TECH
Avast is legitimate - when your computer is idle Avast generates a database of files so that if something essential is infected, it can try to replace it from the virus recovery database. Avast is a good antivirus and it is totally safe. It is antivirus software that protects you from the virus. It comes with some amazing features to ensure your safety.
Review of Avast Free Antivirus for Mac
Avast is one of the most popular free antivirus programs, and they have a version for Mac OS X. Avast Free Antivirus for Mac offers most of the same features, is free to download, doesn’t include advertisements, and is generally unobtrusive. But, how well does it work? We’re reviewing Avast Free for Mac to find out.
What Is It?
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.
Features
Avast Free Antivirus for Mac offers numerous, configurable features. The free features include an antivirus scanner, a firewall, reports, and that’s it.
Scan – Avast offers a free antivirus scanner that you can use to scan files, folders, hard drives, and your computer. This is actually a very versatile scan because you can use it to scan your full system, removable volumes, custom files, folders, or drives, or your network. This makes it extremely useful for finding network based viruses which are on another computer and spreading to your own. Interestingly, the network scan will also tell you every device currently on your network. If you find a virus on your computer, you can also upload it to Avast’s online database.
What’s the catch? The full system scan isn’t as accurate as some of it’s competitors, and it can take a very long time to do a full scan, even when you don’t have much on your computer.
Shield – Shield (Not S.H.I.E.L.D.) is Avast’s firewall and it works to protect you from the web, files, and email infections. The firewall is passive, meaning that you don’t have to run it, doesn’t require a great deal of system resources, which makes it a great choice.
Virus Chest – The Virus Chest is simply your system quarantine
Reports – You can see an up-to-date log of all system scans, infected files, etc.
Configuration
One of the best things about Avast is that it is highly configurable, and you can update everything from the notificaitions to the Firewall. Use what you want, and nothing else. Under ‘Preferences’ you can find a number of configuration options. For example, you can disable any one of the firewall settings. You can also change popups or even turn them off, set your updates to how you want them, and even remove the Avast Icon from your toolbar.
Extras
Avast Free for Mac includes what is essentially an advertisement for Avast’s premium software. You have a “tools” section which includes a VPN and Avast Online Security. You will have to pay in order to use these features. You will also occasionally see popups or reminders about these features. However, if you do want them, they work well.
Review of Avast Free Antivirus for Mac
Avast Free Antivirus for Mac has a lot to offer for those who want a low-system impact, don’t necessarily need maximum quality protection, and who want customization. The program is slow for full scans, but you will rarely need a full scan, which means that this doesn’t impact the program too much. However, Avast doesn’t detect as many viruses as other programs like AVG or Bitdefender, which means you will be sacrificing some quality. That aside, Macs aren’t a huge target for viruses anyway, so you’re likely still safe without maximum protection.
Should you get it? If you’re worried, AVG still makes a better option, but Avast is well worth trying out. If you’re looking for customization and light system impact, it could be the way to go. To help you decide before you buy it, we recommend that you try the trial version of Avast. It’s good for 30 days which should be long enough to feel it out. Let us know what you think of it if you have it or you try it!
Avast Free for Mac works well, offers a lot of features for a free antivirus, is highly configurable, and has a very light system impact.
The antivirus scanner isn't as good as some free competitors, takes some time to perform a full system scan, and offers features that aren't available unless you upgrade to the premium version.
Today's best Avast Free Antivirus deals
Avast does have a paid antivirus program, but we wanted to look at Avast FREE Antivirus because we receive a lot of questions about how well free antivirus programs perform. And Avast is one of the more popular free programs. This software does a good job protecting against malware, but its greatest benefit is for die-hard gamers because of its intuitive and automatic gamer mode.
The gamming mode of this virus protection program recognizes when you are playing online and automatically activates. It also instinctively adds your gaming sites to its safe list so the game mode turns on quicker the next time you log in. The gamer mode suspends some functions while you play so you have all the system resources you need to play without any slowdown. Avast also stops pop-ups that can cause distraction or additional lag while playing online. This antivirus still runs lightly in the background to catch any threats trying to sneak in.
Installing Avast FREE Antivirus is really easy, and the dashboard is laid out so you can quickly find the features, tools and settings you need. But there are some quirks to this program. First, unlike most other antivirus programs we tested, Avast didn’t add the browser extensions we needed. This required us to do a little more detective work and search for the extensions. Once installed, Avast let us know when it detected a threat by displaying pop-up messages outside of the browser. Even when the threat was a malicious site, rather than displaying an in-browser warning message like other programs do, Avast still used the pop-up method. This required us to be a little more vigilant at watching for these warnings. And when we would close the message, it would pop up again, just to make sure we saw it. This caused a lot of frustration and lost time when we wanted to move on to our next task but had to wait until the pop-up message was canceled.
During our live malware detection tests, this software correctly identified 97 percent of the threats. This is quite different from other independent test laboratories. Some other labs gave Avast higher scores while others awarded substantially lower scores for malware protection. We noticed that Avast didn’t stop threats in the browser, nor prevent malicious files from downloading. Most other programs, including Avira Free Security Suite, do just that. Instead Avast waited and caught each threat as soon as it downloaded completely. This made us nervous when we tested since we knew the type of damage these threats could cause to our computers. But Avast didn’t let any of them slip through. In fact, the samples it didn’t catch were a few websites that had been tagged as dangerous and listed in malware databases because they had a phishing scheme on them.
Is Avast Mac Security Legit
Because it is a basic, free antivirus program, Avast doesn’t have a lot of extra security tools. Phishing and spam filters, personal firewalls, password managers and parental controls are all included with premium programs offered by Avast. But Avast FREE Antivirus does have a vulnerability scanner that looks for weak points in your system where ransomware and hackers like to slip through.
Avast Mac Download
Avast FREE Antivirus is a decent program for virus detection, though it has a lot of pop-ups that are distracting and cause some slowdown. When you’re playing games online, Avast’s gamer mode automatically kicks in and suspends several functions, including pop-up messages, so you’re not interrupted while playing. There aren’t many advanced protection tools included, but Avast does have a system scanner that looks for any vulnerabilities that hackers and other threats might take advantage of.
Today's best Avast Free Antivirus deals
Avast For Mac Review
Need a better alternative?
Avast For Mac Free Download
Avast For Mac 10.7.5
Top Ten Reviews has reviewed the top products so that we're able to offer you the authoritative buying advice you expect.