Avira Antivirus: No longer what it used to be

Avira Free Antivirus focuses on protection against malware and offers some additional features, although many can be downloaded for free from the Avira website.

You get an applet that tunes the Windows firewall, but Avira’s scans have had a relatively strong impact on our system’s performance, and malware protection rates have stalled behind the best antivirus software, while other brands yours have improved.

Bitdefender Antivirus Free Edition and Kaspersky Free Antivirus offer better protection with less impact on the system and are our first choice for the best free antivirus software. Try Avast Free Antivirus for additional features that protect less malware.

What is covered and upgrade options
Avira Free Antivirus 2018 works on Windows 7, Windows 8 / 8.1 and Windows 10. There is no support for XP or Vista. That’s what Panda Free Antivirus is for.

The program comes with a firewall manager and browser extensions that evaluate the reputation of the websites and protect against unwanted extensions.

If you want additional functions, Avira Free Security Suite adds a password manager, the Avira Phantom VPN service and a system optimizer. However, some of them are trial versions that you must pay for in the long term.

There are three paid upgrade options. Avira Antivirus Pro offers protection against ransomware and infected flash drives, as well as a strengthened browser for online commerce. The macOS component is a competitor to the best antivirus software for Mac.

Avira Internet Security Suite adds a software update to ensure that your applications are fully patched.

At the top is Avira Prime, which contains licenses for premium applications for iOS and Android, as well as for PC and Mac software. It offers unlimited use of VPN, a software update program for Windows and Android, as well as an optimizer for Windows system and, of course, one of the best antivirus applications for Android.

Avira Prime costs $ 10 per month or $ 100 per year for up to five devices. The “unlimited” license, available for $ 130 a year or $ 13 a month, is actually limited to 25 devices.

Antivirus protection
Like most antivirus programs, Avira has a three-layer protection scheme. The traditional malware scanner compares files against a library of known threats. Heuristic monitoring examines the code and looks for signs of infection.

The software downloads copies of the suspicious files to Avira’s laboratories for analysis. Anything classified as dangerous is added to malware signature updates that are sent to Avira’s 400 million users multiple times a day.

This data collection necessarily includes the profiles of the client’s system, the habits of use of the computer and the history of the browser. You can unsubscribe, but you must send the request by email.

Avira Free Antivirus 2018 scans compressed files and blocks unwanted software. However, attachments are verified on opening and not on arrival. Avira browser security extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Opera warn of known malicious websites and block ads and tracking cookies.

You can start a quick scan with one click in the main program window, but it takes three clicks to start a full scan. The custom scan option allows you to return home to specific files or folders. However, you can also right-click something in Windows Explorer to scan it.

With Avira Antivirus, you can schedule scans when you are asleep or not, or configure them to run automatically once a day or every week. Get Avira Antivirus, get security.