Avast Security Pro (for Mac Review Rating Pcmag.com

Of course, AVG only makes money if somebody purchases the for-pay security suite. There's a certain amount of upsell when you go to install the free antivirus, but it's much more laid back than, for example, Comodo.

You can choose the free antivirus or start a 30-day free trial of the suite. You don't have to enter a credit card, and if you do nothing, at the end of the trial it reverts to the free antivirus.

It does offer to install a plug-in for all of your browsers, and replace your home page, new tab page, and default search. However, as I'll explain below, installing AVG in the browser gets you a ton of useful security features. Management by Zen Like all AVG products, the antivirus includes AVG Zen, a management and launching utility that offers an overview of AVG security on all of your devices. It's similar in many ways to the component that helps you manage and other McAfee products. Four panels dominate Zen's main window, devoted to antivirus, PC tuneup, VPN, and Web Tuneup. Each panel contains a circle that can be fully or partially colored, depending on whether or not you've installed all possible protection in that area.

If all is well, the circle glows green; if your attention is needed, it changes color. When you install the free antivirus, you see a three-quarter circle in the antivirus panel. That becomes a full circle only if you upgrade to the paid edition. If you followed the installer's instructions regarding Web Tuneup, that panel displays a full circle.

As for the VPN panel, that one remains empty unless you separately install the. The main window has two main panes. The Basic protection pane includes icons for computer protection and for Web and email protection, both enabled. The Full protection panes icons represent protection for private data, protection during online payments, and protection against hack attacks, all three disabled. To enable those, you must upgrade to AVG's non-free security suite. In the middle, below the two panes, is a big button labeled Scan Computer.

Clicking it launches a full scan, which does more than just scan for malware. It also scans for junk files, revealing browser traces, system logs, and Registry problems—but if you want to fix those you must start your short-time trial of AVG PC Tuneup. In testing, the full scan finished in just six minutes, which led me to peruse all the scan options.

I found another option called Deep Virus Scan. This scan took over an hour, quite a bit longer than last year's edition of AVG. However, because the scan flags safe files that don't need to be looked at again, a second scan goes much faster.

I found that a repeat scan finished in just a few seconds. Lab Scores High and Plentiful It may seem counterintuitive, but in most cases antivirus makers pay for the privilege of having products included in testing by the independent labs, but they do benefit. A high score gives the company bragging rights; if the score is poor, the lab lets it know what went wrong. When the antivirus doesn't bring in any income, a company might be tempted to avoid the expense of testing. I follow five independent testing labs that regularly release reports on their results; all five of them include AVG. Testers at run a wide variety of tests on antivirus and other security products; I follow five of those tests closely. As long as a product meets the minimum for certification, it receives a standard rating.

Those that go beyond the minimum can receive an Advanced rating, or even Advanced+. AVG participates in four of the five, and received two Advanced and two Advanced+ ratings. Note, though, that Kaspersky and both rated Advanced+ in all five tests. Reports on antivirus capabilities in three areas: protection, performance, and usability. With six points possible in each category, the maximum score is 18 points. AVG took six points for usability, meaning it didn't screw up by flagging valid programs or websites as malicious. It came close in the other two categories, with 5.5 apiece.

A total of 17 points isn't enough for AV-Test to designate AVG a Top Product; that requires 17.5 or better. Bitdefender, Quick Heal, and Trend Micro earned the necessary 17.5 points, while Kaspersky and managed a perfect 18. AVG scored 81.05 percent in Virus Bulletin's RAP (Reactive And Proactive) test, just a hair below the current average. Tests products using real-world drive-by downloads and other Web-based attacks, assigning certification at five levels: AAA, AA, A, B, and C. While most of the labs report a range of scores, tests by are more like pass/fail. Half of the products tested failed at least one test; 30 percent, including AVG, failed both. Since not-quite-perfect and epic failure get the same rating in this test, I give it less weight when coming up with an aggregate score., AVG, ESET, and Kaspersky are the only products in my collection that currently have results from all five labs.

AVG's aggregate score is 8.7 of 10 possible points, better than many commercial products. At the top is Kaspersky, with 9.8 points, followed by Avira and Norton with 9.7. Very Good Malware Protection. Malicious software from the Internet must get past numerous defenses before it can infect your PC. AVG could block all access to the malware-hosting URL, or wipe out the malware payload before the download finishes—I'll discuss those layers shortly.

If a file is already present on your computer, AVG assumes it must have gotten past the earlier protection layers. Even so, it checks one more time before allowing such a file to execute. To test AVG's malware-blocking chops, I opened a folder containing my current collection of malware samples and tried to execute each one. AVG blocked almost all of them immediately, wiping them out so fast it left Windows displaying an error message that the file could not be found. It wiped out most of those that managed to launch before they could fully install. Initially I determined that AVG detected 94 percent of the samples and scored 9.0 of 10 possible points. However, upon checking with my company contact, I learned that for full protection I should enable detection of potentially unwanted applications, sometimes called PUAs or PUPs.

With that setting enabled, AVG's scores rose to 97 percent detection and 9.5 points, better than many commercial programs. I wish, however, that AVG either enabled detection of PUAs by default or, like, made the user actively choose to enable or disable this protection.

When AVG detects a file that's completely new to the system, never before seen, it prevents that file from launching and sends it to AVG headquarters for analysis. I managed to invoke this feature using one of those hand-modified samples. AVG killed the process, triggering a Windows error message. To show it wasn't really an error, AVG attached a CyberCapture tab to the error message.

A few other files merited special scrutiny. AVG displayed a message stating, 'Hang on, this file may contain something bad,' and promising an evaluation within 15 seconds. All of my hand-coded testing utilities triggered this warning; all three got a clean bill of health.

Detecting my months-old samples is one thing; protecting against the very latest threats is quite another. My malicious URL test uses a feed of URLs detected within the last day or two. An antivirus product gets equal credit if it prevents all access to the malware-hosting URL or if it eliminates the downloaded malware immediately. I test URL after URL until I've recorded data for 100 verified malware-hosting URLs, then tally the results. AVG blocked access to more than half of the URLs and eliminated almost another quarter at the download stage, for a total of 73 percent protection.

That's quite a bit better than Comodo, which lacks URL-based blocking and scores just 37 percent. However, others have done quite a bit better than AVG. Holds the lead, with 98 percent protection; Avira managed 95 percent.

Antiphishing Disappointment. Trojans and other malicious programs must successfully infiltrate your compute in order to steal data. Phishing websites, by contrast, only have to trick you, the user. If you log in to a fraudulent site that's pretending to be your bank, or your email provider, you've handed over your account to a crook.

Such sites get discovered and blacklisted quickly, but the crooks simply set up new ones. The most dangerous phishing sites are those that haven't been analyzed yet, so I scour the Web for sites that have been reported as fraudulent but not yet verified. I discard any that don't pretend to be some other site, and any that don't include fields for username and password. I launch each URL in a browser protected by the program under test, and in another protected by long-time phish-killer Norton.

I also launch the URL in Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer, relying on the browser's built-in protection. If the URL returns an error message in any of the five browsers (and they often do), I discard it. Because the URLs themselves are different every time, I report each product's results as the difference between its detection rate and that of the others. In last year's test, AVG lagged Norton's detection rate by 28 percentage points, which is still actually better than the majority of competing products. This time around, it lagged Norton by 70 percentage points, putting it near the bottom. My contact at the company checked with the developers and confirmed that they know about the problem and are working on speedier updates.

Even though Norton is my touchstone for this test, it doesn't beat every single competitor. Tied with Norton in its most recent test. Bitdefender, Kaspersky, and Webroot actually beat Norton by a few points. Bonus Features.

Avast Security Pro (for Mac Review Rating Pcmag.com)

The AVG Web TuneUp plug-in installs in all your browsers and offers several useful and important security benefits. First off, the Site Safety component warns when you visit a website that's risky or actively dangerous. You can click for more details, and click again for a full website report online. However, the full report isn't as detailed as what you get from Norton and a few others. And where Norton marks search results with red, yellow, and green icons, AVG only offers a rating once you try to visit a site. Advertisers love to track your Web surfing, so they can show you ads they think you'll like, and avoid showing the same ad too often.

But tracking by advertisers and others is a bit creepy, enough so that there's a header in the HTTP standard specifically designed to tell websites you don't want to be tracked. Alas, the header has no teeth. Your browser can send a Do Not Track header, but sites and advertisers can ignore it.

AVG's Web TuneUp includes an active Do Not Track component, one that checks each page you visit for trackers and optionally cuts off their tracking. It's disabled by default; I suggest you turn it on. A similar feature in uses its toolbar button to display the number of trackers on the current page and let you fine-tune its tracker blocking. AVG just blocks all trackers when this feature is turned on.

The last feature, Browser Cleaner, doesn't add a lot to your security. It tracks things like browsing history, saved Web form data, and cookies, and lets you click to delete them. But in Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer, you can simply press Ctrl+Shift+Del to do the same, with finer control over what gets deleted. As noted, you can at any time install a one-day free trial of.

Don't do this until you have a little free time, so you can make full use of your short-term trial. The final bonus feature is a little hard to spot. Buried in the right-click menu for files and folders, you should find a new item titled Shred using AVG. If you choose this item, AVG overwrites the file's data before deleting it, thereby foiling any attempt to recover the deleted file's data. An Excellent Choice With the Avast acquisition, both the outward appearance and the technology inside are changing for AVG AntiVirus Free, and that's not a bad thing.

The antivirus gets very good marks from all of the independent labs that I follow, and also did quite well in my malware-blocking test. It wasn't quite as good at blocking malicious downloads, but still beat many competitors.

Yes, its antiphishing performance wasn't great, but phishing protection isn't a central antivirus component. Overall, it's an excellent choice.

But don't just take my word for it. Go ahead and give the program a try; it's free, after all. While you're at it, have a look at Avast Free Antivirus and Panda Free Antivirus, our other Editors' Choice products in the free antivirus realm.

. Pros Top scores from AV-Comparatives, good scores from AV-Test. Cleaned most Windows malware in hands-on tests. Cons Protection against malicious and fraudulent URLs requires separate download. Mediocre score in antiphishing test. Bottom Line Avira Free Antivirus for Mac costs nothing, and it gets good scores from the independent labs, but it's not the best free Mac antivirus we've tested.

Though some Mac enthusiasts might argue the contrary, Macs aren't invulnerable. You need protection on your macOS devices. Sure, Windows and Android are much more popular targets, but Apple machines get hit with malware too, including nasty variants like ransomware. If you don't care to pay for antivirus protection on your Mac, consider Avira Free Antivirus for Mac. It doesn't cost a penny, and it did well in tests by the independent labs. Scheduled scanning is enabled by default, once per week.

You can add more scheduled quick or full scans, on a daily or weekly basis. Clicking Modules in the left-side menu displays the status of four security modules: Real-Time Protection, Protection Cloud, Firewall, and USB Scanner (the last is reserved for the Pro edition of this product). Seeing the label Firewall, you might get the impression that Avira includes a firewall component, like Intego, McAfee, and Norton. However, this component simply controls the built-in macOS firewall component.

Pricing and OS Support. There's a big range of prices for Mac-based antivirus support. At the high end, Intego lists at $99.99 per year to protect three Macs, and asks $89.99 per year for five cross-platform licenses. Granted, these two are security suites, going beyond what a simple antivirus utility offers. The most common pricing plan among products we've reviewed is $39.99 per year for one license and $59.99 for three. As for Avira, you don't pay a thing. Like, it's totally free.

You do need a modern operating system to use this antivirus. Avira requires macOS El Capitan (10.11) or better. If you're using an old operating system, you may need to consider a different Mac antivirus. Sophos support runs back to Mountain Lion (10.8), Webroot works on Lion (10.7) or better, and goes all the way back to Snow Leopard (10.6). Good Malware Protection Lab Scores When evaluating Windows antivirus utilities for, I use a wide range of tests that I've developed over the years. I don't have anything similar in hand for the macOS platform, as my many hand-coded testing tools are Windows-only.

For Mac antivirus, I necessarily rely more heavily on the independent testing labs to know which products are effective. Fortunately, most of them do just fine. Two of the independent antivirus testing labs I follow include macOS products in their testing, and both have Avira on their test roster. Certifies Avira for malware protection, with the best possible scores. It achieved 100 percent protection against Mac-centric malware (to be fair, most of the products in this test reached 100 percent). The experts at rate antivirus utilities, both for Windows and macOS, on three criteria: how well they protect against malware, how little they impact performance, and how carefully they avoid flagging valid programs as malicious.

With six points available in each category, the maximum score is 18. Avira earned 5.5, 5.0, and 6.0 points in the three criteria respectively, for a total of 16.5 points. Others have done better. Bitdefender, and Trend Micro all earned a perfect 18 from AV-Test, as well as 100 percent from AV-Comparatives.

You may notice that there aren't any results in the table for Sophos, ESET, McAfee, and a few others. These products all earned high marks in past test reports, but the labs vary their product selection, and the latest reports didn't include them.

When I challenged Avira to clean up a USB drive containing the samples from my own Windows-centered testing, it finished quickly, eliminating 82 percent of the samples. That's better than most of the products I've tested in this way, though caught 86 percent and Sophos managed 100 percent. In addition, Sophos jumped right in to scan the USB drive, without waiting for me to request a scan. Protection Against Phishing and Malicious URLs Phishing URLs are frauds that attempt to steal your login credentials by imitating sensitive websites. Phishing is a platform-agnostic crime—you can fall victim to fraud using absolutely any device that has a browser. That includes your Mac. Preventing access to such URLs, or to URLs containing malicious code, can be the first line of defense for an antivirus tool, whether it's Mac.

Avira Free Antivirus does not in itself protect against malicious or fraudulent URLs, but it does give users easy access to Avira's Browser Safety extensions for Chrome and Firefox. I installed the Chrome extension and proceeded to test Avira's browser-based protection.

For this test, I gather the newest phishing URLs I can find, especially ones that haven't yet been analyzed and blacklisted. I use one of my hand-coded tools to launch each URL and record results in three browsers, Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer, each protected by the browser's own built-in protection. As for the Mac product, my analysis tool works strictly on Windows, so I test by hand on the Mac. I ran this test simultaneously with my test of Avira Antivirus and on Windows. For testing purposes, I discard any URL that causes an error message in any of the browsers, and any URL that doesn't actively attempt to capture login credentials.

Analyzing the remaining URLs, the undeniable phishing URLs, I found that Avira's detection rate came at 66 percent, as it did under Windows. That makes sense; the Chrome plug-in that handles phishing protection isn't platform-specific. That 66 percent score is better than the 47 percent Avira earned last time I put it to the test. However, it's in the bottom half for macOS antivirus utilities that include phishing protection. Recently managed 100 percent protection in this test.

On the plus side, Browser Safety marks up unsafe links in search results, so you can avoid clicking them. It doesn't offer the detailed analysis that you get from Norton, but then, most of the time you don't need to see those details. Should You Go Pro? At the bottom of the main screen's left-side menu is a highlighted item titled 'Get Pro.' Clicking it gets you a laundry list of the virtues of the Pro edition.

These include scanning USB devices, protecting emails, and full-scale phone support, along with more nebulous benefits such as 'award-winning shields against dangerous threats' and protection enhancement using 'smart learning algorithms.' As with the free and Pro editions on Windows, perhaps even more so, the added benefits don't seem to merit the price.

The free edition's real-time protection scans a file that enters your Mac via USB either when it's copied to the local drive or when it executes. Likewise, when you save or launch a malicious email attachment, real-time protection jumps into the fray. Personal tech support is nice—free users only get FAQs and community support forums—but not $44.99 per year nice. I didn't see a reason to review the Pro edition separately. Free and Simple Having heard for years that Macs don't get malware, Mac users may find paying money for antivirus protection hard to justify. It's a false assumption—macOS malware exists—but that still doesn't mean that you must pay. Avira Free Antivirus for Mac does a decent job, and it doesn't cost a dime.

But you should also look at Sophos Home (for Mac). Like Avira, Sophos has certification from two independent labs. It wiped out all our Windows malware samples, beating out even its paid competitors.

And in our antiphishing test it does much better than Avira.