Avira antivirus
Buy now From £35.88 per year, Avira.com
Rating: 8/10
Subscription: Antivirus pro, £35.88 per year for 1 device. Avira Prime, £107.88, 5 devices
- Antivirus
- Firewall
- Web protection
- Performance optimisation
- VPN
- Password manager
Privacy management
Avira prime offers plenty of tools to protect your data. There’s a file shredder that overwrites deleted files for secure removal, the VPN for private online browsing, and part of the main app that updates your operating system settings to be more privacy-focused. There are a lot of options here, and it’s possible to plug every hole and seal Windows up tight. Some of the options, however, could potentially have an unwanted effect on the general running of your computer, so apply them with care.
There’s a firewall that plugs into the main Windows defender firewall – changing its settings beyond on/off takes you to Windows defender – and the browser plugins take care of things like tracking cookies.
Family life
Even in its prime bundle, Avira antivirus doesn’t offer parental controls. That’s a shame, because it feels less complete without them. A prime subscription allows you to install Avira on up to five devices, so installing the mobile version should be the next thing you do, as we all rely on our mobile devices, and the incidence of malware on mobile is increasing.
The Android app mainly comprises a virus scanner, plus the VPN and password manager, though there’s a handy call blocker too, and scanners to see if any apps have helped themselves to permissions they shouldn’t have, and to check for security holes in your network connections. The iOS app is a bit thinner in terms of features, due to the more tightly locked-down nature of Apple’s mobile OS, which tends to block anti-malware measures as neatly as it does malware itself.
The Android app is also the home of identity safeguard, which we couldn’t find in the main desktop app. This is Avira’s dark web checking service, which compares your email address against known data breaches circulating on the bits of the internet we don’t usually go to. It’s a great prompt to update your passwords if – when – you find you’ve been included in a leak.
How does Avira work?
When you’ve not got the main app open, Avira sits in the background. Realtime protection keeps a lookout for the changes a virus will attempt to make to your device – such as disabling security – while web protection blocks known malware sites should a supported browser attempt to access one. Email protection blocks emails with dodgy attachments from being downloaded into your mail app, and there’s ransomware protection too.
Infected files are quarantined, from where they can be repaired or deleted, and there’s a malware removal tool that can be downloaded from the Avira website if you’re struggling with an infestation.
Virus scanning comes in quick and full varieties, both of which can be scheduled, and there are separate scans for things like rootkits, and to scan removable drives. Humorously, the scanning window is called “Luke Filewalker”. It carried out a full scan on our entire system, which isn’t very heavily populated, in less than 40 minutes, and generally used less than 30 per cent of our CPU capacity while doing so, meaning it wouldn’t slow the PC down or put it out of use for any amount of time.