Avast software was introduced in 1988. Since then, Avast has grown hugely and today it is a huge name among the leading antivirus software. Avast Antivirus software claims to be the number one of all the existing antivirus software. It has monthly active users of over 435 million. One of the best things about Avast antivirus is that it offers a free version. Though a free antivirus, it offers all the essential antivirus features for OS like Mac, Android, and Windows.
The real-time protection feature can detect threats while they try to intrude on your system. Web filtering feature blocks access to malicious websites. It also analyzes unknown files in the cloud and gathers information about the latest malware. However, if all these fail, the behavior monitoring feature of Avast will identify the threats and will notify you so that you can take action and stop this threat from spreading.
Avast antivirus, unlike other antiviruses, does not have any limited design or hidden restrictions for upgrading. It does not show any third-party ads, it offers many updates, and it does not have anything that will weaken the security of the Avast antivirus software. So, if you are asking questions like “is Avast good?” or “is Avast worth paying for?” then you will be happy to know that it is actually good and worth your every penny. Let’s know the Avast Antivirus Review like features, pros, cons, price, setup process, etc.
Avast Free Antivirus Review
Now, let us see a little bit comprehensively into Avast antivirus. Let us see the setup and the features it provides us.
Setup
When you go to the website of Avast antivirus, you will see the options to download the setup file. If you do not like the fact that the antivirus software install extra software that is useless, then Avast is the antivirus for you. You can select the option of Custom Installation and you will be given the 13 different options to choose from.
When you have installed the primary package, Avast will ask you for the set up of its Secure Browser. After the setup is complete, all the vital data from your default browser will get transferred to this new browser. However, you will be given the option to choose how you want it to work.
Features
Avast antivirus comes with a huge number of features. The number of features is even greater than some of the commercial products. However, Avast tries to keep these features out of the users’ way, so that they do not cause any obstacles. To scan your computer, you can open the app and run the Smart Scan feature. After that, all you have to do is to sit back and watch as it analyzes your computer for any dubious browser extensions, missing software patches, malware, and many other things. Even when the Avast antivirus is scanning this large number of things, it is very fast.
You can try another option, the dialog of Virus Scan. Here, you will be provided the option to customize the scanning procedures. You can choose to scan a specific folder, your entire system, or to perform a scan when the computer boots up next. The option of a Separate Rescue Disk will help in creating a bootable version of Avast antivirus. This can be stored on a USB drive or a CD.
Experts are able to schedule and set up several custom scans so that the Avast antivirus can execute the exact action defined by the user. You will be able to select the actions to perform, archives to format, files to check, and many more. This feature is a huge improvement over other antivirus software.
Security features
In a test performed to check the efficiency of the antivirus software, it was seen that Avast was able to detect 100% of the threats and block them. Avast antivirus has raised false alarms only once for 1,500,000 sample threats. According to the report, some actions were seen to be slowed down than usual by Avast. However, this decrease in speed is not by a huge margin and hence you will usually not notice it.
Avast Internet Security Review
This is a paid version of Avast antivirus software with some added features. This contains an antivirus, a spam filter, a strong firewall, and a large range of additional features. The features that make a simple antivirus software, a security suite are the spam filter and firewall. Both of these features are present in Avast Internet Security. It also contains a sandbox feature, which the experts use to examine suspected files and ransomware to prevent their important files from getting modified. However, the fact that the additional features need an additional fee can put off some of the users.
However, by paying these fees, you will not be wasting your money as you will get the additional features that will help protect your device. Moreover, these fees are lesser than many of the top antivirus software. The appearance of Avast Internet Security is very similar to the free version of Avast antivirus software. You will be able to see the menu on the left of the screen, from where you will be able to select the performance, privacy, and security features for your computer. The primary difference between the free and the paid version is that the features which are specific to the security suite are not locked.
Features
There are many shared features among the free version and the paid version. One such feature is Smart Scan. With the help of this feature, you will be able to get notified for weak passwords, identify software that has no security patches, locate problems with the network security, recognize problems in performance, find out active malware, and check for any add-ons on the browser. If you perform these scans individually, it will take about 10 minutes for each of these scans. However, if you do a full system scan, then the time required will be more than 2 hours.
Another feature is the Wi-Fi Inspector. It crawls throughout your network and lists the devices that it finds connected to the Wi-Fi. In today’s modern age, a household is filled with IoT. The devices that are detected are shown visually. You will be able to see the router in the middle and there are circles around it. The older devices are on the outer circles and the recently connected devices are in the inner circles.
There are some features that you can get by paying an extra cost. So, in this Avast internet security review, let us know a bit about these features:-
Spam filter
This spam filter will help to monitor the incoming traffic of IMAP and POP3 email, modify the subject lines to mark spams and phishing messages. If you are a Microsoft Outlook user, all the unwanted messages will be moved to the folder of Spam by filtering all types of email accounts. For the users who are using another email client, they have to define the rule of the message to divert the marked messages.
Firewall
The firewall is one of the components you will get after upgrading to the security suite version of the software. One of the important things that the firewall makes sure that the internet connection and the internet are not abused by programs. There is a mode of “Auto-decide”, which takes the decision on their own after scanning all the new programs that are being installed on your computer. So, after this, if you are asking the question, is Avast worth paying for? Then I will say yes. With these added features that you came to know from this Avast internet security review, it is worth the money.
Avast Premier Review
Avast Premier is another paid version of the Avast antivirus software. This is a bit more expensive than other mainstream antivirus software. However, it also offers you a good suite. One of the mainstay features of Avast is its anti-phishing technology. However, in the Premier version, it does not need a browser extension to flag phishing sites. It is very capable of detecting malware and in a test, it scored a 100% block rate. You also get a system to remove your junk files automatically, but that is if you pay extra.
In this Avast premier review, I can tell you that it has all the features you saw in the previous sections of Avast free antivirus review and Avast internet security review, but with a better facility. These additional facilities can be obtained only by paying extra. So if you ask “is Avast good for this Premier version?” Then the answer will be that, if you are willing to pay extra, then you will not be disappointed by its features.
Conclusion
I hope that from the above Avast reviews, you are able to get a good idea about the different Avast versions and their features. You can go for the free version of the Avast antivirus or the paid version of the Avast Internet and Avast Premier security software.