The Best Antispyware Software We’ve Tested for 2026

Price and pricing tiers: Like most Bitdefender products, Bitdefender is available as an Individual or Family subscription. An Individual subscription costs $109.99 per year to protect five devices, the same as Avira Prime. Or you can pay $139.99 for a family subscription and install Bitdefender on up to 25 devices.

Spyware-specific features: With the suite’s extensive feature set, it’s no surprise that several antispyware components are included. A snoop trying to forensically recover your deleted files will have no luck if you passed those files through the secure deletion File Shredder. And if a peeping Tom tries to peek at you through your webcam or listen in over the microphone, Bitdefender will catch them. Some spies try to capture your passwords using a keylogger—they’ll fail if you enter your passwords using Bitdefender’s virtual keyboard. Its Safepay hardened browser protects your financial transactions against interference, and you can configure Bitdefender to block all tracking of your browsing activities.

Bonus privacy features: With antivirus, firewall, password manager, and (limited) VPN, Bitdefender Total Security is a full-fledged security suite. In addition to the spy-specific features mentioned above, it includes some bonuses that can deter spying. Its network security scan lists all the devices on your network and alerts you to new arrivals—that new device may well be an intruder. And it watches the dark web to report on any breaches involving your private information.

Keylogger fighters: Having a keylogger running on your system is a serious invasion of privacy, but because some keyloggers masquerade as legitimate tracking programs, your antivirus may not remove them, leaving you vulnerable. Rather than risk a keylogger grabbing your passwords, you can use Bitdefender’s virtual keyboard with no possibility of capture by a keylogger, even a hardware keylogger.

Perv preventers: A modern PC with webcam and mic is fantastic for online meetings. You worry, though, that someone might peer out from the webcam when there’s no meeting, or that someone could eavesdrop on you by remotely enabling the mic. Bitdefender fends off those pervy possibilities by restricting webcam and mic access to authorized programs. Any attempt by an unknown program to use them triggers a warning, from which you can choose to block the unknown or make it trusted.

Security maximizers: Wait, you say. I bought the security suite as you said. Now you want me to buy something else to fend off spyware? But don’t worry. Bitdefender Total Security is a full-featured security suite that includes spyware-fighting capabilities.

Tracking resisters: How would you like to have someone staring over your shoulder the entire time you’re online? Well, they’re doing it (all except the shoulder part). Ads and other trackers collect and collate information about your online activities, creating a profile they can use to manipulate you. Don’t like that? Just make sure you’ve got Bitdefender’s extension installed in all your browsers. Now, when you visit a web page, it displays the number of trackers blocked, with the option to dig in for details.

Price and pricing tiers: You pay $39 per year for a basic IronVest subscription, which gets you masked email addresses, password management, and more. Upgrading to the Ultimate edition raises your fee to $99 per year and removes some limitations.

Spyware-specific features: One way to fool a spy is to wear a disguise. That’s the idea behind IronVest. Using its masked email feature, you can interact with merchants and other online entities without ever giving away your true email address. You can even shop online without revealing your credit card or phone number. And its active Do Not Track feature ensures that advertisers and other trackers can’t profile you based on your browsing activity.

Bonus privacy features: IronVest’s main aim is to protect your privacy while letting you go about your online business. It’s not a security suite, and doesn’t bring a lot of features beyond those basics, but it does come with password management built in.

Personal data maskers: You know that you should keep your personal data to yourself as much as possible, but how do you shop online? With IronVest, you can communicate via email without ever revealing your true email address, and you can shop without giving away your actual credit card or phone number.

Tracking resisters: Just about every web page these days comes with embedded ads and trackers. Trackers can build a profile of your online activities and use it to target advertising, or just sell it to the highest bidder. If you don’t appreciate being turned into a commodity, IronVest’s browser extension can help. Its toolbar button displays a numeric overlay showing the number of trackers blocked on the current page, along with the option to dig in for more details.

Price and pricing tiers: As its lowest tier, Select, Norton 360 With LifeLock costs $149.99 per year. That gets you five suite licenses, five VPN licenses, and 100GB of online storage for your backups. The Advanced tier costs $249 per year, raises backup storage to 250GB, and covers suite and VPN licenses for 10 devices. At the top, the Ultimate Plus tier costs $349 per year and includes an unlimited suite and VPN license, along with 500GB of online backup storage.

Spyware-specific features: From Trojan horse spy apps to websites that gather way too much personal information, your online activities are subject to spying. Norton 360 includes the standard ability to actively prevent ad trackers and others from gathering your personal information, and it extends this tracking protection to prevent modern trackers based on your browser fingerprint. You can further protect yourself from spies by regularly running Norton to clean browsing traces and by using the supplied secure browser. The idea of some creep peeking through the webcam while you’re in dishabille is enough to send many seeking a solution—Norton’s SafeCam is right there to prevent all unauthorized use of your webcam or mic.

Bonus privacy features: There are security suites, and there are big security suites. Norton 360 falls in the latter category. Yes, it has antivirus, antispam, firewall. VPN, password management, and parental control. But it also includes dark web monitoring and a complete identity theft remediation system. When lazy spies just collect public data and broker the resulting profiles, Norton can pinpoint your personal data profiles (though automated removal costs extra).

Perv preventers: Any time you see the LED light on your webcam, you know it’s transmitting video. But when you don’t see the light, you can’t be sure it’s not transmitting. An app or website that bypasses regular antivirus protection could well be watching you or listening through your microphone. With Norton’s SafeCam feature active, only known and trusted apps can use the cam or mic. For any others, you get a warning and an option to add the new app to your trusted list or keep blocking its camera access.

Public data protectors: Cyber-crooks steal your private information, while data brokers legally scrape public data and build personal profiles, which they then sell. If you’re among the many consumers who’d rather not be a commodity, Norton can help, to a degree. It scans several dozen high-activity data brokers and reports any where it found your personal data. If you want it to help you opt out of those brokers, though, you’ll have to pay an extra fee.

Security maximizers: You want spyware protection, you want a full security suite, and you don’t want to pay twice. Norton’s core protection, Norton 360 Deluxe, is an Editors’ Choice suite with a massive array of features. Norton 360 With LifeLock naturally adds identity protection from LifeLock. This full-powered suite also includes many spyware-specific features, including webcam protection, a hardened browser, an active Do Not Track system, browser fingerprinting prevention, and more.

Tracking resisters: When you go online, you want to do it in private, not with a rogue’s gallery of advertisers and other trackers peering over your shoulder. One solution is to use Norton’s Secure Browser and ensure its Privacy Guard feature is enabled. As with similar browser extensions, Norton displays the number of items blocked as an overlay on its toolbar button, and lets you dig in to fine-tune its blocking efforts.

Price and pricing tiers: For a year of Avast AntiTrack, you pay $54.99. If that seems a little high for what’s effectively a one-trick app, consider paying $64.99 for 10 licenses. Suddenly, it seems like a good deal!

Spyware-specific features: Avast focuses primarily on one task—keeping advertisers and others from tracking and spying on your browsing activities. In addition to the standard proactive Do Not Track feature, it also works in the background to foil the advanced tracking technique called browser fingerprinting. To further foil spies, Avast clears browsing history, cookies, and other traces. If the traces are gone, a spy can’t claim them.

Bonus privacy features: Where many of the apps we’ve selected are full suites with embedded antispyware, Avast AntiTrack is strictly focused on spyware protection. There really aren’t any bonus privacy or security features.

Tracking resisters: When you’re surfing the web, you just want to go where you please, without worrying about some giant conglomerate profiling your online activities. Avast AntiTrack exists to foil all types of tracking, from traditional cookie-based systems to high-tech fingerprint-based tracking.

Price and pricing tiers: Avira Prime is a top-tier security suite, with a minimum purchase of five licenses. That five-pack will run you $109.99 per year, the same as a five-pack of Bitdefender. If five licenses won’t do the job, you can pay $134.99 for an Avast Prime 10-pack.

Spyware-specific features: Avira Prime is a full security suite loaded with features, many of which are dedicated to fending off spyware. Its webcam protection feature prevents unauthorized parties from peeping through the webcam or listening to your microphone. It actively prevents ads and others from tracking your browsing activity and clears traces a snoop could use to deduce it. For another layer of privacy, you can use the supplied Secure Browser. And when you utterly destroy leftover sensitive files using the file shredder, there’s nothing left for a spy to find.

Bonus privacy features: Avira Prime includes all the components you’d expect in a security suite—antivirus, VPN, firewall, password manager, and more.

Perv preventers: As you undress for bed, you notice that your laptop is open. Could someone be peering at you through the camera? You’re not ready to just put a Band-Aid over the cam, so Avira’s webcam protection is just what you need. It lets known and trusted apps have access, but blocks any unknowns until you decide.

Security maximizers: You want protection against various types of spyware, but you don’t want to pay extra for it. The solution? A security suite like Avira Prime that includes spyware protection.

Tracking resisters: Every website you visit comes with its own burden of ads and other trackers, from a few to many dozens. Back at tracking HQ, experts process tracking data to derive a profile of your online activity. This lets them feed you the ads and content they see fit, or take other less savory actions. Hate that? Avira Prime can help by actively blocking those trackers and reporting on all the gory details.

Price and pricing tiers: ESET’s pricing system relies on simple arithmetic. For one device, you pay $79.99 per year. Each additional device adds $5 to the yearly subscription fee, maxing out at $124.99 for 10.

Spyware-specific features: ESET doesn’t attempt to block trackers or fingerprinters in your browser, but it does come with its own hardened browser for safe banking. You can use it to protect your sensitive files from spies by encrypting them. And by enabling Device Control, you can ensure that a literal on-premises spy won’t be able to exfiltrate your secrets to a USB drive. Another facet of Device Control prevents unauthorized apps from peering pervishly through your webcam.

Bonus privacy features: ESET Home Security Premium includes the expected security suite components, including antivirus, VPN, and firewall. In addition, its network inspector reports on all devices connected to your local network and pops up a notification any time an unfamiliar device appears. Pay attention, as that unfamiliar device could belong to a spy.

Perv preventers: You might not think twice about leaving your laptop open in the privacy of your own bedroom, but that’s exactly the situation where a digital voyeur could catch a glimpse of your most intimate moments. ESET’s device control extends to preventing unauthorized use of your webcam or microphone, so you can relax.

Private file protectors: The information you deal with on your computer is highly sensitive. Having it fall into the hands of a spy would be disastrous. ESET can help by creating encrypted vaults for those sensitive files—when the vault is closed, its contents are totally inaccessible. A determined spy might copy the encrypted data to a USB drive for later cracking. ESET’s Device Control foils such exfiltration attempts.

Security maximizers: You’re aware that spyware of various types could be invading your privacy, but you have no interest in spending money on yet another protection layer. You need a security suite that includes spyware protection, such as ESET Home Security Premium.

Price and pricing tiers: K7’s antivirus and suite products are all less expensive than their competition. At $35 per year to protect one device, K7 Ultimate Security is definitely on the low side price-wise. You can pay $44 for two devices or $53 for three. K7’s pricing scheme maxes out at $79 for licenses to protect five devices.

Spyware-specific features: Some spyware-fighting apps let you disable USB drives while allowing exceptions for specific devices or users. K7’s device control blocks access to all devices of a specific type, with no option to define exceptions. It’ll still put the kibosh on any plan to steal your private data by copying it to a removable drive. In addition, the secure deletion component lets you ensure that nobody, not the mafia, not the feds, can recover sensitive files you’ve deleted. You can foil data-stealing Trojans by entering passwords and other sensitive data using the virtual keyboard. And if you regularly clear your browsing history and other traces, no snoop will be able to piece together your browsing activities.

Bonus privacy features: K7 Ultimate Security is a security suite, but not one that’s overflowing with features. Yes, you find those core components, antivirus and firewall, and of course, the spyware-centric features mentioned above. But other than a limited, local backup system, that’s about all.

Keylogger fighters: Some keylogger utilities bill themselves as legitimate monitoring tools, meaning that your antivirus might not remove them. And yet a keylogger can capture anything you type, including all your passwords. Do you find that alarming? Then consider entering those passwords using K7’s virtual keyboard. Doing so evades capture by any keylogger, whether software or hardware-based.

Perv preventers: That webcam in your laptop is awfully handy for video calls and meetings, but it can also be abused as a spying tool, watching you without lighting up its telltale LED. You want to retain the benefits of having the cam without risking your privacy. And K7 can help. When you put it in webcam restricted mode, only known and trusted programs can use the cam. If an unknown attempts access, you get a warning and a chance to mark the app as trusted or otherwise.

Security maximizers: We’ve convinced you that upgrading from plain antivirus to a security suite can be a worthwhile investment, but you’re not ready to spend more of your hard-earned cash on protection specifically against spyware. What you need is a full-featured security suite with built-in spyware protection. K7 fits that profile, with plenty of security features and spyware-fighting components.

Price and pricing tiers: At $49.95 per year for a single license, G Data’s pricing is on the low side. You can optionally choose a three- or five-pack, for $69.95 or $81.95.

Spyware-specific features: In addition to its expected security suite components, G Data Total Security pays special attention to protecting your secret files from spies. By stashing those secrets in an encrypted storage vault, you keep them totally out of sight. A file shredder secure deletion app helps you wipe away the original, unencrypted files beyond any possibility of recovery. And a spy who aims to hoover up your files into a USB drive for later analysis will fail if you’ve used Device Control to lock down such activities. G Data also actively discombobulates any attempt by keylogger programs to capture your passwords and other important information.

Bonus privacy features: G Data Total Security doesn’t include a VPN, but it offers other expected features, such as a firewall, antivirus, and a password manager.

Keylogger fighters: A keylogger utility secretly captures all keystrokes on the computer where it’s installed, including the keystrokes that form your passwords. Some keyloggers bill themselves as legitimate monitoring software, so antivirus apps don’t always remove them. G Data simply blocks any keyloggers from the information stream, regardless of their legitimacy.

Perv preventers: When you’re using your webcam for meetings and such, it typically displays an “on air” light. But malicious software can activate the camera while suppressing that light, leaving the software’s creator free to peer out at you. G Data’s Device Control feature, while a bit complex for some users, also helps prevent webcam abuse.

Private file protectors: Whether by using a data-stealing Trojan or by sitting down at your desk, it’s conceivable that a hacker could gain access to your most important files. If that’s a big concern, G Data can help. It includes a simple encryption system that lets you create one or more encrypted storage volumes, along with a file shredder to prevent anyone from recovering the unencrypted originals. And if you’re skilled enough to set up its Device Control system, you can ensure that spies won’t steal your files by copying them to a USB drive.

Security maximizers: You’re interested in picking one security suite to handle all your needs, not an antivirus here and an antispyware utility there. G Data covers the expected suite features and adds gems such as active defense against keyloggers and an unusually comprehensive set of tools to protect your sensitive files.

Price and pricing tiers: Pricing with Privacy Bee is simple—you pay $197 per year, and it works hard to clear your personal data from people search sites and other brokers. You can expand your subscription to cover a total of two or three individuals, which gets you a discount of around 5% to 7%.

Spyware-specific features: When you visit a web page, Privacy Bee’s browser extension quickly reveals the number of ads and other trackers on that page. Digging in, you can see exactly which trackers were blocked. But going beyond the usual, you can define just how much you trust (or don’t trust) the site.

Bonus privacy features: People search sites and data brokers gather publicly available data on millions of people and compile it into personal profiles that they can sell. Privacy Bee’s main purpose is to automate opting you out of those data broker collections, and it handles more brokers than the competition. With your permission, it can dig into your email to find abandoned and forgotten user accounts and help you cancel them. This cleanup deprives those brokers of their input. Privacy Bee also reports on any dark web breaches that involve your personal data.

Public data protectors: Online data brokers don’t steal your personal data. Rather, they hoover up huge amounts of public data on the web and use it to build personal profiles that they then sell. This indirect spying can put your privacy at risk, so you’ll want to inform the brokers that you don’t consent to their sale of your data. But what a daunting task! Fortunately, Privacy Bee handles all the steps, from finding your profiles online to submitting opt-out requests to follow-up scans that check compliance.

Tracking resisters: Browser cookies were invented for your convenience, but advertisers and other trackers use third-party cookies to spy on your online activities. Yes, the HTTP standard almost included a Do Not Track header, but websites ignored it, and it fell by the wayside. If you don’t want to be profiled, you need help from a browser extension that actively prevents tracking, something you get with Privacy Bee. You can see the number of items blocked on the current page, dig in for a detailed list, and even invoke Privacy Bee’s trust system to fine-tune its handling of each blocked tracker.