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Avast Free Mac Security doesn't break a lot of new ground. As is the case with most free software, it does an OK job and — like popular free-to-play games — aims to pull money from your pockets after it's installed.
The one major perk of Avast Free Mac Security is that it can identify attacks in your email inbox, a feature that we'd like to see in all Mac antivirus services. At the end of the day, though, Avast's Mac malware protection rate isn't quite as good as its competitors', which is the most important part of antivirus software.
Avast Free Mac Security costs and what's covered
Avast Free Mac Security is free. It supports Macs running any version of macOS, as long as they have 128MB of RAM and 750MB of available disk space.
Antivirus protection
Avast Free Mac Security keeps Macs free of malware using traditional signature-based detection by unpacking Mac-specific file formats and scanning them for malicious content. It also uses its artificial-intelligence system to apply lessons from its user base to train its software.
Avast also thwarts PC malware on Mac, to prevent it from spreading on networks, and scans unopened ZIP files. It performs system protection scanning in the background, permits both on-demand and scheduled scans, and can scan your router to protect you against DNS hijacking and other threats.
Antivirus detection
Avast Free Mac Security's on-demand malware-scanning engine has a mixed record in recent lab tests. It stopped 100% of malware in tests conducted by Austrian lab AV-Comparatives in July 2018 and June 2019.
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Results from German lab AV-Test were less consistent: 100% of Mac malware was detected by Avast in June 2018 and June 2019, but Avast caught only 96.3% of malware in December 2018.
That means Avast tied with Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac and Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac on the AV-Comparatives test (both hit 100%). However, it failed to match Bitdefender, Kaspersky and Norton 360 Deluxe on the AV-Test study, in which all three earned 100% scores.
Of all the Mac antivirus programs we tested, Avast Free Mac Security was the only one that flagged items already on our system as threats. Specifically, it found three email messages in my old, inactive, Outlook database that contained links to phishing websites.
Security and privacy features
Avast Free Mac Security includes Avast's Online Security browser extension, which automatically installs itself in Chrome unless you opt out, while Firefox provides a confirmation prompt to make sure you approve the extension. The Avast extension appears as a button that is green when you're safe and red if a site is potentially harmful. Similar flags will appear next to search results.
If you're wary of sites that monitor your actions, the Avast browser extension also displays a counter badge that tallies the number of activity trackers found in a website and provides an additional option to block social network-based tracking.
Not only does Avast scan activity on your hard drive and web browsers, but it also monitors POP3 and IMAP email clients, including Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Postbox and Airmail, and scans email attachments as well as email messages.
Avast monitors your computer and its network connections in the background, scans new files upon installation and lets you schedule scans. However, Avast Free Mac Security doesn't have any of the extra features offered by paid competitors, such as parental controls, a VPN service, firewalls or webcam blockers.
Performance and system impact
Avast Free Mac Security had a moderate impact on system performance, which we assessed by running our custom Excel VLOOKUP benchmark test, which matches 60,000 names and addresses on a spreadsheet. Our test machine wasa 2017 MacBook Air with a 1.8-GHz Intel Core i5 CPU and approximately 54GB of data stored on a 128GB SSD.
With Avast Free Mac Security installed on our MacBook, but without any active scans running, the VLOOKUP test finished in an average of 3 minutes and 38 seconds, 1 second longer than without any antivirus software installed. That's a passive system hit of less than 1%, and not something you would likely perceive.
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Other antivirus products' passive system impacts ranged from 5% (Sophos Home Premium) to zero percent (Bitdefender). This is overall great news for Mac users: Most of the time, you'll never notice that you've got antivirus software running.
You would be more likely to notice the slowdowns created by Avast's active scans. During full-system scans, the VLOOKUP test finished in an average of 4 minutes and 59 seconds, resulting in a big performance dip of 37 percent. That's not as bad as McAfee AntiVirus Plus' 47% fall (the worst offender), although it wasn't as good as Sophos' 7% full-scan system hit.
Avast's full-scan completion time, which took an hour and 11 minutes on average, was on the longer end of scores but was not the longest we found — Sophos' 2-hour-and-56-minute time was the longest. Malwarebytes for Mac Premium's full scan took a miraculous 16 seconds, while Bitdefender closed its full scan in 4:25. Kaspersky (41:20) and Norton (25:49) fell in the middle of the pack.
Interface
Avast Free Mac Security may not be the prettiest antivirus app, but it provides a number of functions and options. Its main window shows users a Protected status, as scans are enabled by default. All other features, including on-demand scans, are located in a menu bar on the left.
Avast's main window presents users with their status — Protected or otherwise — and a 'Run scan' button that pushes you to Avast Cleanup Pro. You'll be confused by this abrupt switch of apps if you weren't paying attention to the fine print, and you'll soon realize that Cleanup Pro is a paid product that looks to tidy up your hard drive and costs between $2.99 or $3.99 per month.
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Avast for mac os. You can sort this list by Most Popular, Recommended and Lowest Price. We receive advertising revenue from some of the antivirus providers listed and this impacts the recommended order in which the webmaster chooses. How we rank antivirus providers To help you choose the perfect antivirus partner for your security needs, you have the option to sort and filter the antivirus providers we have showcased. Most popular is based on total number of unique outbound clicks over the last 7 days.
After you click that Run scan button once, it changes to an Upgrade button for Avast Security Pro, which features anti-ransomware protections and Wi-Fi and network scanning. To avoid further confusion, click on Scans in the left-hand menu, which opens that section as well as other sections of the app, such as Reports, Virus Chest, Shields and Preferences.
In Scan, you can select from a number of different types, such as scans of custom directories, scans of removable volumes and scans of your home network. Avast also includes scheduled scans, an increasingly rare option these days.
Clicking on New Scan presents a Start button for activating a Quick Scan and a Change Scan Type button to switch to a full-computer scan.
You'll find database updates and analyses of scans performed on your system in Avast's Reports. Avast places files it flags as malicious into the Virus Chest quarantine section, where you can delete or restore them (if you think Avast is mistaken).
Open the Shields section to see real-time analysis of scanned files. Annoyingly, if the file directory is especially long, Avast won't give you the full directory, so you can't go look up the offending file for yourself. You may not need to, but we'd prefer to have the option.
In the Preferences tab, you'll find options to change the frequency of notifications, system updates and scans. Here, you can also disable hard-drive, email and web protection, although Avast wisely makes you enter your system password first. Additionally, you can disable Avast's menu-bar icon from this window (it's under Miscellaneous).
If you create an account with Avast, you can check the status of any systems you've logged into in the Account tab as well as at my.avast.com. Avast's menu-bar button provides links to open the main interface window, see current activity and application information, and review previous notifications.
Installation and support
To install Avast Free Mac Security, you open Avast.com and click Download, which will place the installer DMG on your Mac. (Thankfully, you won't have to go through download.com anymore, an annoying part of the previous model.) After you click through the end-user-license agreements, the installer will download more files and install Avast.
No restart is required, and the whole process took about 2 minutes for me, which felt about normal. In the middle of the installation, you get the option to not install Avast's unlimited Password Manager and the company'sSecureLine VPN client. The Avast Online Security browser plug-in is free, but you get only a seven-day trial of SecureLine VPN service, which otherwise starts at $60 per year.
To get technical support, click Help in the menu bar, select Avast Technical Support and then select Contact Help to open Avast's Support site. Here, you can find a FAQ, ask for help in the forums and call a customer-support line that will provide free advice for installing, configuring, updating and removing Avast.
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If you need more help than that, Avast offers paid support starting at $79 for any call that isn't related to removing a virus or malware, or at $119 per call for virus-related calls. For more support, you can spend $199 for a year of unlimited service, or $10 per month plus a $99 setup fee.
Bottom line
Avast's email scanning gives it an edge over competing Mac antivirus products. It needs such an advantage when the rest of its package is such a mixed bag.
Not only does Avast's software continually push you to spend money on additional services (unlikely if you've already chosen to use free antivirus software), but its malware detection rates aren't great overall.
If you're going to pay, you should instead choose Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac, which gives you excellent protection and a low system impact for $40 a year. If
you'd rather not pay, then Avast is the best free option, but only because Sophos Home, which has a more full-featured free tier, has undetermined malware-protection abilities on Macs.
Avast For Mac Review
When it comes to protecting our computers from the many threats on the Internet, we have so many companies to choose from, and when we finally decide on a company, we know have to decide on which of the many software’s they have. One company that deserves to have their software’s stand out from the rest is Avast. The possess a large variety of software that was made to make our lives easier.
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In the following review, we are going to concentrate on two great software’s: Avast Free Antivirus and Avast Internet Security. You can tell just by reading the names that one is free, and one is not, but when we take an in-depth peek and what these two software’s can do.
Contents
- Avast Free Antivirus
Avast Free Antivirus
When I first downloaded Avast Free Antivirus, it took a few minutes for the download to complete but it didn’t take as long as I thought it would. The software itself tells you that you can continue to use your PC while the installation continues and that they will let you know when it’s done. At least in my experience, the only way I knew that the installation was done was because I saw the Avast Icon on my Taskbar.
It would have been better if I had something right in the middle of my screen so there is no way I could miss it, just in case I get carried away with what I’m doing and forget. Once the download is complete you will see the following:
If you already have an Antivirus on your computer, you don’t have to worry about Avast Free Antivirus causing problems. If it detects that you already have one installed (like I did) you will get a notice saying that Avast is in passive mode to avoid issues with your current antivirus. The antivirus you already have installed is the one in charge.
After clicking continue, you will be asked to read 3 paragraphs about how Avast uses your information. If you’re interested in protecting your smartphone, Avast will also offer that too after reading the 3 paragraphs. Now, you will be offered what Avast calls a new and smarter browser, and you can either open it or click on I’ll try it later. After the smarter browser offer, you will finally be where you want to be.
I started with a smart scan, and when I clicked on Run Smart Scan I could see how Avast checked for:
- Compatibility Check
- Viruses
- Outdated Software
- Bas reputation browser add-ons
- Networks threats
- Performance issues
- Weak passwords
If you find yourself on this page, and you want to gain access to the tools, all you need to do is click on the hamburger icon and the will appear where it says SmartScan. Avast also detected that my PC was sluggish and gave me the option to optimize. After identifying what was affecting my PC, I saw this:
Before you get your hopes up that Avast will automatically fix your PC’s issues, you should know that it’s not a free service, and when you click on Optimize my PC, you will be given three pay options. You can choose between $1.67 a month for two years, $1.67 a month for one year or $1.67 for three years.
Password Manager
Fortunately, you don’t have to pay for everything on Avast Free Antivirus since it does let you know how strong your passwords are for free. Once Avast is done checking your passwords it will take you through 4 steps, beginning some information telling you that you will only need to remember one master password.
In regards to the Firewall, Sandbox, Avast will only block every virus and malware but will not:
- Test risky files in a special and isolated space
- Keep your inbox clear of spam
- Delete data the secure way
- Update your programs automatically
Avast Password Manager Review
You will also be able to create a new Rescue Disk, have access to a SecureLine VPN, and access the SafeZone browser. If you want to see what it looks like, here you go.
You’ve seen what Avast Free Antivirus can do, but what doesn’t it do in comparison to Avast Internet Security. With the Free version, you don’t get a Firewall, and when you click on the option, you are taken to a page where you can either purchase Internet Security or Premier. With Free Antivirus you can’t use the sandbox feature as well.
How can you know what features you can’t use? You will see a circle with a line across the features that are not available, just in case you forget while you’re using the software.
Avast Internet Security
Note: If you see a plus sign beside a feature, it’s to tell you that Free Antivirus has it too, but if you see a minus sign it means the opposite.
Avast Internet Security has more features than the free version (obviously), but it is not the complete software Avast has. If you are looking for software with everything Avast has to offer then you might want to get Premier. The features that you will find in Internet Security are a Firewall (-), Sandbox (-), Rescue Disk (+), and a Scanner (+).
You will also be able to scan for viruses, and you can choose between a Quick Scan, Full System Scan, Removable Media Scan, Select folder to scan or a boot time scan (+). You can also safely browse your favorites thanks to the SafeZone Browser that is available in both Antivirus Free and Internet Security. In the image below you can see what it looks like with the Ad-blocker working. Uninstalling avast for mac.
You won’t see able to find a performance Booster (-), Data Eliminator (-), and a Software Updater (-). Avast Internet Security will also help you manage your passwords, but it will also ask you to install the Avast Password Extension (+). Storing your passwords in your browser is never a good idea, but not to worry since Internet Security will give you the option to erase them for you. You can import your passwords from your browser, create secure notes and see a list of your passwords.
Conclusion
The winner in this comparison is obviously Internet Security since it has more features than the free versions, but you would think that it would have more than 2 features for software you have to pay for. I sincerely thought that Internet Security was going to blow Free Antivirus out of the water, but that didn’t happen. What’s your opinion on what the software’s have to offer? Let me know what you think in the comments.