Avira Antivirus review

Avira Antivirus is one of the most popular and secure antivirus software on the market right now. The appeal of this antivirus software lies in its simplicity, a huge number of features, and a free version that gives you a test drive without spending a single cent.

Furthermore, Avira has a history of high independent testing rates, which is why it’s considered one of the most secure antivirus. Our in-house testing can also confirm the high malware detection rates and constant real-time protection.

However, with lots of other great antivirus products, is Avira Antivirus even worth your consideration? Luckily, we’ll discuss all of the features, security rates, and performance in this Avira antivirus review.

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Avira Antivirus pros and cons

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Avira antivirus short review

Avira antivirus is a secure and popular antivirus software that ensures your device’s protection. Let’s look at the quick overview of the main points discussed in this review:

• Security. Avira antivirus provides the highest level of protection from malware threats. So, you can be certain that your device is fully covered from malicious threats.
• Features. Avira has an extensive list of security features, both included in a free version and those only available with the premium plans.
• Performance. The specific features for optimizing your device performance are included in most of Avira’s paid subscription plans.
• Pricing. Avira offers several paid subscription plans and a comprehensive free plan. The best deal comes with the Avira Prime plan which covers computer and mobile security.
• Ease of use. Avira’s setup process is easy for both experienced and beginner antivirus users. The apps are simple to navigate and use on different OS devices.

Is Avira Antivirus safe?

Yes, Avira antivirus is very safe to use and provides excellent protection for your device from malware and other online threats. Ever since Avira entered the antivirus software market, it has consistently been regarded as one of the most secure and reliable anti-malware providers.

Independent lab testing further supports the notion of how reliable this provider is. The most recent AV-Test reports score Avira with a perfect score in the protection, performance, and usability fields.

In addition, another testing lab, AV-Comparatives also highly rated Avira as a great software to protect you from a variety of malware threats. Overall, ranking Avira as Advanced+, the highest rating it offers.

Lastly, SE-Labs’ newest testing checked the security of Avira’s Free Security Suite and once again awarded it with the highest rating.

So, overall, according to independent testing results, Avira truly is a secure anti-malware software that can protect your device and data from both zero-day and known malware threats. However, we also had to test this software for ourselves.

During our tests, we challenged Avira with 10 malicious files, to see how many of them would be caught and removed. The results were similar to independent labs – Avira caught 9 out of the 10 files we planted, providing a truly high level of protection to our security.

Avira security features

Avira covers all the main features needed to secure your device from malware threats. The free antivirus version is a bit more limited, so if you wish to get the full feature package, you’ll have to invest in a paid antivirus subscription.

Here are some of the most notable security features this antivirus provides:

• Virus scanner – custom scan options to find malware threats in your device.
• Real-time protection – enabled by default and continuously scans your device for threats.
• Quarantine – secure holding location of any infected files.
• Software updater – scans your device for outdated and risky apps.
• Firewall – meant for managing Windows firewall through the Avira app.

Antivirus scanner

You can choose from two different scan options: full scan, quicks, and smart scans.

• Quick scan – this scan feature checks the most vulnerable areas of your device, and just like with other top-rated antiviruses, this isn’t the most efficient scan option to catch malware threats.
• Full scan – this scan option will check your entire device and is the most reliable scanning option to catch malware threats. During our scan, it took around 35mins, caught 90% of malware threats, however, it was quite heavy on the device, it took from around 54% to 86% of the CPU.
• Smart scan – this is best for looking for privacy or performance issues, malware, outdated apps, and network threats. Not as reliable for finding malware, as the full scan.

There’s also a section called Manage scans. Here, you can keep track of the scans already performed on your device. In addition, this tab allows you to schedule custom scans. Simply select the folders you want to check for malware, and set the scan to take place daily, weekly, or monthly.

Real-time protection

All versions of Avira Antivirus offer Real-time protection against malware.

This feature monitors and scans all the files you access, copy, or otherwise interact with, letting you know if they are safe or infected. In case of danger, Avira Antivirus won’t let the suspicious file make changes to your device. It will also show you a notification.

Now, there are three more options under the Security tab, but you can activate them only if you have one of the paid versions of Avira. Let’s find out whether they’re worth your money or not (after all, this is what this Avira review is for).

Web protection

This feature prevents threats like phishing and spam, as well as malware like browser hijackers. If you encounter something suspicious while browsing, Avira will stop the threat instantly. I advise you to keep this feature on at all times, as even seemingly safe sites can get infected from time to time.

Email protection

This feature protects you from viruses in attachments. Of course, one thing to remember is to never open email attachments from strangers.

However, sometimes even your friend might send you an infected file by accident (especially if they don’t have a good antivirus program installed).

Ransomware protection

If you don’t know what ransomware is, trust us, you don’t want to get it. In short, it is a malicious program that encrypts your files and demands a ransom to unlock them.

It can travel through links and attachments in emails and chats, but you might also download it from infected sites.

To prevent this from happening, Avira Antivirus detects ransomware before it activates, thus protecting your device from a total lockdown.

It is worth mentioning that various tests have proven Avira to be extremely reliable against such threats. This antivirus software detects even the latest types of ransomware because its virus database gets constantly updated.

Quarantine

If Avira recognizes a file as a threat, it encrypts it and sends it to the quarantine folder. In this way, the potentially infected file can’t do any more damage to your device.

To remove a file from this folder (and your computer or smartphone), you have to delete it manually. Otherwise, Avira Antivirus will store it there indefinitely.

However, if you are 100% sure that the file is safe (as Avira is known to occasionally find false positives), you can restore it to its original location. To make sure that Avira won’t target it again, you should set it as an exception to exclude it from the next scan.

Software updater

Software updater is a paid feature of Avira Antivirus software.

It will scan your system for outdated apps and suggest updates. Remember that it will inform you about risky programs even if you only use Avira Free Security Suite. However, the free version of Avira’s software updater won’t upgrade old applications - you have to buy one of the premium packages to get your updates done for you.

This feature is yet another reason to purchase a paid version of Avira Antivirus. Keeping your programs up-to-date minimizes the risk of infection and security breaches.

Firewall

All versions of Avira Antivirus offer the firewall feature. However, it’s not an additional firewall – Avira merely lets you manage your Windows firewall through its app.

Even though this feature might seem a little useless at first, it can actually come in handy. That’s because Avira’s user interface is extremely intuitive and easy to use, and you won’t have to dig through the Windows Security tab to find a way to disable or enable your firewall.

Avira bonus features

If you’re still wondering whether Avira is good enough for you, take a look at its extra features listed below.

• VPN – encrypts your data for secure and anonymous browsing
• Password manager – secure vault for all your credential information.
• Safe Shopping – browser extension to block trackers and malicious ads.
• File Shredder – a secure way to remove files forever.
• Privacy settings – customized settings to prevent Microsoft from collecting your data.
• Avira Crypto – feature meant for easy and secure crypto mining.

Spoiler alert: you can find a lot of them on the free version of Avira Antivirus, too.

Phantom VPN

One of the more interesting features of Avira Free Security is a free VPN. It is fast and easy to use, connecting you to the nearest server with a single click.

Unfortunately, it is limited to a mere 500MB per month. Sure, it will help you in an emergency situation, but the data won’t last long - for daily use, you will have to consider upgrading your Avira software.

In addition to the limited data, the free version of Avira Phantom VPN won’t let you choose the location when connecting to a different server, as it will simply connect you to the nearest one.

Password Manager

After the installation process, you will notice that Avira Free Security comes with a free extension called Avira Password Manager.

This password manager is a great help if you are tired of keeping up with the login credentials throughout all your accounts. All you need to do is remember a single master password, and Avira will fill out everything else.

Additionally, the extension auto-generates strong, reliable passwords for your new accounts and syncs your credentials across all your devices. There’s also the possibility to enable two-factor authentication.

Just keep in mind that this password manager won’t keep track of things like information for form filling.

Avira Password Manager will work with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Opera.

Safe Shopping

Avira Safe Shopping is yet another browser extension that arrives with Avira Free Security.

It can come in handy if you like shopping online, as it will help you avoid scam sites and trackers. Safety aside, Safe Shopping is a great tool for price comparison, as it will display the best current deals for the product you want to buy.

Unfortunately, this extension is only compatible with Google Chrome, Edge, and Opera at the moment. Let’s hope Avira releases Safe Shopping for all the other browsers.

File Shredder

Did you know that when you delete a sensitive file from your PC, hackers can still recover it?

To prevent this from happening, you can use the file shredder of Avira Antivirus. It is a feature integrated into all Avira’s versions, including the free one.

Simply drag and drop the file you want to erase forever, and the shredder will take care of the rest. Just don’t forget that this action is permanent – you will never be able to recover the deleted file, so choose wisely.

Privacy Settings

Here you can apply either recommended or custom privacy settings to your device. In short, this will prevent Microsoft from collecting and using your personal information.

The recommended settings block ad tracking, disable location tracking, and make your activity private. You can apply or disable these settings anytime you want.

You can also customize your privacy settings. This will give you an even wider range of the info you can hide (including your search history).

Avira Crypto

Avira Crypto is a recently implemented feature that lets you mine the cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) while your computer is in idle time. It is an extension of Norton’s Crypto tool, which is no surprise considering that Avira was bought by NortonLifeLock back in 2020.

The feature is completely optional and the way it works is that it lets you mine Ethereum and then gather your earnings in a built-in Avira Crypto wallet. Of course, it’s not free – whatever you earn, there’s a 15% mining fee.

On top of that, since you can only mine Ethereum, which is banned in several countries, you might not get the feature with your antivirus package. It comes with all of Avira’s tiers, including the free one, for Windows users in the US, UK, and Canada.

To conclude, Avira Crypto is a feature for users who are interested in or want to learn mining, however, if you don't need it, you can simply not enable it (or disable it in the Avira Crypto dashboard).

Avira Performance Features

Using Avira correctly might significantly boost the performance of your device. In this section of the Avira Antivirus review, you will explore the Performance tab to take a look at the features that might help your battery last longer.

Optimizer

The optimizer of Avira declutters your device by detecting and deleting all the unnecessary files and cookies.

As a result, you can enjoy a much faster computer, especially if you’ve been putting off its spring cleaning for a long time.

Battery Saver

As time goes by, you might notice that the battery life of your laptop or smartphone gets shorter and shorter.

And Avira Antivirus has a solution for this.

Avira’s battery saver will help you extend your battery life by tweaking a few things here and there. Once activated, it reduces screen brightness, closes unnecessary applications, prevents updates from happening, and blocks push notifications together with location tracking.

Driver Updater

An outdated driver might serve as a gateway for a hacker attack. As a result, keeping your drivers up to date is essential if you want to prevent bad things from happening.

Thankfully, Avira’s driver updater turns the hassle of checking every single driver manually into an easy task. Just click on the Scan button, and Avira will show you which drivers are already vulnerable.

Then, you can simply update them all at once.

I was surprised to find out that even the free version of Avira offers this service. Nice, isn’t it?

Duplicate Finder

This Avira tool scans your device for duplicate files and deletes unnecessary copies.

I checked this feature and it indeed found some identical files. However, Avira’s duplicate finder is a strictly paid feature, so you’ll need to upgrade the software to Avira Pro, Avira Internet Security, or Avira Prime in order to unlock it.

Advanced Tools

All the features under this tab will help you speed up the startup of your computer by 25%. Startup Guard, Startup Time Notifier, and Hyper Boost are the tools you need for more efficient performance.

How much does Avira antivirus cost?

Avira has several plans for you to pick from, however, the device coverage could be improved. There’s even a free plan, that offers a few basic features that make your computer more secure, and it comes together with the password manager and the safe shopping extension.

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However, if you want features like unlimited VPN usage, web protection, ransomware protection, and premium mobile apps, you might consider buying one of the full subscription packages. However, keep in mind the OS coverage available, for example, Avira Internet Security is not compatible with macOS devices.

More so, the only plan that offers mobile security is Avira Prime. This is the most feature-rich plan and the most expensive one. Especially when compared to other top-rated antivirus like TotalAV or Bitdefender.

Keep in mind that Avira has an extra option for American users called Avira Antivirus Pro, which is available for Windows and Mac devices. It is the least expensive version of the three paid ones, and it is a good budget option for those who want to feel protected but don’t want anything fancy.

In addition, all paid subscription plans come with an extra long 60-day money-back guarantee.

How to download Avira?

1. Go to the Avira antivirus website.
2. Pick your subscription plan from the list.
3. Fill in all payment details.
4. Download the Avira antivirus app and follow the installation instructions.
5. Log in to your account and run your first scan.

Ease of use and setup

Here’s something you should know about Avira. It is one of the most intuitive pieces of software I’ve ever had my hands on. And that’s saying a lot.

You can find everything you need from this program in its four main tabs: Status, Security, Privacy, and Performance.

Once you click on the desired tab, everything is extremely self-explanatory. Virus scans, the VPN, the file shredder, and all the other features are a single click away.

Setting Avira up is a piece of cake as well. Simply click on Next a few times, and you’re all done.

The installation time may vary depending on your device. It took 4-5 minutes for Avira to install itself on my computer. However, it may take less time.

Avira Antivirus mobile app

If you want to keep your smartphone secure, Avira has you covered. You can download the Avira Antivirus app from Google Play for Android or the App Store for iOS.

Then, simply use the free version or log into your Avira account if you bought an Avira suite for multiple devices.

Even though the mobile version of Avira offers similar features to the desktop one, a few mobile-only perks help it stand out.

The Anti-Theft feature tracks the location of your device and lets you wipe out its data in case of theft or loss. It also allows you to put a PIN code on applications to prevent strangers from accessing them.

Additionally, Avira mobile displays the permissions given to your phone’s applications. With the help of Avira, you can also set a password to confidential apps and scan your network for unwanted devices (like your neighbor’s laptop).

There are also two paid features - microphone protection and camera protection. They let you manage the apps that have access to your camera and microphone.

Customer support

In this Avira Antivirus review, we’ve already talked about the performance and functionality of the program.

However, I think that customer support is also an important factor when choosing your anti-malware software.

First of all, you should know that Avira Free doesn’t offer any tech support, which means that you’ll have to dig through Avira’s knowledge base or use your googling skills if you encounter any problems.

Luckily, all Avira’s paid versions include customer support. You can either send them an email or call them. Calling the support team can actually be the preferable option, as you might need to wait a few days until you get an email reply from an agent.

By the way, the users of Avira Prime (the most expensive edition) get the privilege of a toll-free number, which is a nice bonus.

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Is Avira a good antivirus?

Avira is one of the most secure and reliable antivirus on the market. This antivirus constantly has the highest malware detection rates, is lightweight, and feature-rich, including both a VPN and a password manager.

In addition, this is one of the few antiviruses with a well-developed free version that uses the same malware detection software as the paid edition of Avira. Unfortunately, the VPN and password manager are limited.

More so, even some of the paid plans offer limited feature versions. So, if you want the full antivirus package, you have to invest in the most expensive and comprehensive plan, which is Avira Antivirus Pro.

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