Verdict
Although Avast! Free by no means offers complete protection, it should be enough for the average home user
Review Rating:
Platform: Windows Vista 64-bit, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 64-bit, Windows 7
Manufacturer: AVAST Software
Size: 72MB
Number of Downloads: 139787
Price: $ Free for non-commercial use
Avast! is an antivirus application that is free for non-commercial use, and offers adequate protection for the average home user.
Consisting of three components, it covers the most common areas of infection and provides regular updates to ensure that its protection is current.
The On Access Scanner scans all files being opened, read and written in real time. It also includes a behaviour blocker for analysing and preventing any unusual behaviour that may originate from a virus.
If you think a virus has infected your PC, simply run the On Demand Scanner selecting exactly which drive(s) and files to scan.
Its Email Scanner integrates directly with many email clients, and checks incoming and outgoing messages for infection. It takes a heuristic approach to virus prevention, learning from experience.
The latest Avast! 7 ships with cloud-based scanning, feeding you with the very latest definition updates, real-time.
© Incisive Media Investments Limited 2010, Published by Incisive Financial Publishing Limited, Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4RX, are companies registered in England and Wales with company registration numbers 04252091 & 04252093
Do you agree?
avast antivirus
excellent free antivirus programme. Found 6 trojans that had infected my operating system that both AVG free edition and Panda had missed. Recommended.
Posted by joe reilly, 01 Jul 2005
avast! Antivirus
This is an excellent and very flexible antivirus that is up there with the best and when you consider that it is free for non-commercial use it makes it even better.
It provides a number of providers that for a layered defence. Standard Shield (resident on-access scanner scans opened/created/modified files), Web Shield (filters and scans web content before being displayed by your browser), Internet Mail scanner (scans email prior to it arriving in your inbox), there are also scanners for IM and P2P.
Posted by Pegasus, 05 Aug 2005
Avast 4.6
Also has a webshield which scans web pages for malware before downloading to your system. A P2P shield an IM shield an effective e-mail scanner with an option for Outlook and Outlook express. Updates are fast, free and automatic. No need to check for updates yourself. Does need re-registering every 14 months. It is free
Posted by Essexboy, 06 Aug 2005
I Don't Get IT!
The software gets 100% ratings by all the authoritive independant journals. I have been using this companys free antivirus for two and half years. No false reads or misses. What more are you looking for? Come on! Advertising does breed praise!!
Posted by Eric M. Dietel, 26 Dec 2005
Deserves highest praise
Avast detected virus which were not detected by AVG. Cleaned virus which were detected but not cleaned by other anti-virus. Why is not not better known and not better rated?
Posted by Pratap, 02 Feb 2006
God awfull
Froze my computer up so bad the only thing i could do was crash it. Even then when I booted it back up again it took several tress just to get the uninstructed programs to open. And after taking it out it was still hagging up! It makes me think viruses/malware. *shudders* I had to do a system restore. >:( I hate doing that! You have to do that then delete all of them and make a new one, a real hassle. Also there is no way (that i could find) to shut off the damn automatic scanning. I do not recommend downloading this program ever. 5 star ratings all over the place for this. WTF?! makes me think someone is signing up with multable accounts to "rate" this if you ask me. You are warned download at your own risk.
Posted by quietriver, 25 Jul 2006
Worked
Installed it after AVG and it immediately found a malware infected file. Great features in the free version. Highly recommended.
Posted by mike, 19 Aug 2006
Brilliant.
I have been using Avast for a couple of years now and have not had a virus get on to my system since I installed it, despite my v.high internet useage. When I had other AV software, some viruses kept getting through.
Simple and easy to use, unintrusive (why would you want to turn off the on-access scanning, you can't even tell it's there)
Posted by Ken, 29 Aug 2006
A Vast improvement on AVG!
AVG detected a trojan but crashed when attempting to remove it. Thereafter AVG would no longer work - it crashed at start-up. So I uninstalled AVG, installed AVAST and ran a full scan; it found the trojan and successfully removed it. For a freebie it's brilliant.
Posted by Eric Bishop, 05 Sep 2006
It may be free, but dont let that fool you!
How can you say it offers adequate protection? - It beats the competition hands down! - Its small, blisteringly fast, ecconomical with your processor and leaves all the other bloatware in its dust! - I have used the others and would NEVER go back! - Avast rules!!
Posted by Alan Jones, 11 Sep 2006
Good Product
After years of paying Mcafee
Downloaded this product.
Excellent for home use - regularly updated - can recommend
Posted by Ian Kirkpatrick, 06 Oct 2006
From AVG free to Avast free
Used AVG happily for several years on my home PC. But suspected an infection as it had become slow and erratic. It failed to update to AVG7.5 (in spite of saying "installation successful" every time. Then I tried, and failed, to completely uninstall the previous version of AVG. I downloaded Avast but this also wouldn't install as it reported traces of AVG. So I was stuck: no antivirus! Someone told me to try Clamwin Online Antivirus: it churned for a whole day doing its magic but thankfully restored my PC back to health. AVG, old or new versions, would still not install but Avast now did. End of this round. Thanks to AVG for several years of free protection and now thanks to Clamwin and to Avast for getting me out of trouble.
Posted by JPJ, 21 Feb 2007
Avast AntiVirus
The best AV i have ever used its so good that I removed a years subscription for Norton and replaced it with a free Avast. Easy on resources, fast and thorough, it picked malware that Norton missed after paying them. Its the best and should be rated higher.
Posted by Dr George Zakhia, 15 Dec 2007
FREE anti-rootkit also included
It's pretty good antivirus and for FREE compare to AVG it offers also anti-rootkit! What else you can wish?
Posted by Dusan, 12 May 2008
Too many false alarms
In the last fortnight or so Avast has claimed to detect viruses about 6 times. These all appear to have been false alarms. Added to a complicated interface, and irritating re-subscriptions every year, this is enough not to recommend it. True, the updates are incredibly, unbelievably fast, but that isn't enough, sorry.
Posted by Michael R, 17 Apr 2008
no to norton anymore
For 3 years i am loyal to Norton Anti virus. It keeps my system cluttered with viruses. a friend recommended avast, i tried and voila!
i will never use norton again
Posted by luis eusebio, 11 Jul 2008
And runs on Win 98 as well
There are not many AV programs that will still run on Win98, but there are many PC's out there still doing what they were bought to do and running Win 98 happily.
So to all the favorable comments above, please add this. It is very sparing of resources on Win98, and does not bog down the machine. A full scan runs in under an hour, and the machine can still be used while it is underway.
Thanks to Avast Home!
Posted by Wandering, 22 Jan 2009
My preferred antivirus software
It's certain that some people will not get on with Avast but it has been a lifesaver for me in the past when I used Windows ME. With that OS, and using Panda, I would experience a blue screen time after time after time and for no reason. On a friend's recommendation I tried Avast and never looked back. The blue screen became a rare occurrence! Since changing to XP I have tried AVG but that seemed to slow the whole system down and I have reverted to Avast. It works, is unobtrusive except when it alerts you to a potential problem and when, daily, it announces that " Virus database has been updated". Yes, you have to register every 14 months but that is so simple to do. Some may prefer to pay for computer security but for the majority, who are careful when browsing and who do not inhabit lots of file sharing sites, I would recommend Avast ( together with Ad-Aware, Spybot Search and Control and a firewall) as being all that is needed and, importantly, they are all freely available on the internet. I run checks of my hard disk with the above mentioned programs every few weeks and have yet to find anything other than cookies and MRUs. I highly recommend Avast Antivirus.
Posted by Pedro, 15 May 2009
AVAST Home 4.8 - The Bee's Knees
This is the best AV software I have used. Have been with AVG for a while but had problems with its new version.
Loaded Avast yesterday, very simple to use and updates are automatic. You don't even know that it is there. Love it.
Posted by Brian Lincoln, 21 Jun 2009
Avast Rules
Avast rules! I had offered to back up my freinds My Documents folder for her, so after repeated attempts to burn on her old burner failed I decided to connect her computer to my network and backup on my computer. But before doing so I updated her AVG and ran a scan, nothing came up so I started the transfer and half way through copying Avast alerted me to a Trojan that was obiously missed by AVG. Avast allowed me to isolate it in the virus chest and I continued with the back up. Have have been a very happy Avast user for 5years now.
Posted by Glenn, 21 Jan 2010
Milos
Chris, thank you for the review. I'd think it is more than "complete" protection since when it comes to any malware it has the exact same technologies and features as the paid-for version. The paid-for has also firewall, antispam and special SafeZone features for secure shopping. The company also has this Free product tested against the Suites or Business solutions in the comparative tests to show it is as good or better than anything else. But then... I also work for the company ;o) so my views are a little biased ;o) Thank you all for those nice comments. Without the help and support of our users and community we would not be as goos as we are.
Posted by Milos, 12 May 2011
Awful... Would Never Ever touch it
I used to be a loyal user of avast! before the launch of 6.0, which caused BSOD on my computer. When visiting their online forum, I was glad to see that I wasn't alone... There were so many people getting BSOD... Switched to F-Secure now and have been happy with it... I know AVAST got only 140+ staff, but it is NOT the excuse why it can't solve such a severe bug before releasing an official stable version.
(Oh btw, it takes ages for AVAST to respond to the virus samples I submitted to them, which could be detected by most other vendors)
Posted by Keith, 18 May 2011
FANTASTIC
THE BEST ANTI VIRUS THERE IS ... AND FOR FREE ..... ALONG WITH COMODO FIREWALL ROCK SOLID ....
Posted by michaelpaul, 05 Jul 2011
No more FREE registration
I have used AVAST FREE for the last couple of years and now that I want to register it, it doesn't want to register in any way (looks like they want you to buy the whole packet). If someone can tell me how, I did everything they ask for but with no success
Posted by Tom, 03 Oct 2011