Avast Free Antivirus Review – Full Report

 

Install and Test

Let’s have a look at the Avast free version of the antivirus system for Windows and walk through some of its features. First, we go to the Avast website and download the free antivirus system.

When you click on download, the browser starts the download of the installer. When we start up the install process, Windows asks for the OK to go ahead go ahead and when ok’ed the install process throws up a little splash screen showing that the antivirus is installing. After about three minutes it’s installed.

Initial Scan

First, it notifies us we’re protected and when we click continue it goes to a screen about privacy. Next screen gives the option of installing to other devices such as our smartphones. When it shows up its opening screen, it’s still installing but does provide the opportunity to run a Smart Scan. However, we find that if we try and run a Smart Scan, we’re just put on hold for 30 seconds without any progress indication. Presumably, it was finishing off the installation. Once it starts the scan, it takes about five minutes. On my system, it showed one issue detected which was weak passwords. When we click on resolve, it says that the passwords saved in our browser are potentially unsafe. I will skip the step at the moment as I use the Last Pass password manager.

Protection Menu

Now have a look at the system starting with the Protection menu side tab. See all the options in this screenshot:

• Wi-Fi Inspector. We’ll look at the Wi-Fi inspector first. What it does is a network scan. This scan was quite a bit slower than my iPhone scanning App for the same network but, presumably, is doing some more port checking and other checks. It gives my network a clean bill of health. However, my PS4 gets a somewhat cryptic ID relating to its interface hardware whereas other scanners ID it as a PS4. When you look at other options, you see quite a few of these are locked. On some of the icons, it shows “new” but turns to locked once you’ve gone into it. This inclusion of locked features promotes upgrading to the paid version but is distracting and not helpful to the user interface experience.
• Application Update checking. Next, we checked for application software updates It reports some as up-to-date, but it is not clear which applications are out of scope for this check.
• Firewall is next on our tour but having a firewall service an upgrade option.
• Sandbox is similarly a paid upgrade option.
• Virus Chest, which is where quarantined files go is empty in this case because the initial post-install scan found nothing.
• Ransomware Shield says ‘new’ on the icon, but we find it locked without a paid upgrade.
• Rescue disk instructions say you should use this option to protect against future problems. You create a CD or USB, depending on what your system boot allows, to clean your system without actually having to go back into the system’s operating system.

Privacy Menu

• Avast SecureLine VPN. Privacy side tab has the option to use an Avast SecureLine VPN (Virtual Private Network)
• WebCam Shield requires upgrade option.
• Sensitive Data Shield is also unavailable in the free version as is Data Shredder.
• Password Manager Available as an option for saving passwords and sharing them across your systems.

Performance Menu

Cleanup Premium Fail

Cleanup Premium runs, but I must admit I gave up on trying to get this function to clean up my reasonably clean Windows 10 system. It just kept scanning and scanning and never reported anything. I note the full Cleanup option is an extra payment but the console should report that is the issue if that’s the case rather than leave me hanging.

Repeating the scan

In the Protection side tab Scanning option, you can have a look at a scan history showed the scans we’ve done. We’ll do another Smart Scan to see how it differs from our start-up scan which, as you’ll remember, ran for about five minutes. I found this scan took considerably longer (8 minutes), maybe because it was checking more stuff. We see it reports the weak password protection in the browser noted before plus it found unprotected sensitive documents. When we click on the ‘resolve’ button, it finds what it considers employment documents and other sensitive documents which are some PDFs on the system. If we say yes to the offer to protect them all, we find out another upgrade option appears, so it’s not very helpful to have all these options to keep pushing you towards upgrading. After leaving that menu, it now gives another push for a starter free trial option as an encouragement to get a free trial to lead to the paid version.

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Recommendation

The problem with the Cleanup function puts Avast down a rung compared to free versions that can reliably complete cleanup in a reasonable time. Consider other vendors, such as Bitdefender, if free pricing is essential.

I personally use paid McAfee security and recommend that if a paid option is considered.