The Best Antiviruses with Parental Control Tools in 2024

• Malware Protection – Norton offers in-depth device protection from malware, viruses, ransomware, and hacking. It also includes invaluable security features like webcam protection and Dark Web monitoring, alerting you if your details appear online in a data breach.
• Virus Protection Promise – Impressively, the provider offers a virus protection promise, guaranteeing users a full refund if the company can’t remove a virus from your device. This goes to show just how confident Norton is about the capabilities of its software.
• Deluxe Features – Alongside its security features, Norton offers a dedicated parental control suite. You can buy it as a standalone product without the antivirus or as part of the Norton 360 Deluxe package, which includes the antivirus, a password manager, a VPN, and lots of other advanced features.
• Parental Web Controls – The parental controls enable you to see what your children are searching for online and what videos they’re viewing, set screen time limits, and prevent them from accessing sensitive or inappropriate content online.
• App Controls – You can also control what apps they’re using, manage their learning environment with School Time, and even leverage location tracking so you’ll know exactly where your child is at any given time by tracking their Android or iPhone devices. This ensures you can have complete confidence in their safety online and offline.

Norton includes its parental control tools with the Norton 360 Deluxe package, which costs $49.99/year. This includes support for five devices, 50GB of cloud storage, a password manager, a VPN, and dark web monitoring.

Higher-tier plans add various identity theft protection tools, support for unlimited devices, $1m in stolen funds reimbursement, and bank and credit card activity alerts.

Norton provides an excellent parental control package and contends with McAfee as a leading provider for both antivirus and parental control tools. It’s a first-class solution for tracking activity across apps and devices, and I rate it as the best in its class.

• Malware Protection – Bitdefender offers complete protection against various cyber threats, ensures privacy with a VPN, webcam shield, and secure firewall, and provides parents with parental controls that cover all devices.
• Parental Controls – Bitdefender offers application and website-level parental controls that give you oversight of the programs your children use and the content they consume and interact with online.
• Screen Time, Location, and Reports – You can also track their screen time, see their full list of mobile contacts, and monitor your child’s location. What’s more, you’ll receive weekly emails with a comprehensive summary of your child’s online activity, so you’ll have more insights into what they use the internet for.

The Bitdefender Internet Security plan offers parental control tools as well as a firewall, ransomware protection, and support for three devices for $42.99/year. It’s only available for Windows, though, and you’ll need to upgrade to the $49.99/year Total Security plan for Mac, Android, and iOS coverage.

Further upgrades add credit monitoring, $2m identity theft insurance, and an unlimited VPN.

My Bitdefender parental control review found it to be an excellent toolset, and it’s the cheapest option on this list while also having among the best-rated antivirus programs and impressive firewall capabilities.

For additional information, see our Bitdefender vs Kaspersky and Bitdefender vs Norton guides.

• Malware Protection – In addition to the typical antivirus, malware, and spyware detection and removal features, ESET offers an additional layer of protection in the form of a ransomware shield.
• Advanced Security Features – Additional ESET security features include an exploit blocker, advanced memory scanning, cloud-based scanning, and script-based attack protection. Notably, Dark Web monitoring is missing, so Norton beats ESET in this regard.
• Parental Controls – In terms of parental controls, ESET allows you to set up age-based restrictions for the entire Windows account. This means you need to set it up once and can simply switch between users before letting your child use the computer.
• Content Controls – You can also limit their access to specific websites or even entire categories based on subject, such as adult content.
• Android Parental Controls – There’s also a separate parental control product for Android, if you just want to place parental controls on an Android phone.

The ESET Essential plan, at $49.99/year for one device, includes the provider’s parental control tools. Longer-term subscriptions and additional devices come at a reduced rate, with a five-device, three-year subscription costing $11.19/year per device.

Upgrading your plan adds features such as a password manager, data encryption, system optimization tools, an unlimited VPN, and identity theft protection.

ESET is a great option if you want a comprehensive antivirus tool as well as parental controls with detailed activity logs.

• Mac Security Features – In addition to the real-time antivirus, Intego provides a fast and secure VPN, NetBarrier, a firewall against network attacks, and automated personal backups to protect and recover key files.
• Content Controls – If you opt for Intego, you’ll also have access to ContentBarrier, a set of tools that helps you boost your family’s online safety and gives you valuable insights into your children’s online habits.
• Parental Controls – The parental controls let you put age-specific boundaries in place, customize profiles for each family member, and set time limits on internet use. The software also automatically monitors all of their online chats and can be set up to notify you of inappropriate content, terms, or phrases that are entered.

Intego’s Mac Premium Bundle X9 costs $65/year with a two-year subscription. Features include virus protection, network protection, system optimization tools, and personal backups, alongside the parental controls.

Intego is an ideal pick for the macOS ecosystem and comes with an impressive range of features.

The parental controls aren’t available for iOS or Windows, unfortunately, so if you want a more inclusive product, you may want to opt for Norton, McAfee, or Bitdefender.

• Security Features – With McAfee antivirus, you also get proactive web protection, a firewall, a password manager, identity monitoring, and personal data cleanup scans. Coupled with multi-platform compatibility, this makes McAfee a great choice for protecting every device in your household.
• Parental Controls – The parental controls are available with the McAfee+ Premium Family package, and they offer you complete control over your children’s internet activities. In addition to limiting what content your children can access and setting screen time for each internet session, you’ll be able to monitor the location of their phone and will receive real-time alerts when they arrive or leave specified areas.

McAfee’s parental control tools are included with all its family plans. The cheapest of these is the Premium plan, available at $64.99/year. This impressively includes security features for unlimited devices as well as a VPN, a password manager, and dark web monitoring.

The provider’s top-tier family plans offer $2m identity theft coverage, lost wallet protection, $25k ransomware coverage, and access to identity restoration experts.

The McAfee parental control toolset is a relatively expensive package, but you get an excellent level of protection with a huge range of antivirus features. In addition, the ability to protect an unlimited number of devices is unmatched at this relatively low pricepoint.