Avast Antivirus Review 2026: Is It Safe and Worth Installing?

A scandal surfaced after Google and Mozilla pulled Avast’s browser extension from their stores. Reports revealed that the company—which also owns AVG—had been secretly monitoring user browsing activity and selling that data to businesses for millions of dollars.

Because of these unethical practices, we are unable to recommend Avast on our website. More information on this controversy and our decision is available here. Please refer to our list of top antivirus software providers for alternatives we do recommend.

How safe is “safe enough”? Avast appears to be betting that you’ll want all the security bells and whistles you can buy, but its paid tiers may offer too little value for the cost.

That said, Avast’s free tier has an excellent antivirus engine at its core. Many users appreciate Avast’s protection and how quickly it can identify and stop malicious apps—just be prepared for constant prompts to upgrade.

Video: Avast Free Antivirus Review | Tested vs Malware

SAFETY

Avast went above and beyond when designing the free edition of their antivirus software. Even the most basic malware scan has more features than most competitors.

It doesn’t just look for viruses and other malicious software; it also finds outdated programs, suspicious browser add-ons, network problems, exposed sensitive documents, and weak passwords.

An initial scan may turn up vulnerable software, unencrypted documents, and weak passwords, but no malware, problematic extensions, or network problems.

If you have a lot of software and updating it all is a hassle, it’s not surprising that a PC might have vulnerable programs. But some findings raise questions: What important documents does Avast consider unprotected, and how does it locate them? How does it assess the security of your passwords?

The scan for sensitive documents can be quite effective. It may uncover information accidentally left on a computer, including financial accounts, tax returns, and employment records, with only a few false positives.

Avast categorizes these documents into groups like tax, payroll, job, and travel (including documents like driver’s licenses and passports). It also provides a button next to each entry that instantly shows the location of every document it finds.

Based on the marketing language, Avast appears to use a technique called Data Loss Prevention (DLP). DLP is typically employed by large businesses that store consumer information like credit card and social security numbers.

DLP tools can scan word documents and use optical character recognition (OCR) on PDFs to look for strings of numbers that resemble sensitive information. Organizations can then take precautions to ensure that no one moves or deletes sensitive data by knowing exactly where it is located.

Simply knowing where sensitive data is located can be quite helpful, and it’s interesting to see DLP technology transition from corporate to consumer settings. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do with this information without subscribing to a paid plan.

Once you subscribe, you have the option to encrypt your data and keep it in a secure digital locker. The program prevents access and warns you if an intruder tries to move or delete these files.

Avast’s scan for weak passwords is somewhat disappointing. You might hope the service would identify weak passwords like “123cat” using some advanced scanning method.

Instead, it simply notes that storing passwords in browsers may not be secure and prompts you to upgrade if you want to use Avast’s password management service.

This might be helpful, but using one of the top password managers available elsewhere is often preferable to signing up for a yearly subscription to this service.

CAN THE ANTIVIRUS ENGINE COMPETE?

All these extras are really just a distraction from the main component: the malware detector. According to independent lab tests, Avast offers a highly regarded antivirus engine with strong capabilities and few false positives.

Few antivirus programs achieve higher grades in testing. Real-world testing demonstrates that Avast is effective at identifying and blocking the vectors through which malware spreads, such as drive-by downloads and code injection attacks.

In short, Avast will locate the majority of sophisticated malware types and will stop most of them from ever reaching your computer. If any malware slips through, a routine scan will generally find it and remove the infection.

Avast begins working as soon as malware tries to run on a computer. Most known malware samples will be quickly detected, quarantined, and deleted. If Avast notices an unfamiliar file acting suspiciously, it stops the process and analyzes the malware sample at its corporate headquarters.

You can right-click any file in your Windows Explorer panel and choose the file or folder for individual scanning if you think Avast may have missed a file.

However, Avast excels at preventing malware from ever entering your computer in the first place. The majority of malicious websites are stopped in their tracks before they can begin downloading malware onto your machine.

Avast’s active security will usually catch malicious downloads once they try to run, allowing only a small number of files through before blocking them.

Phishing websites, which imitate social network and banking login pages, are much more common and easier to create than malware distribution sites. Protecting users from these websites may be more important than safeguarding them from malware-focused sites.

Although this is a premium feature, Avast is effective at shielding users from fraudulent websites. The software can detect phishing sites that are too new for security researchers to have identified, in addition to blocking sites already on blacklists.

In summary, Avast’s free edition provides strong protection. You might expect the developers to have disabled something to make the premium upgrade more necessary, but they didn’t.

The paid options, which include a password vault and file encryption, simply don’t add much beyond what’s already available.

Free Features for Security and Quality of Life

Avast offers a number of advanced security scans beyond the “Smart Scan” accessible from the program’s main menu. When you select the “Protection” page, you can choose from options including “Full Virus Scan” and “Boot-Time Scan.”

The Full Virus Scan is more thorough than the Smart Scan but takes longer. Although it may take a few hours on a slower machine, it has a higher likelihood of identifying and removing threats.

If you believe your computer had malware before installing Avast, you should probably run a Full Virus Scan to remove any remaining threats.

You should also perform a Boot-Time Scan. Modern malware can be sophisticated enough to survive file deletion from your operating system because these viruses exist outside the main OS.

When deleted, they can reinstall themselves using files from a location outside the operating system. A boot-time scan monitors for suspicious apps that attempt to run when your computer restarts and stops them before they can take hold.

Finally, Avast provides a WiFi scanner designed to keep you safe both at home and when traveling. It can quickly find devices connected to your WiFi, including desktops, laptops, consoles, phones, and smart speakers.

If devices are unprotected, it will identify weaknesses including default passwords, internet-accessible ports, and other vulnerabilities.

Paid Options May Not Provide Enough Value

Avast doesn’t offer much beyond these sophisticated malware detection features, but you probably wouldn’t need much more anyway. For instance, there is a paid feature that claims to clean up your hard drive.

Meanwhile, CCleaner is free. Want to securely delete some especially sensitive files? Avast has a secure wipe feature that can completely remove a file from your computer by repeatedly overwriting it.

Although this feature works as advertised, it’s hard to imagine a use for it outside of security research. There is also a paid VPN add-on, but other standalone VPNs offer comparable functionality for less.

To sum up, the free version of Avast is solid, but the company has lost its balance when it comes to paid pricing. Most of these features can be replicated with free or less expensive third-party software, so they won’t make you significantly more secure than the free version.

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Ease of Use

Avast can be frustrating in this regard. Antivirus companies make money by converting free users into paying customers, which is understandable.

Constant upselling is expected, and most of the time it’s tolerable. But what’s frustrating is how frequently dark-pattern UI techniques are used to pressure users into paying.

Here is a quick example of dark-pattern UI in case you’re not familiar with it.

Avast starts with a splash screen with a large “scan now” button in the center and a white box presenting you with a welcome gift.

The “gift” is actually a sizable subscription discount. What if you decide against subscribing? There is only a “purchase now” option, as can be seen in the screenshot below. There is no “back” button.

Many users mistakenly believe that clicking the red X in the top right corner closes the software, but you actually need to click that button to exit the upsell screen. Once you click that X, another pop-up appears offering a free trial.

Since the company needs to generate revenue, this isn’t a huge disappointment. If this were the only instance of such tactics in the application, it would be easy to overlook. However, Avast buries its goodwill with additional confusing and intrusive upsells hidden throughout its software.

Here’s another example. Some items in the “Privacy” menu of Avast are blocked by a large orange lock, while others are not. You would expect locked features to require payment, while unlocked features would be free.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. For instance, when you click on SecureLine VPN, another program installs itself on your computer and demands payment. The same thing occurs if you click on “Performance” and select “Driver Updater.”

Avast leads you through the entire process of installing a new program on your computer before requesting payment. In one case involving a password manager, the feature is free but not very effective.

The password manager works as a Chrome or Firefox plugin that stores your passwords protected by a master password, but unlike other products, it doesn’t suggest strong passwords or alert you to weak or duplicate passwords. It doesn’t even support two-factor authentication.

After clicking through the menus to reach the password management feature, you might decide to decline importing your credentials into Avast’s password manager.

Surprisingly, Avast may begin importing passwords anyway. Even if you stop the transfer, Avast might also install its own secure browser on your computer without explicit consent.

PRICING

Compared to other antivirus software, Avast’s pricing is about average. If you’re committed to paying for Avast, the mid-tier paid plan is likely your best bet.

Avast’s paid plans include practical features that the free tier does not, such as a Real Site option that guards against phishing websites, a Ransomware Shield to protect your files from encryption, a firewall that prevents intrusion attempts, and an anti-spam function.

One of the best features in paid plans is Sandbox mode, which is not available in the free version. This lets you open documents and software in a virtual environment without granting access to your main system.

If a file contains malware, the harmful program will run in a location where it cannot harm your machine. Anyone who frequently encounters phishing attempts will appreciate this useful extra.

Higher-priced tiers include additional software that is nice to have but not essential. More expensive plans add features like the data shredder and disk cleanup capabilities, as well as a VPN and password manager.

None of these are absolutely necessary for protecting your data, and if you need them, you can often get them from third parties for less money with comparable quality.

Once again, Avast’s free tier offers all the security most users are likely to need. However, if you must upgrade, the mid-tier paid plan offers most of the useful extras.

CONCLUSION

Overall, Avast Antivirus is solid and will keep your computer safe most of the time. The free edition provides strong protection, but usability issues and constant upgrade prompts can make it challenging to use some of its more advanced features.

References:

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/avast-antivirus-review/#:~:text=Avast%20has%20a%20great%20reputation,webcam%20shield%2C%20sandbox%20and%20more.

https://www.quora.com/How-is-Avast-Antivirus-Is-it-safe-to-use-and-is-it-effective-as-a-free-antivirus-software-Does-it-work-well-or-is-paying-for-antivirus-software-better-Is-it-a-scam-or-dangerous-or-does-it-install-viruses-on-your

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