Czech security firm Avast has offered free antivirus protection for well over 20 years. Avast One Basic starts with the powerful virus-busting tech that has always been its forte. It goes on to add many components from the full-featured (and not free) Avast One Gold suite. And you can use it on all your Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows devices. This suite-level collection of features makes Avast One Basic a clear Editors' Choice award winner for free antivirus software, sharing the honor with AVG AntiVirus Free, which is a more typical—and simpler—standalone antivirus that uses the same excellent antivirus engine as Avast One Basic.
Avast Around the World
The Avast One software line is available in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. All of Avast’s existing software remains available for download or purchase in these countries and around the world.
It's Surprisingly Easy to Be More Secure Online
In late 2022, Avast completed a merger with Norton, forming a new company called Gen Digital. Gen also owns AVG and Avira, but so far, all the brands continue to exist independently. Avast and AVG use the same antivirus engine, but they have done so since long before the merger.
A Light, Pleasant User Interface
Longtime Avast users are used to a dark gray, slightly textured background, with highlights of green and purple, plus the orange company logo. Rectangular buttons served to launch scans, choose between protection areas, and so on. The appearance of Avast One couldn’t be more different.
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From installation on, Avast One is light, bright, and almost cartoonish. Buttons are rounded rectangles. Every page gets its own illustration in an airy line-drawing style with dabs of pastel colors. Happy people fill the larger images. The backgrounds are white with a faint tint of color. The whole impression is less that of a fortress against malware and more that of a partner to keep you, your devices, and your data safe and happy.
Unusually, the Home page isn’t necessarily the spot to see all the features of the program. Rather, it focuses on what’s currently important. For example, after a scan confirmed no malware was present on my test system, it switched to reporting on programs potentially slowing down my PC. Scrolling down reveals panels that offer status info and access to features such as PC Speedup, Browser Cleaner, and Software Updater.
The menu item titled Explore at left brings up a completely different page. This page, much like the home page in other security utilities, offers access to all the program’s features, divided into Device Protection, Online Privacy, and Smooth Performance.
Excellent, Plentiful Antivirus Test Scores
Just as many companies around the world create and sell antivirus software, other companies put those antivirus programs through rigorous testing. I follow four testing labs that regularly release public reports on their findings. Avast appears in results from all four labs and gets excellent scores.
The mere fact that all four labs put it to the test shows that Avast is a significant force in the market. Only three of the antiviruses I follow appear in current reports from all the labs: Avast, Avira Free Security, and Microsoft Defender. More than half of them don’t show up in any current reports or appear in just one. And Avast’s scores aren’t merely plentiful; most are impressively high.
Testing experts at AV-Test Institute rate each antivirus in three areas: protection against malware attacks, low impact on performance, and minimal false positives. A program can earn up to six points in each area for a maximum of 18. Avast is among the three-quarters of tested products that earn a perfect 18 points in this lab’s latest round of testing, along with AVG AntiVirus Free, Bitdefender, and McAfee.
At AV-Comparatives, researchers don’t assign numeric scores. Any security tool that passes one of this lab’s many tests receives Standard certification. Those that exceed the minimum needed to pass can rate Advanced or even Advanced+. I follow three of the many tests from this lab’s reports. Like AVG, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, and several others, Avast holds an Advanced+ rating in all three tests.
To evaluate an antivirus tool’s real-world protective abilities, the testers at SE Labs use a capture and replay system to hit each tested antivirus with the exact same web-based attacks. Contenders can earn certification at five levels: AAA, AA, A, B, and C. In the latest round of testing, Avast reached the AAA level, along with all but two of the other tested programs.
London-based MRG-Effitas is a tougher taskmaster than the rest. Any antivirus that doesn’t reach a near-perfect score in its banking Trojans test fails. Half the programs in the latest test failed, among them Trend Micro Antivirus+ Security and Avast (its only failure).
In a separate test using all types of malware, antivirus tools get two chances. Those that completely prevent every attack earn level 1 certification. Those that let some malware attacks through initially but remediate the situation within 24 hours reach level 2. Avast took level 2 in the latest test; only Bitdefender, Malwarebytes, and Microsoft managed level 1.
The four labs use different scoring methods, making comparison challenging. I’ve devised an algorithm to normalize all four to a 10-point scale and derive an aggregate lab score. Among antivirus utilities tested by all four labs, Norton tops the list, with an excellent 9.8 points, while Avast is second with 9.6 points. Bitdefender and McAfee both reached 10 points, based on results from three labs each.
Solid Malware Protection
Once you’ve completed that initial full scan, real-time protection should handle any new attacks. Avast includes numerous layers of protection against malware weaseling in from the internet. However, the malware samples I use for hands-on testing are already present in each test virtual machine, as if they have already got past those initial protective layers. Like AVG, Emsisoft, McAfee, and a few others, Avast checks such files just before they execute.
To test Avast's malware-detection skills, I opened a folder of malware samples and tried to launch each one. Avast wiped 99% of them out so fast that it left Windows displaying a “file not found” message. I was perplexed that, in many cases, it insisted that quarantining the file would require a restart, though my own testing tools showed no such necessity.
With 99% detection and complete blocking of every detected threat, Avast scored 9.9 of 10 possible points, better than the 9.1 it scored when last tested. Tested against this same new set of malware samples, AVG earned precisely the same score. That’s not surprising, as the two share an antivirus engine.
Norton came very close to tying Avast and AVG, detecting 99% of the samples, but its blocking of detected threats wasn’t quite as perfect, yielding a still-impressive score of 9.8 points. And Bitdefender, well, despite its stellar scores with the independent labs, Bitdefender routinely scores lower in my hands-on tests, in this case taking just 8.1 points. As always, when my results don’t jibe with what the labs report, I give the labs more weight.
Tested with my previous set of samples, Malwarebytes attained 9.8 points, the best score of this group. PC Matic and Guardio also scored 9.8 points against this sample set, though I had to modify the test for them because PC Matic works on an allowlist basis, and Guardio only checks files as they’re downloaded in Chrome.
It takes me weeks to collect, analyze, and curate a new set of samples for my hands-on testing, so I necessarily use the same set for many months. I’m aware that, in the meantime, new and different samples are appearing online. To check how each antivirus handles the newest malware, I use a feed of the latest malware-hosting URLs discovered by researchers at MRG-Effitas. I attempt to launch each of the dangerous URLs, noting whether the antivirus diverts the browser from the page, eliminates the malware download, or sits idly doing nothing.
Avast handles such dangers below the browser level. There’s no browser extension needed, and it doesn’t matter which browser you use. However, its scores on this test have been all over the map. In its three latest reviews, it scored 91%, 68%, and 98%. This time around it’s on another downswing. Avast blocked the connection to 18% of the dangerous URLs and eliminated another 57% during download, for a total of 75%.
It’s true that Avast’s real-time protection focuses on checking files as they attempt to launch. I tried launching the samples that got past Avast just to see what would happen. Even counting samples caught at launch (which is not a normal part of this test), Avast would have scored just 82%.
In the winner’s circle for protection against malware-hosting URLs we find Bitdefender, Guardio, Sophos Home Premium, Trend Micro, and ZoneAlarm. These five all reached 100% in their latest tests. By contrast, Avast’s current score is in the bottom quarter of recent antivirus tests.
Avast’s Scan Choices and Timing
Immediately on installation, Avast asks to run a Smart Scan. This includes a quick scan for malware, naturally, but it also checks your browser’s security and looks for junk files and other needed cleanup areas. I’ll cover those performance features below. If you accept Avast’s advice, it will run a Smart Scan once a month.
The Smart Scan should catch any blatant, active malware, but after installation, you really need to run a deep scan to root out any deep-seated malware. On my standard clean test system, this took 2 hours 42 minutes, about an hour longer than the current average. Clearly, the first scan performed some initial optimization steps, as a repeat scan finished in 1 hour 25 minutes. You should always run a full scan after installing a new antivirus. After that, the real-time protection system should theoretically take care of any future infestations.
You can optionally run a targeted scan on a subset of files and folders or dig in for a Boot-Time Scan if the deep scan seems to leave some problems behind. The latter runs at the next system reboot, springing into action before Windows loads. That also means it runs before any malware can launch, thereby defeating any malware self-defense mechanisms.
I recommend choosing the option to install “specialized antivirus definitions” before the Boot-Time Scan. These allow for a more aggressive scan than you might want every day.
Top-Notch Phishing Protection
Learning to code is a big investment of time, and learning to write malware that can escape the notice of security scans requires a high level of skill. Phishing fraudsters don’t bother with any of that fussy nonsense. Instead of looking for vulnerabilities in the operating system, they focus on the most vulnerable element—the unsuspecting user. They design websites that look like sensitive sites, such as PayPal or your bank. If you log into the fake, the fraudsters steal your credentials and thereby own your account. Yes, highly observant folks can learn to recognize phishing frauds, but it’s nice to have some help for those days when you’re a little muzzy.
It’s true that fake sites get caught and blacklisted constantly, but the perpetrators just grab their winnings and pop up a new fake site. For testing purposes, I make sure to include reported frauds too new for the blacklists. I scrape hundreds of reported phishing URLs and launch each simultaneously in four browsers. The antivirus under test protects one, of course, while the other three rely on phishing protection built into Chrome, Edge, and Firefox.
I discard any URLs that don’t load properly in all four browsers or that don’t precisely fit the profile of a phishing fraud. For the rest, I record whether each tested protection system blocked the fraud or missed it. A handy program launches the URLs and records my notes automatically. Avast found the phishing test program itself to be suspicious but gave it a clean bill of health after examination.
As with its protection against dangerous websites, Avast blocks phishing frauds below the browser level. Instead of diverting the browser to a warning page, it displays the now-familiar pop-up warning to say it cut the connection to a site infected with phishing. I saw that pop-up a lot, as Avast blocked 99% of the verified fraudulent URLs in this test, beating all three browsers by 20 percentage points or more. Tested at the same time, Avast One Basic for Mac scored precisely the same.
Free solutions from AVG and Malwarebytes also scored 99% in their latest antiphishing tests. Guardio, McAfee, Trend Micro, and ZoneAlarm managed a perfect 100%, as did Norton Genie, a free mobile app dedicated to identifying frauds and scams.
Permission-Based Ransomware Protection
If Avast missed a Trojan weaseling onto your PC on Thursday but wiped it out after an update on Friday, you’d suffer little harm. But if it was a ransomware attack on Thursday, no antivirus update is going to bring back your encrypted files on Friday. Since ransomware has so much more potential for immediate, irreversible harm, many antivirus utilities add a layer of protection specific to ransomware.
Some use a specialized behavioral analysis module fine-tuned to detect and prevent attacks by encrypting malware. Others tighten up access, denying any unauthorized programs that attempt to modify sensitive files. Avast falls in the latter camp.
By default, Avast protects the Documents, Pictures, Desktop, Videos, and Music folders for all active Windows accounts. It’s easy enough to add protection for more folders belonging to your own Windows account. If you want to protect additional folders belonging to another account, you need to log into that account.
Avast protects specific types of files: Archives, Audio, Database, Disc Images, Documents, Pictures, and Video. Hovering over any of the types gets a daunting list of file extensions covered. If your work (or play) involves some unusual file type that’s not included, there’s a spot to add the appropriate extensions. You can also just secure all files in the protected folders, regardless of type.
Out of the box, Ransomware Protection runs in what’s called Smart Mode. In this mode, known and trusted apps (for example, Microsoft Office apps) can manipulate protected files, as can programs you’ve explicitly approved. The tougher Strict Mode bans access by every program until you approve it.
For a simple test of this feature, I turned to a tiny text editor I coded myself. This one-off program clearly won’t be on any predefined list of trusted programs. In fact, at first launch, it triggered Avast’s suspicious file examination (which it passed). When I tried to save a modified file, Avast asked me whether to block or allow the app. Only after I clicked Allow could I save the file.
Avast's Basic Firewall
Windows has built-in firewall protection, designed to protect against unauthorized connections from the internet or the network you’re on. It’s good enough you probably don’t need a dedicated third-party personal firewall. Firewall protection in the free Avast One Basic doesn’t go much beyond the built-in. It checks when you connect with a new network, asking whether to treat it as public or trusted. If you choose public, the firewall blocks all unsolicited incoming network traffic and any attempts to connect with your device across the local network. Defining the network as trusted lifts the local restrictions. There’s a bit more to it, but those are the points users will notice.
Most third-party firewalls distinguish themselves from the built-in by controlling how programs use your network connection. Smart ones, like the firewall in Norton, automatically configure permissions for known good programs, terminate known bad programs, and monitor unknowns to ensure they don’t misuse the connection. At the other end of the spectrum, some personal firewalls ask you, the user, to make the decision about every new access attempt. RipYouOff.exe wants to access 2001:668:108:5095::2add on port 8080. Allow or deny? Once or always?
Avast doesn’t pepper you with firewall queries. It doesn’t do anything at all about controlling program access to the network unless you dig in to do it manually. On the firewall settings page, you can view a list of all apps using the network. Along with each app, you can see the bandwidth it has used, and you can click a button to block its network access. You could totally wreak havoc here by blocking such items as Host Process for Windows Services or System. Unless you’re a network wizard, just leave this feature alone.
The best protection in the world won’t help you if a malicious program can just turn it off. I determined Avast doesn’t expose any Registry settings that would allow this. Just as when I last tested Avast, I couldn’t terminate its running processes. When I tried, I just got an access-denied message—for all 11 of them.
I also checked its nine essential Windows services. Trying to stop the firewall service got me a big warning, one that didn’t appear for any of the others. Two services were armored such that the option to stop them was unavailable. Of the rest, half weren’t running, and the other half yielded to a simple stop command.
If you can’t stop an important service, how about seeing that it doesn’t start in the first place? I couldn’t set the startup type to Disabled for the antivirus or firewall; I just got access denied. But I managed that trick with the other seven services. On reboot, Avast was trashed. While a malicious program that got past real-time antivirus couldn’t disable firewall protection, it could wreak havoc on most other Avast services. As before, I’m left wondering why the designers didn’t just protect all the services.
Network Inspector Checks Device Security
For many years, Avast antivirus tools included a feature called Wi-Fi Inspector. In the current Avast incarnation, that feature is more accurately named Network Inspector since it checks all networks, Wi-Fi, and otherwise. Once you confirm that you’re authorized to scan all devices on the network, you can launch a scan that reports on just what devices connect to your home network.
The scan attempts to identify the name and type of each found device; it also scans each for security holes. If the scan comes up clean, there’s nothing more you need to do. However, I imagine most users will be curious enough to check out the list of devices. Depending on your skill level, you may even want to track down any unknown devices and edit their entries with name and device type. You do need a modicum of network skills, enough to identify a device based on its IP or MAC address.
Inspecting your network security comes at no cost, but customers who pay get even more. With a premium account, you can enable notification when a new device connects. Avast doesn’t let you block access for an unknown new device, but if an intruder shows up, you’ll at least know it’s time to change your Wi-Fi password.
Bandwidth-Limited VPN
Your antivirus tool’s full scan roots out any malware infestations on your devices, and real-time antivirus detects and prevents new attacks. Your data should be safe with this protection in place. However, the moment you communicate across the internet, antivirus protection loses its mojo. To protect your data on its travels, you need a VPN.
The VPN creates a secure encrypted connection between your device and a hardened server managed by the VPN company. No snoop, not even the owner of the network you’re using, can access your data in transit. The VPN server interacts with whatever site you selected and sends the responses back to you through the same encrypted connection. A side benefit of this process is that your network traffic seems to come from the VPN server. That means a site can’t determine your location based on your IP address. It also can allow you to access content that would normally be restricted based on your location.
PCMag has evaluated the standalone Avast SecureLine VPN and found it to be decent but not outstanding. You can read our review for a full understanding of this feature. Briefly, it uses recommended VPN protocols and offers a widespread but somewhat sparse selection of servers (about 500 servers in 36 countries). Its privacy policy clearly states what information it logs. In our review, we noted it gathers more data than is needed and more than most competitors. It doesn’t offer features beyond VPN the way some others do, but it earned decent scores in our speed tests.
With Avast One, the VPN is integrated, not a separate app, but the underlying technology is the same. As is typical, users who aren’t paying are subject to significant restrictions. For one, you don’t get to choose your server or server location; the VPN makes that choice for you. For another, it limits the bandwidth you can use.
To be fair, Avast’s bandwidth limit is more generous than many, allowing 5GB of traffic per week. The free edition of Hotspot Shield VPN allows 500MB per day, a bit less than Avast. With TunnelBear VPN, non-paying users choke out at 500MB per month. On the other hand, you can use ProtonVPN for free with no limits on bandwidth. Avast One Basic users get enough bandwidth to protect quite a lot of interactive internet usage. Just don’t leave the VPN running when you sit back and binge-watch videos all night.
Paying customers can also control a handful of settings; free users can only look. The VPN can automatically connect in six specific situations: when connected to an untrusted network, when banking, when shopping, when accessing sensitive content, when streaming, and when torrenting. To be fair, with a cap on the bandwidth you can use, you really don’t want the VPN turning on automatically.
Avast’s VPN includes a kill switch feature, and it can notify you when it makes an automatic connection. By default, it lets you access devices on the local network even when you’re connected through the VPN. Again, free users can’t tweak these settings.
That’s it for VPN configuration options. You won’t find split-tunneling (the ability to send less sensitive traffic outside the VPN’s protection) like you get with CyberGhost VPN or SurfShark VPN. There’s no option for the added security of a multi-hop VPN connection. You can’t get a static IP address (useful for evading services that try to block VPN usage). Unlike Avast’s Mac edition, you can’t even choose which VPN protocol to use.
It may not be fancy, but it’s free, it’s integrated with the suite, and its bandwidth limits are more generous than many competitors. If you’re using Avast One Basic, you may as well take advantage of its VPN.
Premium Features in the Protection Menu
If you tried to tweak advanced features in the firewall, you’ve already seen that those settings require an upgrade. Avast makes this clear with a lock icon on the tab and an orange button you can click to Go Premium.
Back on the Explore page, which gives you access to all the features, you’ll also see a few locks in the menu. Clicking Bank Mode, Sandbox, Sensitive Data Shield, Remote Access Shield, Web Hijack Guard, Webcam Protection, or Password Protection in the Device Protection group, and you’ll see that cheerful Go Premium button. You can click through to see details of each locked feature and, in some cases, perform a scan, but action items are grayed out and disabled. For example, you can scan for sensitive documents, but taking action to limit access requires an upgrade.
Email Guardian Checks Your Mail
The Email Guardian feature checks the safety of your email messages. Specifically, it checks POP3, IMAP, and SMTP messages in Outlook, Mail, Thunderbird, or other local email clients. If it detects malicious attachments or other dangers, it flags the message and neutralizes the threat.
That’s a nice added layer of email protection, but paying customers get more. At the premium level, you can extend Avast’s protection to your webmail account with Gmail, Hotmail, MSN, Outlook, and over 20 other providers across multiple devices.
What Other Privacy Features Does Avast Offer?
Your browser keeps track of where you’ve been, in case you want to go there again, and it caches chunks of data it downloaded to speed things up if it needs those chunks again. These helpful traits also begin to define a trail a snoop could use to analyze your online activities. By choosing Clear Browsing Data, you can sweep away that trail and enhance your privacy.
On my test system, I found I didn’t need to scan for items needing cleanup. Avast already did so and reported it found 126 items. For Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, it listed history, cache, cookies, tracking cookies, and downloads. The list for Opera and Avast Secure Browser was the same, with the omission of downloads. In every case, only cached data and tracking cookies were preselected for deletion.
I should point out that these browsers have their own built-in cleanup system, in every case invoked by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Del. The built-in cleanup gives you finer control over what gets deleted and also lets you specify the time range for deletion, from the last hour to all time.
Click Dark Web Monitoring to check whether your email account has been exposed in a data breach. Each found breach has a Change Password button, but clicking it reveals that getting help with securing your accounts requires a premium subscription. A tab for real-time monitoring of new breaches wears the lock icon that indicates it, too, is premium-only.
The Privacy Advisor page offers a host of small instructive videos to help you manage your privacy, organized into advice for the web, for iOS, and for Android. These include things like how to control who sees your profile and posts on Facebook or how to protect your Amazon account with multi-factor authentication. There’s nothing automated here—just good advice spelled out simply and visually.
Back in the Privacy section of the Explore menu, two items have the familiar lock overlay, meaning they’re only for premium users. Tracking Prevention doesn’t refer to the management of tracking cookies but rather to avoiding data aggregation brokers. Private Mode simply switches on the VPN and Tracker Prevention.
Smooth Performance
In the Explore page’s features menu, the Smooth Performance section features five items: PC Speedup, Software Updater, Do Not Disturb Mode, Disk Cleaner, Driver updater, and (new since my last review) Duplicate finder. Only the first three are fully available to free users.
PC Speedup lists apps that run in the background and can slow down your PC even when they’re not actively doing anything for you. Where available, it includes a detailed description of the app. You can click a button to optimize an app, which should keep it from using resources when idle. You can also click the description of an app and opt it out of analysis so it doesn’t contribute to the performance evaluation score.
On my test system, Avast listed the essential VMware Tools app as having a medium impact, with three other apps having a low impact. I verified VMware Tools still worked, with no “waking up” lag, despite a pop-up warning that the service stopped working. The built-in FAQ suggested I would notice a variety of improvements, including speedier reboots.
How often do you launch a program, see a notification that an update is available, and ignore it? That’s a bad habit. Quite often, the reason for the update is to fix a security hole. Avast checks popular programs to see if any of them need an update. If so, all you need to do is click a button to install it. Paying customers stay updated with even less effort by enabling automatic updates. In a similar fashion, the Driver Updater finds outdated hardware device drivers, though free users get neither manual nor automated updating.
Running a Disk Cleaner scan shows you things that could be cleaned up to make your system work more smoothly. It found almost 15GB of junk files on my test system, as well as a collection of broken shortcuts and damaged Registry keys. Finding the mess is free. If you want it to clean up what it found, though, you’ll have to upgrade to the premium edition.
By the same token, you’re free to run a scan with the Duplicate Finder. By default, this service checks Desktop, Downloads, Documents, Pictures, Movies, and Videos. You can exclude any of these for a faster scan. You get a list with each set of duplicates grouped, and it's easy enough to open Windows Explorer and delete the ones you don’t want. Premium users can just check a few boxes and let Avast take care of the cleanup.
Privacy-Focused Secure Browser
Avast, AVG, and Norton all install a privacy-first Secure Browser alongside the main security app. It’s Chromium-based; hence, it bears a strong resemblance to Chrome. What sets it apart is the Security & Privacy Center, a collection of special-purpose items that’s just slightly different between the three editions.
Norton’s page contains panels for seven features: Norton AntiVirus, Privacy Guard, Web Shield, Private Mode, Password Managers, Extension Guard, and Privacy Cleaner. AVG adds VPN and Hack Check. Avast, with the largest collection of feature panels, further adds Bank Mode and Mobile Protection.
This collection looks impressive, but in truth, many of the items don’t do much. Two whole panels are devoted to launching the antivirus and the VPN. Another lets you turn the browser’s password manager on or off (or, in Norton’s case, select the associated password manager). And the Privacy Cleaner invokes the browser’s dialog to clear browsing data, the same as if you pressed Shift+Ctrl+Del. You’re already using Web Shield to protect against dangerous and fraudulent sites; clicking its panel has no effect.
Extension Guard is a bit different, promising to block untrusted browser extensions. Of course, these extensions would first have to get past the real-time antivirus. I didn’t find a way to test this feature. I thought Hack Check was going to be a duplication of the Dark Web Monitoring feature from the main app. It is, in a way, but it offers no detail beyond noting that “several accounts” have been hacked.
Private Mode invokes a no-history browsing session, just like Chrome’s Incognito or Edge’s InPrivate mode. Mobile Security simply tells you that you can install Avast protection on your mobile devices. That leaves Bank Mode and Privacy Guard for discussion.
Like Bitdefender’s Safepay, Bank Mode creates a separate desktop to isolate your financial transactions from interference by any other processes. It offers its services automatically any time you visit a financial site in the Secure Browser. As with Safepay, you can switch back and forth between the isolated desktop and the regular desktop. If you upgrade to Premium, you can set it to always go straight to bank mode for sites you choose or configure it to not even offer Bank Mode for certain sites.
Privacy Guard is also significant. It’s an ad and tracker blocker with more flexibility than most. Out of the box, at its Basic level, it blocks items that “disrupt your browsing experience.” Notching up to Balanced level ads blocking of more ads as well as social media ads. At the Strict level, it blocks ads, trackers, browser notifications, and browser fingerprinting.
Note that if you do select Strict blocking, the browser pops up a plea asking you to relent and not block “partners that fund us through…user-friendly ads.” This feature is both less flexible and less informative than what some competitors offer. For example, Bitdefender’s Anti-Tracker breaks down blocked ads by category and lets you choose its response at the category level. Tracker defense in the IronVest privacy tool shows which trackers it blocked and lets you exempt any specific tracker or site from its scrutiny.
Protection for macOS
Avast One on macOS looks very similar to the Windows edition. The biggest difference is that the list of features on the Explore page isn’t quite as extensive. It still goes well beyond mere Mac antivirus. See my review of Avast One Basic for Mac for all the gritty details. I’ll briefly summarize here.
Avast gets perfect test scores from both independent antivirus labs that evaluate macOS antiviruses. It also managed a near-perfect 99% detection in my hands-on phishing protection test. Ransomware protection, browser data cleanup, checking for data breaches, and VPN protection work almost exactly as they do under Windows.
The Smooth Performance feature group in Windows includes PC Speedup, Software Updater, Disk Cleaner, Driver Updater, and Duplicate Finder, with the last three all or partly reserved for premium users. On the Mac, that group consists of Disk Cleaner, App Uninstaller, Photo Cleaner, and Duplicate Finder, and all four are locked up and require an upgrade.
Avast One Basic on the Mac goes well beyond mere antivirus, though naturally, it doesn’t include every feature of the full for-pay suite.
Android Protection, But No Anti-Theft
When you install Avast One Basic on an Android device, you get an impressive collection of security features. However, as you explore, you’ll find that quite a few require premium-level access. Installation is quick, though the app requires quite a few permissions. To avoid overwhelming you with requests, it only asks for permission when you try to access an associated feature for the first time.
Android Security and Smart Scan
As soon as you install the app, it asks you to run a Smart Scan. This includes checking the device for malware, but that’s not all. It also looks for junk files you can wipe to free up storage. The last step is a cheesy scan for “advanced issues” that just displays a long list of premium-only features.
You can run a Quick Scan independent from the Smart Scan or choose instead to run a Deep Scan. In testing, I didn’t notice any difference in the two scans. Both finished in seconds. There’s also a Network Inspector that checks for security problems on the network you’re using. Unlike the similar feature in Avast’s Windows edition, it doesn’t attempt to list or security-check the devices on your network.
Next on the list of Device Protection features on the Explore page is Web Shield. I expected to see protection against malicious and fraudulent websites, as on the desktop editions. In fact, this feature’s two parts don’t match that expectation. Scam Protection, a premium-only feature, checks for scam links in emails and texts. It also has its own entry on the Explore page. Web Shield blocks or allows websites based on user-created lists—who’s going to take the time to build those lists?
Rounding out the Device Protection features are Email Guardian, Scam Protection, and App Lock. On Windows and macOS, parts of Email Guardian are free; on Android, it’s strictly for paying customers. Scam Protection and App Lock likewise require an upgrade.
Perfect Scores from Independent Labs
I follow regular reports on Windows antivirus efficacy from four labs around the world. Three of the four also test Android security programs. Avast scores high in lab tests on Android, as it does on Windows and macOS.
Just as on other platforms, the experts at AV-Test rate Android security apps on Protection, Performance, and Usability, with six points possible in each category. All but one of the antiviruses I follow scored a perfect 18 points in the latest Android security test. Maybe the test should be tougher?
The AV-Comparatives Android test comes up with a malware protection percentage but also checks for the presence of features such as anti-theft, safe browsing, and application privacy audit. In the latest test, all the apps reached 100% protection, Avast among them. All but two of the apps tested by MRG-Effitas scored 100%, and once again, Avast turned up in the winners’ circle.
Along with AVG and Bitdefender, Avast holds perfect scores in all three Android antivirus tests. That’s something to be proud of.
VPN and Privacy for Android
VPN on Android is integrated into the app, just as it is on Windows and macOS. It also labors under the same limit of 5GB bandwidth per week (which, admittedly, is more than you get from many free VPNs). If you try to select a server location, the app explains that only premium users have that privilege.
As another privacy protection measure, Avast lets you check to see if your email address has appeared in the data dumps resulting from security breaches. Naturally, it advises changing any affected passwords. Once you’ve dealt with any problems it found, you can dismiss the breach report. Paying customers can set up active monitoring to catch any new breaches.
The Android edition offers the same Privacy Advisor found on Windows. This feature is strictly informational, a collection of short videos that explain ways to enhance privacy in your use of such apps as Facebook, TikTok, and WhatsApp. If you’ve got some super-sensitive photos on your phone, you can put them in the Photo Vault for added protection, though free users only get storage for 10 photos.
Android Performance Features
Avast’s Smart Scan searches out junk files you can delete to improve device performance. From the Performance Center page, you can run the Junk Cleaner on its own, and premium users can schedule automated cleanup. The Wi-Fi Speed Test reports the upload and download speeds of your Wi-Fi connection. That’s it.
What’s Not Here?
Like the Android app for McAfee Total Protection, Avast One on Android is more of a friendly security experience than a simple utility. It reminds you to try various features, lets you know when a scan is warranted, and generally tries to keep you engaged. Of course, when you encounter one of the many premium-only features, it may feel a bit less friendly.
The biggest hole in Avast One for Android is the lack of an anti-theft system. To be fair, Android security competitors Norton and McAfee, along with a few others, have also dropped anti-theft, figuring Android’s Find My Device does the job.
Limited Protection on iOS
As is typical, iOS devices get the least protection. To be fair, that’s in large part because Apple’s built-in security gets in the way of both malware and malware fighters. I was surprised to find the app still isn’t optimized at all for the iPad. Immediately after installation, you see an iPhone-sized window floating on a black background, with an icon you can tap to stretch the display.
The app’s appearance matches its editions on other platforms- as much as possible. You still see happy people and line drawings everywhere. There aren’t as many items in the Explore menu, and they’re divided into Device Protection and Online Privacy—no Performance section. You also see only a couple of items at a time.
Smart Scan exists on iOS, too, but it doesn’t include a scan for malware. Rather, it verifies essential security settings, checking that you’ve enabled screen lock, turned on its Web Shield feature, kept your iOS installation up to date, and refrained from jailbreaking your phone. Just as on Android, a section claiming problems with advanced protection is just designed to push you toward a premium upgrade.
Web Shield protection against malicious and fraudulent websites is implemented using local VPN technology. Web Shield doesn’t interfere with the actual integrated VPN, which operates under the same limits as on other platforms. Like on Android, you can scan for data breaches involving your email, but you can’t set up monitoring for new breaches unless you upgrade.
The Photo Vault feature lets you lock sensitive photos behind a second-level PIN. When you import photos, it offers to delete the originals. You can also snap photos directly into the vault, bypassing the gallery. Users of the free edition can put 40 photos in the vault; premium users have no such limit. The app warns that you absolutely must export your file from the Photo Vault before uninstalling Avast, or else you will lose them forever. I’m not convinced about the usefulness of this feature.
The new Email Guardian feature in the Windows and macOS editions checks messages in your local email client, flagging any that contain malicious attachments or other problems. Extending that level of protection to web-based email accounts is a premium feature. Under iOS, there’s no offer to protect the local email client, so Email Guardian becomes a premium-only feature.
As on other platforms, Privacy Advisor is strictly informational. It consists of a collection of short videos explaining ways you can improve your privacy on popular platforms.
Free and Packed With Features
With Avast One Basic, you get totally free protection for your Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows devices. Its antivirus protection gets plentiful excellent lab scores and did well in most of our hands-on tests. In addition, the app has a VPN with a generous bandwidth limit and a collection of other privacy and performance components. This impressive collection of effective security features makes Avast One Basic an Editors’ Choice winner in the free antivirus realm. If you're looking for a simple antivirus, you may prefer our other Editors' Choice, AVG AntiVirus Free.
The free and expansive Avast One Basic offers antivirus protection and more for all your devices, with top lab test scores on Android, macOS, and Windows.
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