Avast Free Mac Security review Avast Free Mac Security is the best free Mac antivirus program, but has so-so malware protection By Henry T. Casey 28 August 2019. AV-Test most recently tested Avast’s malware capabilities in March 2020. The suite earned a 100 percent detection rate from 58 samples in its widespread and prevalent malware test. Avast Premium Security for Mac review: Excellent, but should you buy? Avast is an excellent antivirus suite, but with the free option offering so much is the premium version worth the cost?

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When it comes to free antivirus for Windows computer, your friends will mostly recommend you either Avast Free Antivirus 2018, AVG AntiVirus FREE 2018, or Avira Free Antivirus 2018. But which one of them is the best? Jun 29, 2016 Avast Free Antivirus for Mac is a free antivirus program with a virus scanner, firewall, and various features that you can turn off or on. The program is free, but will request payment for some features, which means that you can’t expect everything in the features section to be free. Avast Antivirus expert review by Shelley Elmblad Czech-based Avast was the first company to offer home network security and is dedicated to providing free antivirus protection to homes, schools.

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The big friendly “You Are Protected” green checkmark on Avast Security Pro’s home screen is certainly a plausible statement. The software is a rare breath of fresh air in a sea of anti-virus products that haven’t worked hard enough to keep up to date with current threats, or haven’t updated the interface to meet modern expectations of presentation and usability.

Avast is danged good at catching malware. AV Comparables says Avast detected 99.9 percent of macOS malware and 100 percent of Windows malware. In spot testing, the app did splendidly. Immediately on decompression of macOS malware from an encrypted archive, Avast detected it, deleted it, and notified me. It did as well with malicious files on the web, though it didn’t detect some items at the WICAR test site that require active local components to be dangerous. Siccing it on drives loaded with other anti-virus products, Avast found test malware I’d downloaded that had wound up in cached files that the anti-virus software on those volumes missed.

Note: This review is part of our best antivirus roundup. Go there for details about competing products and how we tested them.

Avast’s browser component, Web Shield, doesn’t seem to rely on plug-ins (there are none to configure), but uses the program’s kernel extension to check at a low level. It can be managed from the Avast app, and settings apply to all browsers.

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If you’re interested in ransomware monitoring, you need to buy the Pro version ($59.99 for one year/one Mac; $69.99 for one year/three Macs; $99.99 for one year/10 Macs), which relies on folder-based ransomware monitoring. It marks the user Documents and Pictures folders as protected by default, and you can add more folders. By default, Avast allows any Apple and App Store apps to manipulate items in those folders, although you can disable those options. Any other app that tries to modify or delete anything in the shielded folders is blocked, giving you an option to whitelist it.

This is an effective way to protect most users’ critical files, but we prefer Sophos’s active monitoring approach, which looks for patterns of behavior and keeps files from being deleted than one that requires anointing folders. Still, it worked well in testing, and most users keep their most precious documents in a few locations. (Avast could expand the list to include a few more locations by default, too.)

Outside of core anti-virus features, the Pro version also offers a Wi-Fi Inspector. This is unique among anti-virus software we tested, and it looks for devices on a network engaged in malicious behavior. Other anti-virus software packaged with network monitors either whitelist local network activity, or treat it the same as any malicious Internet attacks. This seems aimed at helping users understand if they’ve joined a network, such as at a coffeeshop, that has compromised or attacking devices on it.

One negative is the soft but distinct upsell of Avast, which is sensible in its Free version, but not necessarily in a Pro. A Tools item on the lefthand navigation bar mostly displays other available products, like VPN service. A one-time message at installation might be acceptable, but mingling features and items for sale is too heavy-handed in a security product.

While you can create an account at Avast Software, it’s optional. Once created, you can use it to add machines to log in from the software for a computer to join the account. Unfortunately, the account provides no remote mangement or configuration, just reporting.

Bottom line

How Good Is Avast Antivirus

If you’re looking for a free anti-virus program, Avast is the best choice, edging out Sophos by providing more parity between free and paid version.

While we gave Sophos Home Premium and Avast Security Pro the same 4.5 mice rating, Sophos has a slight edge. The combination of active ransomware scanning makes it somewhat more superior to the folder-based method in Avast, while central configuration and remote control in Sophos can help for a disparate set of family or small-business users. We like Avast’s unique Wi-Fi threat detection, and its native app interface, where Sophos leans heavily on the cloud.

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Avast Free Mac Security is a noteworthy antivirus for Mac, despite it lacks some functionalities. Avast Mac Security assures excellent malware detection scores in a simple interface, coming second only to the competitor Avira. The malware detection is the Avast Mac Security primary goal: you can run a real-time scan every time you need it but it’s not possible to schedule scans based on your needs. Recurring tasks can be automated, like updates. A quick scan option is also not available.

After every scan, a popup will give you detailed information on what’s going on and you can decide if delete suspicious files immediately or moving them to quarantine inside the Virus Chest window. The antivirus will scan your Mac on three levels: the hard drive, the email client (all IMAP and POP3 clients are supported), and the web browser thanks to the extension for Firefox and Chrome telling you if web pages are safe to visit and who’s tracking you. You’ll be able to block trackers and unsafe search results.

A full Avast Mac Security scan takes longer than most of the Mac antivirus competitors, but during the process you can keep an eye on particular file processed, on the count of files scanned, on which data can’t be processed and on a progress bar. You can access the Avast’s VPN service free trial through the antivirus dashboard: if you aim to secure your internet connection you can give it a chance.

This antivirus asks macOS 10.10 (Yosemite) or higher to work properly. Avast Free Mac Security is free, you can download and install it in a matter of seconds.

Conclusion

Extremely easy to install and use, Avast Free Mac Security is one of the best Mac antiviruses out there. It’s almost perfect in detecting malware and it’s free. It does affect system performance during complete scans and it lacks scheduled scans, but it’s an excellent choice.

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