Avast has no less than 435 million users, the main markets being the USA, Canada, Brazil, France, Russia and Germany.
Installation and performance
Unlike some competitors, installing Avast products on your device won’t take more than a few minutes, whether you’re on macOS or Windows. The antivirus does not take up a lot of space on the hard drive: for example, the Avast Ultimate suite uses less than 2 GB on my hard drive.
The user interface is very intuitive, well designed, which makes Avast Antivirus suitable not only for seasoned users but also for beginners who want a very easy to use antivirus.
Avast’s configurable installer makes it easy to choose between which features you want to use and which you don’t want. The installation of security suites can sometimes pose problems in terms of performance because they weigh down the system with modules that we sometimes do not really need.
Avast Premium Security and Avast Ultimate are different. Indeed, you just need to press the “Customize” button in the installer and you can, in addition to the target folder, choose exactly which features you want to install.
Maybe you are not interested in browser extensions? You don’t need the cleaning tool or the “AntiTrack” module? Are you already using a firewall from another brand? You just need to click to clear any checkboxes and these add-ons will not be installed.
When it comes to system performance, Avast is among the best. You won’t even feel it running in the background, which is not necessarily the case with all antivirus software. Even during a scan, the impact on system performance is not really noticeable. This means that users can continue to watch movies, surf the internet or work without being interrupted while the antivirus runs the various scans.
Ultimately, if you have a computer, laptop, tabletop or smartphone, or even a Smart TV, there will be absolutely no performance issues with Avast.
Avast Premium Security
Premium Security’s single-device license seems a bit expensive at $ 35 in the first year, $ 70 at renewal, but its multi-device offering only costs $ 45 ($ 90 at renewal) to protect up to 10 devices for one. year.
Avast Premium Security has a very simple interface. Launch the main console and you have a “Run Smart Scan” button, while a notification icon lists all recent issues.
The rest of the suite’s functions (virus scans, network checks, firewalls and more) are organized into three panels, accessible from the left sidebar: “Protection”, “Privacy” and “Performance”.
Avast Money Back Guarantee
Avast Antivirus has a refund policy which ensures that within 30 days of purchasing the product you can request a full refund if you are not satisfied with it. This can be done by visiting the official website and selecting the support page. The process is automatic, however you must describe the reason for requesting a refund.
Reliability and security
The company does a fantastic job collecting information on the computers of its customers (over 400 million devices).
Avast has a cool feature that whenever it detects a suspicious action or file, it instantly blocks its access to all files and sends it to company headquarters for quick analysis. This automatic action helps the security team find countermeasures to new malware in just a few hours. In recent testing, Avast was able to remove 75% of malicious samples, before they could even be installed.
The different antivirus scans
The Smart Scan
The scan includes scanning for threats from browser extensions, scanning for any malware on the device, network security issues, general performance issues, detection of outdated software.
This test only lasts a few minutes. The antivirus can automatically update all obsolete programs, which is very convenient.
The complete analysis
The full virus scan takes approximately 2 hours. It’s very slow, because the current average is 50 to 60 minutes. But you won’t be using it every day, so it’s not such a big deal.
Startup scan
This computer startup scan, even before other programs are loaded into memory, is specially designed to find and eliminate persistent malware that lurks in the shadows and cannot be eliminated by regular cleaning. .
The scan runs before the operating system is fully executed, which means that system-based malware will not be able to hide. This test is also rather long, but it is not useful to do it every day.
The personalized scan
If that is not enough, you can also perform a targeted scan or create custom scan types: you can define what to scan (all hard drives, system drive only, removable drives, archives), how to deal with threats, prioritize scanning to optimize performance.
The Ransomware Shield
Ransomware is a widespread threat today: these attacks delete, modify or even encrypt a user’s sensitive data. Avast Ransomware Shield is a feature that will protect all personal files, confidential recordings, and photos from ransomware attacks.
The function automatically scans all files that may contain personal information. But you can also define which apps can make changes to your records and which don’t have permission to edit your data.
Blocking malicious websites
Avast Premium Security also includes several layers of protection for your online activities.
The “Real Site” module protects you against DNS (Domain Name System) hijacking so that you can access the real website you want to visit. In addition, there is a built-in malicious link blocker and download scan.
Every time you enter a website URL, Real Site makes an encrypted connection between a web browser you are using and Avast’s DNS server. In this way, the function guarantees the authenticity of the entered website URL.
Many malicious programs are designed to redirect users from an official website to a bogus site. As a result, hackers can easily hijack your sensitive data like, for example, passwords, login or even some of our credit card details. Note that not all antivirus software offers this vital functionality.
The “Avast Online Security” browser extension also provides security ratings on search results, blocks trackers and protects against malicious websites. Avast’s Chrome extension is highly rated (4 stars on the Chrome Store), and is easy to use.
Avast AntiTrack
Avast AntiTrack Automatically detects trackers, and alerts users when they are tracked. It is now known that many online advertisers use our internet business to send targeted advertisements. Therefore, Avast AntiTrack software allows us to conceal our Internet activities so that we do not receive spam.
In addition, Avast also erases browser history after browsing, to keep our internet activity private.
The Avast Premium firewall
Regarding network protection, the Avast Premium Security firewall is a powerful tool. The system automatically detects and manages Internet connections established by various background applications and processes.
Many firewalls end there, but Avast makes it possible to display a list of running applications and open connections, which is fairly easy to use and understand. One can easily define the control rules for each application and decide exactly how the firewall will control both the Internet and the network communications, whenever a specific application tries to find a connection with a network or by Internet.
A well-configured firewall is an essential feature. It helps you control all your internet connections and connections on your local network, and therefore provides protection against unauthorized access, intrusion or communication that could damage a computer, and against the leakage of sensitive information.
The Wi-Fi inspector
Avast’s Wi-Fi Inspector scans your network, lists all connected devices, and highlights potential vulnerabilities.
Remote access protection
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), also known as remote desktop, allows you to connect to a PC wherever you are. If this protocol is not protected, hackers can exploit this security hole to gain access to your device.
The Remote Access Agent allows you to control which IP addresses can remotely access your PC and blocks all other connection attempts. Avast warns you if this protection module blocks a connection attempt.
The Avast Secure Browser
Avast Secure Browser is a Chromium based browser that comes with a long list of security and privacy tools to block ads, trackers, and malicious sites. This browser also has a password manager.
The Webcam Agent
The Webcam Agent allows you to give more control over which sites can access our webcam. As soon as a website tries to access this webcam, a notification appears asking us if we want to authorize the site or, on the contrary, continue blocking. This feature is enabled by default.
Ghost Mode
Ghost Mode is a feature that prevents browsing history from being stored and deletes all tracking cookies and web caches that have accumulated during a browsing session.
Flash Protection
Flash Protection prevents Flash-based content from running on your computer unless you allow it.
Bank mode
This is the most important feature: it allows you to run Secure Browser on a separate Windows desktop (a virtual desktop). Bank Mode dramatically reduces the chances that keyloggers, or other hacking software, will be able to log keystrokes, when we log in, when we enter PIN codes or our bank card number, or more generally any keystrokes. personal information.
Hack Check
Finally, Hack Check is a feature of Avast Secure Browser that allows you to check if our email address has already suffered a data breach. This service uses “Pwned Passwords” technology, combined with Avast’s internal database of stolen email addresses to check for possible leaks.
Software Updater
Avast Software Updater can automatically detect missing software patches and even install them for you.
This feature is not always effective. Avast may warn you with an error message that “something went wrong and the update failed, please try again”.
The “Avast Passwords” password manager
Avast supports the functionality of storing and securing website passwords and other user data. It is also possible to create a master password to add an additional level of security.
But this password manager doesn’t just automatically fill in forms or your login data: it also allows you to automatically capture passwords when you log into a new site, generate strong passwords, and synchronize data between different devices using the Avast Account.
The “Password Guardian” feature warns you if you have weak, duplicate or compromised passwords.
Avast Passwords on Windows is available for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. It is also included with Avast Secure Browser by default. It is possible to synchronize the data saved in Avast Passwords between all Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS devices.
Finally, the “One Touch” connection allows you to use our Android or iOS mobile device to access the Avast Passwords functionality installed on a Windows computer.
The Avast data shredder
File Shredder lets you permanently erase files, folders or disks to prevent them from being restored by a third party. You should know that there are software capable of restoring deleted files.
File Shredder overwrites files multiple times before deleting them, preventing any possibility of data recovery. It is possible to shred a particular file or an entire hard drive. This component is particularly useful when selling your computer or hard drive.
The “SandBox” functionality
The Sandbox Virtualization Tool is extremely useful if you need to run an application that looks suspicious. SandBox allows you to run an application and browse the internet in a safe and fully isolated environment. It is important to note that the content and history of your Internet activity is kept in this environment while you are running an application.
The “SandBox” feature thus provides a quick way to run a suspicious application in an isolated environment, without being able to damage the operating system.
The Avast Ultimate pack
Avast Ultimate is very complete: it includes, in addition to Avast Premium Security, SecureLine VPN, as well as the Cleanup maintenance tool.
Avast SecureLine VPN
Avast SecureLine VPN has 60 servers established in a total of 36 countries. P2P downloading as well as Streaming are available. SecureLine VPN lets you stream the content you need from anywhere: BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney +.
Avast claims an additional and unusual feature in its Smart VPN option, where the application automatically adapts to the current situation: connect when you access public Wi-Fi, automatically choose the best Streaming server or the best P2P server for Depending on your geographical location, block your Internet access if the VPN is temporarily unavailable, then perform an automatic reconnection.
SecureLine VPN operates with no bandwidth limit and provides high level encryption. Up to five devices can be connected at a time.
Avast Cleanup Premium
If you’ve used a PC maintenance tool before, you will find Avast Cleanup Premium very familiar, with tools to clean system files, clear browser history (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Opera and IE), control programs startup and background processes, check for PC issues, and more.
The basic cleaning tools are to identify Windows junk files, broken shortcuts and outdated registry keys, display them in a report and let you decide what to keep and what to delete.
This type of cleaning application can sometimes cause problems by deleting important files. Avast Cleanup Premium solves this problem by saving some of its changes (registry changes, background and startup programs). The program then allows you to restore them to its backup center.
Avast customer service
On the official website there is an impressive FAQ page with answers to the most common questions. There are also dedicated forums. The assistance number is free. Finally, it is of course possible to send tickets by e-mail.
BENEFITS
One of the fastest and most secure antivirus on the market.
The detection and elimination rate is impressive.
A 30 day money back guarantee.
This antivirus for Android is completely free, and even has anti-theft protection.
Additional interesting tools: VPN, secure browser for banking transactions, etc.
DISADVANTAGES
Avast antivirus can be a bit difficult to understand all the different packages;
Scans can be slow, especially on older machines;
The free version comes with a limited set of features.
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