away a free pass, it’s a very useful and unobtrusive network security tool.

Performance

In the June 2023 test by AV-Comparatives, Intego’s Anti-Virus Barrier received an “Approved” rating and showed good performance and improvement over previous years. According to AV-Comparitives, it detected a good 99.4% of Mac malware, 97% of PUAs (potentially unwanted programs) and 100% of Windows viruses, so it can be recommended without restriction. Other solutions beat Intego in AV-Comparatives’ leaderboard, including Avast, AVG and Trend Micro, but we have reason to prefer Intego over these options, which tend to fall short in other areas we think are important (like constantly announced upgrades and missing features). In our experience, Intego’s performance is very solid.

VirusBarrier detected all of our malware and “unguest software” samples, including those for other platforms. We were also warned when we opened a disk image with a malicious installer.

Installation and usability

Installing any virus scanner is tedious, and Intego is no different, although the company cannot be blamed for this situation. In order to check the files, the antivirus scanner must install some background programs and require access to the file system – both are protected by macOS Ventura, so the user must expressly authorize it. During installation, you must allow the installation of the extension through the system setting “Security and privacy” and you must allow access to the hard disk. You have, at least, gone through these stages.

The additionally installed Netbarrier firewall must also be granted permissions via the system settings. If you want to uninstall NetBarrier or VirusBarrier, a special uninstaller is needed, which is in the installation package.

Once VirusBarrier is installed, you are prompted to choose your level of coverage. The options are Minimum, which scans for Mac-specific threats and malicious scripts; Standard, which monitors emails and searches for threats for any platform; and Maximum, which adds scanning of connected iOS devices. You can choose the details no matter which level you select, since these three options are essentially shortcuts to different sets of configurations.

Antiviruses have a reputation for slowing down a Mac considerably. This is probably because all file actions are monitored by the protection software, including file copying. However, in our experience, this is barely noticeable on a Mac with SSD. Indeed, the current version of Virusbarrier that we tested had no noticeable influence on system performance during our test.

Running a full hard disk scan takes some time the first time it is run, but how long it takes depends on the size of your disk and the number of files and compressed archives that need to be scanned; from 30 minutes to over an hour has been found to be completely normal. Performance wasn’t noticeably affected in our testing, but if it does happen to you, there’s a “low priority” scan choice in its preferences to reduce its CPU usage. This makes scanning longer, but it’s there as an option. Subsequent scans are only for new items and usually take a minute or less to run.

For ongoing protection, VirusBarrier will monitor new volumes being mounted and optionally scan them automatically, and you can drag individual volumes, folders, and files into the main window for spot checks.

In general, the tool offers good compatibility with macOS, and unlike some competitors, it looks like a real Mac program.

Price and availability

Intego Mac Internet Security X9 costs £49.99/$49.99 per year (currently reduced to £20.99/$24.99 if you follow this link for the first year). It provides VirusBarrier X9 and NetBarrier X9, two very useful security tools that protect a Mac device.

Get Intego Mac Internet Security X9

If you have multiple Macs, don’t worry: you can select 3 or 5 devices at checkout, and it doesn’t cost much more, and it also improves the value of Intego per Mac. Plus, you can also choose to get two years of protection at an even lower price.

Additionally, there are other paid security tools that Intego offers as a comprehensive package called the Mac Premium Bundle. This also includes Mac Washing Machine, Content Barrier parental control program, and Personal Backup backup software. The full Mac Premium Bundle X9 which costs $84.99/£84.99 per year ($39.99/£33.99 originally).

In addition to the core VirusBarrier and NetBarrier utilities, this bundle also includes three other tools: Mac Washing Machine X9 (for clearing clutter and optimizing your Mac’s performance), ContentBarrier X9 (for custom user access restrictions to inappropriate content), and Personal Backup 10.9. The Backup utility has benefits not offered by Time Machine, including scheduled backup times and file synchronization between two Macs. You should all have Time Machine set up anyway, but it’s worth adding to your safety net.

A free and highly functional version of the virus scanner is also available in the Mac App Store. If you only occasionally want to check your computer for malware, a worthwhile alternative to a full-fledged real-time scanner.

Intego Mac Internet Security X9 is our number one pick in our roundup of the best antivirus software for Mac. You can also read about the other packages we reviewed in this test.