It is very possible that if you had asked me a while ago about which is the best antivirus, I would tell you that “common sense”. My opinion on this has not changed, as I firmly believe that if the Internet continues to intrude into our lives in the way that it is, we still need a lot of training to maintain our privacy and security online.
However, there are tools that can help guide us towards that goal. Antiviruses have been around for several decades now, and have always been in constant evolution, almost like a symbiosis with what was happening in the world of malware. Today, in addition to continuing to offer tools to detect malicious files and disinfect our equipment, they also have solutions to maintain our privacy onlinewhether it’s blocking trackers, adding layers of security via VPN, or offering measures to combat security breaches.
Avast does a terrific job on all of these counts. Although its free tool has always been available to its users, we have also had the opportunity to try Avast Ultimate, its most advanced package. In addition, we have also taken the opportunity to draw our own conclusions about Is it still worth having an antivirus on our PC today?.
Avast is still the “old trusty” of antivirus
I myself have been a user of the free version of Avast for a few years now. From my experience I can conclude that it is usually one of the least intrusive antivirus once the user has configured their preferences regarding notifications and others. With Ultimate something similar has happened to me.
Ultimate is Avast’s “crème de la crème”. It is basically the Premium version of the antivirus, with multiple advantages over the free version, and also includes a package with three applications: Avast Cleanup Premium, Avast SecureLine VPN, and Avast AntiTrack. In this way, in the same package we get an antivirus, a tool to clean our computer, a VPN, and an application that keeps our digital footprint safe on the network.
Every time I install something on my computer I usually think about it a lot, since I don’t like to fill my PC with garbage. However, for those who are a little more careless, or simply don’t know how to effectively optimize computer storage, the Avast package may help you in this mission. And it is that these applications give a very pleasant feeling of security For everyone who wants to stop worrying about maintaining their computer.
Avast Premium Security is the most advanced version of the company’s antivirus. In addition to blocking malicious files and being able to disinfect our computer, this antivirus also has a number of useful resources. That is why under these lines we explain some of the most outstanding points:
- DNS protection: protection against redirection to fake websites by blocking DNS settings.
- Sandbox: a safe and isolated environment in which you can run applications that you consider unreliable.
- Firewall: an additional layer of security to prevent hackers from accessing our PC and taking our information.
- Webcam shield: Blocks webcam access to any untrusted applications.
- Data destroyer: quick access to our confidential files to be able to delete them safely.
- Ransomware Shield: it protects our personal folders so that they do not fall into the hands of cybercriminals in the face of ransomware attacks.
- Software Updater: the antivirus collects all our installed applications and is capable of updating them in a simple and unified way.
- Installation on up to 10 devices: Premium Security can be installed on up to 10 devices with a single purchase. It is also compatible with PC, Mac, Android and iOS.
The Premium Security application turns out to be quite light. The interface is very simple, and all the points discussed above are configurable, so the user can apply the settings he sees necessary to configure custom security. This is important as antiviruses are often quite annoying with notifications and Avast is no exception. In fact, it can warn of files that do not have to be a threat. However, by spending just a few minutes you can get rid of all the warnings and sounds of the application that are not useful to you.
The folks at Avast know that users have a particular aversion to notifications and beeps. That is why they also include a “Do Not Disturb” mode to silence all the warnings that the application communicates to us. In this way, Avast will focus on operating based on the configuration that we have given it and will not bother us with noises every time it detects something that is not usually a risk to our equipment.
File analysis is quite effective, and we also have several ways to do it. On the one hand we have the complete virus analysis, which will inspect all the files that we have on our PC. However, we can also analyze a specific drive, or even analyze Windows startup to look for threats. It also gives us the option to run a custom analysis, being able to configure each of the checks that we want the software to do.
Avast continues to offer advanced software that is easy to use. In addition, it has adapted to the times with solutions for privacy on the Internet.
Another very useful option is the possibility that Avast can analyze our network, being able to detect vulnerability problems and even inspect the devices that are connected to it, in addition to notifying us when a new device connects to the network. Along with this, we can also obtain information about whether our email has been found in a security breach on websites, being able to change the password as soon as we find out this information. In addition, Avast will also protect us from malware and unwanted applications taking over the passwords that we have saved in the trunk of our browser.
All these functions make Avast a very versatile and scalable antivirus, with various configuration options and being able to apply our own exceptions. However, I was concerned about one aspect: the consumption of resources of our PC.
Taking an in-depth look at the performance of Avast apps and keeping an eye on their resource consumption, I’m flattered to know that I can rest easy in this regard as well. It is usually one of the points that throw me off the most when I install this type of application, but the truth is that Avast does not require too many resources. In fact, the vast majority of the time, apps like Discord or Slack are more aggressive grabbers of RAM. Even more so if we talk about Google Chrome.
During background use, Avast Premium Security it consumed around 80 or 90 MB. Added to this memory consumption are additional software processes for the service to function properly and the work of the applications that are included in the package. In total, it should not consume more than 200 or 300 MB of RAM.
Analyzing its consumption while running a deep analysis of my equipment, the figures have not skyrocketed much either. In this case, I saw how the set of all Avast processes never exceeded 500 MB. If you decide to install only the antivirus, in this case you will hardly ever reach 300 MB, so the software will consume even less resources.
This consumption will be more noticeable on computers with 4GB of RAM or less, since there memory management must be much more exhaustive. However, for computers with 8GB of RAM or more, you shouldn’t notice anything. In fact, the equipment used for the test was a Lenovo Ideapad 330 laptop with 8GB of RAM.
In addition to the main antivirus app, Avast’s Ultimate package also includes a VPN, a file cleanup tool, and a tracker blocker for safe browsing.
Going by parts, the VPN is a fairly simple application that allows us to mask our IP by that of one of the available countries. We have a good range of countries to choose from and we can also connect to servers optimized for downloading torrents, and even streaming, in case we want to keep an eye on the catalog of Netflix titles from other countries.
Cleanup Premium works as a simple application to clean our PC of temporary files and other elements that take up unnecessary space on our computer. We also have the option to defragment our drives and even see the status of our drives. They are resources that we can do by hand on our PC, but it is convenient to have all these options in a unified way and without being intrusive.
Finally, we have Avast AntiTrack Premium, a simple tool that allows us to apply anti-tracking measures, or have a whitelist of allowed sites that we want to access from the browser. In my opinion, it is the least useful application in the package, since its effectiveness has not been proven and any correctly configured blocking extension together with a reliable and secure browser will have plenty. It also includes options such as browser cleaning, something that overlaps and is already included in its Cleanup general cleaning tool.
Avast has built quite a reputation with its antivirus, as it it is a simple, fast and effective software. However, users may be skeptical about its additional applications. They are useful, and they are a reflection of how hard companies work to keep this type of software relevant today. Of course, the user will find it even more useful when they do not have much knowledge about the various cyber fraud techniques and basic equipment maintenance.
Today, both Windows Defender and XProtect, which are the services that are included as standard in computers with Windows and macOS, are usually enough for the vast majority of users. However, antiviruses are becoming more versatile, and include options that can be useful for a good number of people. In addition, with the advance of malware, impersonation and data theft techniques, keeping our IT ecosystem safe should be a priority.