1. Best Antivirus For Windows Xp 2012 2017

Avast has one of the most popular antivirus apps around, due in part to offering a free version, and it's one that performs respectably. The company acquired its rival AVG in September of 2016, and now both use Avast's malware scanning engine, but their distinct personalities remain.

Here are the highlights of Avast's latest release. Pros Easy to use: Avast has four main protection components: File Shield, Behavior Shield, Web Shield, and Mail Shield. If, for example, you use webmail and/or you find that Avast's Web Shield interferes with your web browsing, you can disable both relevant protection layers, while keeping the others active.

Now, ordinarily, an antivirus app will keep warning you to turn these features back on. But if you really don't need them enabled, you can tell Avast that you want to ignore those warnings, and it won't bother you about those settings again. Solid protection: According to independent labs, such as AV-Test and AV-Comparatives, Avast Free isn't quite as sharp as industry leaders like Trend Micro or Bitdefender, but it's arguably the best protection you'll find that comes without a price tag. Aggressively low pricing: If you do decide to order Avast Pro, you can do so from within the app, and Avast offers a one-year subscription for a reasonable $15, which is about half of its street price. If you change your mind, Avast offers a 60-day trial of Avast Internet Security, which was priced at $20 a year. Pro purports to add enhancements to online banking security and 'a test space for checking suspicious apps.'

This latter function appears to be a sandbox, in which you can open an app and investigate its behavior without risking an infection. Relatively muted sales pitch: Free antivirus apps have a reputation for being pretty pushy about paying for a subscription, but Avast is on the low-key end of the spectrum (and it has been for a number of years).

Best Antivirus For Windows Xp 2012 2017

There are a couple upgrade buttons on the main console, and a number of features (a firewall, URL safety verifier, and 'Webcam Shield,' among others) that redirect you to an order screen when you click on them, but nothing felt particularly tricky, and the sales pitch doesn't make ironclad claims about what the program can do. Data collection transparency: Avast tells you right off the bat that it wants to gather anonymized usage data, some of which may be used to help fund development, but you can disable this function in the Privacy settings. Though it would be nice if it explained what 'certain' information it wanted to gather. Cons Some settings could use more explanation: Avast's settings menus have a number of icons marked with an exclamation point that you can click on for further details. But the description for CyberCapture doesn't sound substantially different from what a virus scanner already does: It 'analyzes unrecognized files, defends and warns you about new threats, and helps keep your system secure.' And Hardened Mode is there 'to further lock down the security of this computer.'

Brutus magazine japan. But in what way? Subscription offers can get confusing: The $15 offer is available via the upgrade buttons on the main console, but it's not an option when you click on one of the features that has a padlock on it. There, you get two different offers: $20 a year for or $30 a year for. But if you, say, click on the padlocked 'Sensitive Data Shield' icon, you only see the Avast Internet Security offer, and it has a different list of advertised features. Bottom Line While there are some quirks in the interface, Avast is a respectable and respectful antivirus app overall, and the paid version is notably budget-friendly. From Lightweight, state-of-the-art protection that won't slow down your PC.

Avast Free Antivirus has been redesigned to be easier to use while staying light on your PC. It offers proprietary, cutting-edge CyberCapture technology that finds and stops unknown files, as well as improved Wi-Fi Inspector which can identify even more weak points in your router.

It also features SafeZone, the world's most secure browser, and an enhanced Game Mode which turns off background checks and updates to maximize your gaming experience. Reply by Avast Team on December 22, 2017 Hi, KNRover. Thank you for being an Avast customer.

We're happy to hear you've been pleased with our software's ability to keep your devices secure. Instructions for changing the frequency of notifications can be found here: We would like to get more information about your updating issue. If you're upgraded to the most recent version of the software and have confirmed both the definitions and software boxes are set to automatic and are still experiencing the issue, please contact us directly at avast-team@avast.com with any error messages you may have received, your version number, what version of Windows you're running, if you have any additional protection products (for example, having more than one antivirus installed can cause a conflict), etc, so we can look into it for you. Reply by Avast Team on July 5, 2017 Hi, paulita1476. We can assure you we do not automatically charge you for any products you did not purchase.

Upgrading your software is entirely optional and must be initiated by the customer. Information about managing your subscriptions can be found here: Additionally, we're sorry to hear you may have had some issues with our software and would like to help.

Please contact us at avast-team@avast.com with the details of the issue, any error messages you may have received, your Operating System version, and any troubleshooting steps you may have taken to resolve the issue. Reply by Avast Team on May 15, 2017 Hi, Gokurocks49. Our Free software will remain free for as long as it's installed on your system. There is no obligation to pay for a monthly subscription. Whether you upgrade or choose to retain the Free subscription, our CyberCapture feature offers real-time threat detection, sending unknown files to the Avast Threat Labs to be analyzed by our experts, and will quarantine them if they?re dangerous.

We work hard to protect your system from malware/viruses, phishing attacks, and a number of other nasty programs. With our latest update, we now also offer more intelligent features that make threat-detection faster and offer more automation for advanced users - all within a seamless, intuitive interface.

If you have any questions or would like to offer further feedback (we're always happy to help), you can reach us at avast-team@avast.com.