It might seem logical that antivirus companies would offer free antivirus protection as a kind of loss leader, with only the most basic protection. Getting the advanced bonus features would require becoming a paying customer. But actually, many of the most popular free antivirus tools offer full-scale protection and a ton of extra features. Avast Free Antivirus gives you more than many competing commercial products. On top of excellent antivirus protection, it adds a network security scanner, browser protection, and more. It's an impressive collection of security tools—especially considering that it's free.
Avast acquired rival free antivirus company AVG in 2016. Fans of both companies can rest easy; years and years later, there's still no plan to merge them into a single product. Both have millions of users worldwide, but each is strong in geographical areas where the other is weak. And the underlying antivirus engine is identical in Avast and AVG AntiVirus Free, as demonstrated in both our tests and independent lab tests.
Editors' Note: Last year we learned about a problem with sharing of user data between Avast and its subsidiary Jumpshot. Based on this privacy slip, we knocked this product's rating down one-half star and removed its Editors’ Choice designation. Avast resolved the problem and terminated Jumpshot shortly thereafter. We’ve seen no sign of any inappropriate use of private user data since then, so we’re taking Avast out of the penalty box.
Free Antitvirus Protection
This product is only free for personal use. If you want to use Avast in a business setting, you must upgrade to Avast Premium Security, which replaces both Avast Internet Security and the all-inclusive Avast Premier. It's a simpler product line than most, just a free antivirus and a for-pay suite. Not surprisingly, AVG follows the same model.
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During installation, Avast offers to install Avast Secure Browser, noting that it is private, secure, and fast. By default, it also makes this your default browser. It also asks a few questions to personalize its settings, and then runs a personalized scan. The previous version included a full page devoted to explaining how Avast uses your nonpersonal data, and how you can opt out if you wish. That seems to be gone, replaced by a Personal Privacy page in Settings.
The biggest part of Avast's main window is a slate-gray rectangle with a bit of texture, decorated with a status icon and a big button titled Run Smart Scan. A left-rail menu lets you switch from the main Status page to Protection, Privacy, or Performance. Across the bottom, you find a banner offering you a welcome gift. Unwrapping the virtual gift reveals a discounted upgrade to Avast Premium Security. If you reject the upgrade, it offers a 60-day trial. Avast really wants you to experience the suite and get hooked on its premium-only features.
One of this product's features needs special mention, because it's virtually invisible, and it's disabled by default. After you reach into settings and enable Passive Mode. Avast takes pains to avoid interfering with other antivirus tools. If you install another antivirus, Passive Mode kicks in automatically. To avoid conflicts, it disables all real-time scanning and other active protection. You can still launch scans manually. There's precedent for this behavior—Microsoft Windows Defender Security Center does something similar.
Many Excellent Lab Scores
You might not realize this, but in most cases antivirus companies pay for the privilege of having products tested by the independent labs. The company does benefit; a high score gives it bragging rights, while if the score is poor, the lab helps the company work through what went wrong. With a free antivirus that doesn't bring in any income, a company might be tempted to avoid the expense of testing. Not Avast. We follow four independent testing labs that regularly release reports on their results, and all four routinely include Avast. Three of them include AVG in their latest reports as well.
The analysts at AV-Comparatives perform a variety of security tests, of which we follow four. Products that achieve the necessary minimum scores receive a Standard rating, while those that show advanced features and capabilities can rate Advanced or Advanced+.
Avast and AVG both received Advanced+ ratings in all three tests. Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, ESET, G Data, and Kaspersky also took Advanced+ in all three tests.
AV-Test Institute reports on antivirus capabilities in three areas: protection, performance, and usability. With six points possible in each category, the maximum score is 18 points. Avast took six points for usability, meaning it didn't erroneously flag valid programs or websites as malicious, and six more points for malware protection. It came close in performance, with 5.5 points. AVG precisely matched that score.
A total of 17.5 points is high enough for AV-Test to designate both Avast and AVG as Top Products. Kaspersky Security Cloud Free also took 17.5 points. Note, though, that in the latest test 10 products managed a perfect 18-point score.
Trying to come as close as possible to real-world conditions, the experts at SE Labs capture drive-by downloads and other web-based attacks, using a replay system to hit each tested product with the exact same attack. The very best products receive AAA certification; others may be certified at the AA, A, B, or C level. Like AVG, Avast received AAA certification.
Quite a few products managed AAA certification in the latest test from SE Labs. Among them are Avira, Microsoft Windows Defender Security Center, and Norton.
MRG-Effitas reports its test results a bit differently from the other labs. Products that don't manage perfect or near-perfect protection simply fail. We follow two tests from this lab. Avast appears in the latest report for one, while the other includes neither Avast nor AVG. Alas, despite past successes Avast failed this latest test.
A third of the current products we track don’t appear in results from any of the labs, and another quarter only have one lab test result. With four tests, Avast is clearly an important contender. Our scoring algorithm maps multiple lab results onto a scale from 0 to 10 and generates an aggregate score. Avast’s score of 9.6 is quite good, though it did better when last reviewed. AVG only showed up in reports from three labs, but since the omitted lab is one that Avast failed, AVG’s aggregate is even better, 9.9 points. The big winner is Kaspersky, with results from all four labs and a score of 9.9 points.
Excellent Malware Protection Scores
Malicious software from the Internet must run the gauntlet of numerous defense layers before it can infect your PC. Avast could block all access to the malware-hosting URL, for example, or wipe out the malware payload before the download finishes—I'll discuss those malware protection layers shortly. If a file is already present on your computer, as my malware samples are, Avast assumes it must have gotten past the earlier protection layers. Like AVG, Emsisoft, McAfee, and a few others, it checks those files just before they execute.
To test Avast's malware-blocking skills, I opened a folder containing my current collection of malware samples and tried to launch each one. Avast blocked over 90% of them immediately, wiping them out so fast it left Windows displaying an error message reporting that the file could not be found. It killed off some of those that managed to launch before they could fully install, but missed some low-risk types.
Avast detected 96% of the samples and scored 9.6 of 10 possible points, the same as AVG. Tested against this same malware collection, Sophos and G Data earned 9.7 and 9.8 points respectively. At the top is Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus, which earned a perfect 10 points.
Unusual activity by a few files merited deeper examination. Avast displayed a message stating that it detected a suspicious file and promising an evaluation within a few seconds. All my hand-coded testing utilities triggered this warning; all three got a clean bill of health. But when a ransomware sample came under the same scrutiny, it wound up in quarantine.
The samples I use for the malware blocking test stay the same for months. To evaluate each product's capabilities against the very latest malware, I start with a feed of malware-hosting URLs supplied by MRG-Effitas. Typically, these are no more than a few days old. I try to launch each one, recording whether the antivirus blocked access to the URL, eliminated the malware download, or totally failed to notice anything wrong.
I test using URLs from the last few days, continuing until I have a large enough sample set. Then I tally the results. Avast blocked access to 65% of the URLs and eliminated another 29% at the download stage, for a total of 94% protection; AVG turned in identical results. That’s quite good, but some competitors have done even better. McAfee AntiVirus Plus leads the field, with 100% protection. Bitdefender, Sophos, and G Data all managed 99%.
I did notice that Avast identified the pages it blocked in two different ways. For some, it reported that it aborted the connection because the page was infected with URL:Botnet. For others, it reported URL:Blacklist. Blacklist I understand, but it’s hard to imagine that all the other dangerous URLs were literally associated with a botnet.
Excellent Phishing Protection
Phishing websites are significantly easier to create than websites that secretively launch malware attacks. All a phishing fraudster need do is create a convincing duplicate of a sensitive site. They go after banks and financial sites, but also try to scam such things as gaming and dating sites. Any user who logs in, not recognizing that the page is fake, has just given away account access to the fraudsters. If a thousand web surfers spot the fraud and just one falls for it, that's a win for the bad guys. And when the authorities quash the fraudulent site, the fraudsters just pop up another one.
I test antiphishing using the very newest phishing sites, including plenty that haven't yet been fully analyzed and blacklisted. I launch each probable phishing URL in four browsers. The product under test protects one of the browsers, naturally. The other three rely on protection built into Chrome, Edge, and Firefox.
Anyone can write a phishing protection module that blocks blacklisted sites. The best products use real-time analysis to identify frauds that are too new for the blacklists. Avast clearly has this capability; the company touts its enhanced real-time phishing detection technologies. Like AVG, Avast blocks frauds below the browser level, displaying a popup reporting the page was "infected with URL:Phishing."
With an impressive 97% detection of phishing frauds, Avast joins an elite group with top scores in this test, tying with Webroot and beating out Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security and Kasersky by one point. F-Secure and McAfee top the list, both scoring 100%, while Bitdefender and Norton came close with 99%.
As in other tests, AVG scored just the same. Of more interest, perhaps, is the fact that Avast Security (for Mac) also scored the same. While phishing is completely platform-agnostic, phishing protection can vary between Windows and macOS. In this case, they fared just the same in testing.
Scan Choices
If you just click the big button in the middle of Avast's Status screen, it runs a Smart Scan. In addition to a quick check for active malware, this scan looks for browser threats, apps with missing security patches, and what it calls "advanced issues." On my test system, it only found the last category.
Digging in for details, I found no actual issues, just efforts to upsell me to Avast Premium Security. It noted that the system has only a basic firewall, and warned that hackers could hijack my DNS. Clicking the big Resolve All button sent me to the upgrade page.
Clicking Virus Scans on the Protection page gets you more choices. The Full Virus Scan took 85 minutes on my standard clean test system, quite a bit longer than the 34 minutes it required when last tested. You really should run a full scan after installing any antivirus. Once that scan has rooted out any malware that was already present, the many real-time protection layers should handle any new attack.
Avast offers a boot time scan, designed to eliminate pernicious and persistent malware that resists normal cleanup. Because the scan runs before Windows boots up, the Windows-based malware doesn't have any chance to defend itself. You should set aside plenty of time for the scan. Two hours after I started it, the display still reported one percent complete. I checked its log in the morning, but alas, it doesn't report scan duration. You’ll find a twin to this feature in AVG. Note that Bitdefender's Rescue Mode reboots in a non-Windows operating system for even more power against Windows-centered malware.
Along those same lines, you can click a link to create an Avast Rescue Disk on a bootable CD or USB drive. If you have a computer that won’t even boot due to malware, try creating a Rescue Disk from a clean computer.
See How We Test Security Software
Avast Online Security
Just like its AVG equivalent, the Avast Online Security extension installs in Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Opera. The first time I launched each browser, it automatically went to the browser extension’s page for installation. If you reject that initial offer or it somehow doesn’t happen, just choose Browser Extensions from the menu.
Online Security marks up your search results in popular search portals. Green means all clear, red means stay away, and gray means the site hasn't yet been analyzed. You can click the toolbar icon to give a simple thumbs-up or down to the current page.
If Online Security detects any advertising trackers or other trackers on the current site, it displays how many it found as a number overlaid on its toolbar icon. Clicking the icon gets you a summary of found social media, advertising, and web analytics trackers. You can dig in for details and block some or all trackers on the current site or automatically block all trackers on all sites.
It's Surprisingly Easy to Be More Secure Online
Avast installs the SafePrice add-on alongside Online Security. Like the similar feature in AVG, this add-on helps you find the best prices when you're shopping online. Just click its toolbar icon to see what details it found. It also offers coupons, when available.
Ransomware Shield
Avast’s Ransomware Shield provides basic ransomware protection out of the box, banning all untrusted programs from modifying files in protected folders. By default it protects the Documents, Pictures, and Desktop folders for each user account. You can add folders to the protected list or dig into settings for more fine-grained control.
On the Settings page, you’ll see that this feature runs in Smart Mode by default, meaning that it ignores known and trusted programs. You can set it to Strict Mode, meaning every modification of a protected file will require your permission, but why would you? It can protect archive, audio, database, disk, document, picture, video files, or file types of your choice. While the page warns that selecting all of them may impact performance, they’re all enabled by default. Note that the equivalent AVG feature offers precisely the same settings, but doesn’t let you add to the list of protected folders.
I tried to edit a file from the Documents folder using a one-off editor that I wrote myself. Initially, Avast flagged it as suspicious and put it through an initial scan, eventually deeming it harmless. When I tried to save an edited file, Avast prevented the change, asking me whether to allow or block access.
I did find a window of vulnerability. For testing, I created a simple fake encrypting ransomware program that runs at startup and reversibly encrypts all text files in the Documents folder. Avast did not prevent this activity; apparently it wasn’t ready. When I ran the same program after verifying Avast was fully loaded, ransomware protection detected and prevented the file modifications.
If you see the file-modification warning when you’re trying out a new document or photo editor, go ahead and allow it. But if it comes as a surprise, smack the button to block access, and then investigate the perpetrating program.
Secure Browser
Avast Secure Browser is a Chromium-based browser with a boatload of security features built in. It looks a lot like the AVG Secure Browser, but it’s not entirely the same. On first launch it offers some configuration advice, turning on features to stop online tracking and alert on password leakage. It also offers ad blocking, but you have to enable that one manually. As part of the setup, it makes itself the default browser and configures itself to launch at startup. The AVG equivalent didn’t offer this onboarding experience.
When I examined the AVG Secure Browser, I found that it presented ten important-looking security concepts in large panels in its security and privacy center. However, almost all of them proved to be little more than front ends for security features built into Chrome, and Chromium. These include Anti-Phishing, Anti-Tracking, Stealth Mode, Password Manager, Privacy Cleaner, and Webcam Guard.
So what’s different in Avast Secure Browser? Adblock shows up in Avast, not AVG, and uses a separate browser extension to block ads at three different levels. the Hack Check lets you check any email address to see if it has shown up in any data breaches. Note that the check offers zero details; it just reports whether the address appeared in a breach and advises changing all passwords associated with the account.
The Password Manager panel defaults to using the built-in Chromium password management, as in AVG but also offers Avast Passwords. I ran into problems after choosing that option; the password manager extension just didn’t work. My company contact explained that Avast Passwords has been removed, and that the leftover link to choose it will be fixed in a coming update.
Going beyond the anti-tracking skills of Online Security, Secure Browser offers the ability to disguise your browser fingerprint. What's that? Well, your browser offers a huge amount of information to websites, because sites can use that information to tune the pages they serve up. They can also process this information into a browser fingerprint that uniquely identifies you, for tracking purposes. Like the standalone TrackOFF Basic, Avast can randomize what the browser reports, just enough to prevent fingerprinting.
There’s one real gem in the Avast-specific features, and that’s Bank Mode. When you enable Bank Mode, Avast creates a separate desktop for your browsing, isolated from all other processes. It’s very much like Safepay in Bitdefender’s products. You can switch back and forth between the secure desktop and the standard desktop as needed, secure in the knowledge that your sensitive transactions are safe.
Bitdefender automatically offers Safepay when it detects that you’re headed for a known banking site. Kaspersky’s Safe Money does something similar, though it forgoes the separate desktop for the protected browser. Avast also makes such an offer, but it’s not so obvious. When you visit a sensitive site in Secure Browser, it slides in a bar at the top of the browser window with a button to switch modes.
If you're a Chrome fan, consider using Secure Browser. It's Chromium-based, so you'll find it familiar. It exposes useful security settings so you don’t have to search. And it delivers its own privacy and security enhancements.
Wi-Fi Inspector
Avast was one of the first security products to add a network security scanner to its product line. Despite "Wi-Fi" in its name, the Wi-Fi Inspector can report on all the devices connected to any network, wired or wireless, and flag devices with security problems. Note that AVG’s Network Inspector is quite different. It warns if you’re connected to an insecure network and, when you’re on your own network, warns about new devices connecting. You can find that same feature in Avast under Settings > Protection > Wi-Fi Inspector. Yes, the name is a duplicate, which is a bit odd.
On my test system, the full Wi-Fi Inspector scan took a few minutes to find all the devices. It found 11 devices, which seemed low to me. Indeed, a re-scan came up with 10 more. Avast listed the found devices in a handy grid, showing the name where possible and an icon indicating the device type. Happily, it didn’t detect any security problems.
Avast does its best to identify each device by name and type, but it can't always get that information. If you have some network skills, you may be able to identify a device by double-clicking the entry to see its IP and MAC addresses. The manufacturer name may also offer a clue. You can change the type of any device to any of almost 100 choices, among them vehicle, toothbrush, and washing machine. This range of choices is vastly greater than I’ve seen in similar network scanners.
You can also change the name to something more recognizable than Unknown name. And Avast remembers your changes for future scans.
Avira users can install Avira Home Guard from the main Avira launcher; it works very much like the Wi-Fi Inspector. Bitdefender Home Scanner is another similar (and free) network security scanner, one that goes into more depth about possible security problems. But, as noted, neither of these comes close to Avast in the range of different device types you can use to tag found items.
Performance Features
To err is human, and software is created by imperfect humans. White hat and black hat hackers are constantly finding security holes, and security companies strive to patch them as soon as possible. If you fail to apply security updates, you leave your computer open to attacks that exploit those holes. Avast's Software Updater scans your computer and reports any out-of-date software it finds. You can click a link to find out what changed in each product or click a button to install the updates. If you try to turn on automatic updates, you learn that this is a feature of the paid security suite. On my test system, it found updates for Firefox and Opera.
When Do Not Disturb mode is active, the antivirus postpones scheduled scans and suspends all but the most critical notifications. This kind of feature is becoming very common in antivirus products. Avast notices when you run a program full-screen and offers to add it to the list. You can also manually add programs to the list.
Digging into Settings lets you fine-tune this feature. By default, it silences third-party app notifications—you can define exceptions. You can also control whether it suppresses Windows updates, and whether it automatically adds full-screen apps to its list. Note that AVG offers an identical Do Not Disturb Mode but doesn’t include the software update feature.
Past editions included Drive Updater and Avast Cleanup Premium. Both would install at first use and run a scan. And if you asked them to fix any found problems, they’d demand payment. It wasn’t a great experience, and the locked-up options aren’t present in the current edition.
Premium Features
You get both Performance components in this free edition, but the Privacy and Protection pages include features that require payment, indicated by a lock icon overlay. Clicking one of these displays a little animation explaining the feature, with a big Upgrade Now button. In the current Avast lineup, if you want any of these you must purchase Avast Security Premium; there’s no premium-level standalone antivirus.
Avast used to offer a free password manager, but at present all features on the Privacy page are locked for free users. You must upgrade to get the secure deletion Data Shredder (AVG gives you this feature at the free level). The Sensitive Data Shield scans your documents for sensitive data that could be vulnerable to exfiltration, and helps you protect it. The Webcam Shield offers a degree of spyware protection by limiting webcam use to known, trusted programs. AntiTrack Premium supplements the Do Not Track protection found in Secure Browser.
The button for Avast SecureLine VPN displays a lock, but it isn't precisely locked away. Clicking the button starts the installation process, leaving you thinking that maybe you scored free access. Only when you've gone through the process, launched the program, and tried to make a VPN connection do you find out that you must pay $2.89 per month to use it beyond a seven-day trial.
On the Protection page, locked icons include: Firewall, to keep hackers out of your system; Sandbox, to run suspicious files without risk; Real Site, website confirmation beyond detection of phishing frauds; and Remote Access Shield. This last component specifically balks attacks that misuse the built-in Remote Desktop feature.
An Excellent Free Antivirus
Avast Free Antivirus offers antivirus protection that earns excellent scores in our hands-on tests and independent lab tests. As for bonus features, it offers much more than many competing commercial products, including a network security scanner, a software updater, and more. The company experienced a privacy fiasco last year when a subsidiary misused private information. That subsidiary is now defunct, and we’ve seen no further problems, so we feel confident once again naming Avast an Editors’ Choice winner for free antivirus protection.
Kaspersky Security Cloud Free is our other Editor's Choice free antivirus. Like Avast, Kaspersky appears in reports from all four test labs, and it scores even higher. It comes with a bandwidth-limited VPN and a smattering of features from the full Kaspersky Security Cloud suite. You won’t go wrong with either of these two free antivirus products.
Avast Free Antivirus combines an antivirus engine that scores high in testing with a surprisingly extensive collection of bonus features.
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