40% Coupon Avira (115 Coupon Avira for Antivirus & VPN

Based in Germany, Avira Operations is a developer of security software, primarily known for the Avira antivirus. The company was founded in 2006, but the antivirus kernel has been in the works since 1986. According to official statistics, in 2012, more than 100 million users worldwide had Avira installed on their devices. That same year, it was the sixth most popular product in the industry.

This year, the company introduced a new, improved version of the antivirus. Avira is available with a VPN, personal firewall, tuning tools, password manager, and more. It is compatible with all major platforms and offers a 30-day money back guarantee. Add affordable subscription plans, a generous free edition and a low impact on the system, and you get a complete decent service.

In a way, Avira's biggest selling point is impressive performance (and scores) on independent lab tests. The world's leading testers, such as AV-Test and AV-Comparatives, always include this antivirus on their lists. The team has been perfecting the original formula for 30 years, and today it is one of the best products in terms of safety.

However, a solid background and a large fan base does not always mean that it is a first-rate service. In this review, we'll go over your pricing plans, talk about the free version, ease of use, and additional features.

Many security products leaf through a series of informative slides during installation, extolling the virtues of the product itself or advertising complementary products. Avira takes the concept one step further. Each of its informational pages describes a companion product and offers to install that product. Even if you do not install other products at this time, the Avira Connect launcher allows you to install or run any of the complementary products at will. I will report on the complementary product group after covering the main features of the antivirus .

Scanning options

By clicking on the Scan menu item, you will get the expected options for full, fast and custom scans. A full scan on my standard cleaning test system took 90 minutes, not twice the current 49 minute average, but much better than the last time I tried this product. Sophos Home Free ran a little faster than average, and Kaspersky Free completed its review in 36 minutes. The scan window retains the old look and caption of the "Luke Filewalker" window, making it look very dated.

With most products, a custom scan simply scans the folders you select. Avira offers a dizzying array of options, including scanning active processes, removable drives, and the Documents folder. Of course, you can still choose to scan any folder you want.

By default, Avira schedules a weekly quick scan. You can schedule other scans of various types daily or weekly.

Very good laboratory results

In most cases, antivirus companies must pay for independent laboratories include them in testing. Some of the labs actively help them achieve certification: if the product fails, the supplier gets a list of things to repair. ICSA Labs and West Coast Labs offer this type of certification, but Avira does not participate either. More interesting to me are the tests that put a group of products through the same evaluation and report what they did so well. I follow four of those laboratories, and Avira participates with all of them.

When AV-Comparatives experts determine that a product does what it should, they certify it at the Standard level. A product that goes beyond the minimum can be certified Advanced, or even Advanced +. Avira participates in the four tests that I follow in this laboratory. He took Advanced + in two, Advanced in the other two.

Laboratory Test Results Table

To cover all facets of antivirus functionality, AV-Test Institute rates products based on their protection against malware, how little they interfere with performance, and how carefully they avoid flagging valid programs or websites as malware, with 6 possible points in each area. Avira scored 18 perfect points in this test, along with Kaspersky and McAfee.

SE Labs technicians search the web for malicious real-world websites and use a capture and replay system to access multiple antivirus utilities with exactly the same attack. Products can be certified at five levels: AAA, AA, A, B or C. Along with Bitdefender Antivirus Plus, Sophos and several others, Avira obtained the highest score, the AAA certification.

The MRG-Effitas test score is a little different from the rest. If the products fail to achieve near-perfect protection, they simply fail. And failing is just what Avira did in this lab's bank trojan test, along with more than half of the other products tested. This lab's other primary test assesses protection against a spectrum of malware types, offering Tier 1 certification for products that completely prevent all attacks, and Tier 2 certification for those that remedy the effects of an attack within 24 hours. . Together with Bitdefender, F-Secure and Kaspersky Free, Avira achieved Level 1 certification.

I use an algorithm to map all the scores on a 10 point scale and get an aggregate result. Tested by the four laboratories, Avira scored 9.4 out of 10 possible points, which is quite good. Avast Free Antivirus also scored 9.4 points. At the top, Bitdefender's aggregate score was 9.9, and Kaspersky scored perfect in all the latest tests, resulting in 10 perfect points.

Practical malware protection tests

Those impressive lab test scores mean Avira can resist malware attacks. Even so, I still run my practical malware protection tests to get an idea of how the product works.

The last time I tested Avira , there was a huge fuss during my first test, which simply involves opening a folder containing malware samples that I have analyzed by hand. Warnings appeared about having detected one, or three, or 15 samples, and it cluttered the desktop with small floating windows labeled "Luke Filewalker" and another captioned "The system is being scanned." I even wanted to restart, even though all I had seen were static samples, with no malware running.

This time the process was much smoother. A couple of those little floating windows appeared, but they quickly ended and disappeared. You did not request a restart. And he removed 83 percent of the samples at this stage, just by looking at them.

As additional proof of this simple on-access scan, I use a second set of swatches, created by modifying each of the originals. Specifically, I rename the file, add zeros to change the length of the file, and modify some non-executable bytes. Avira detected all but one of the same samples from this hand-modified set, suggesting that its signature-based malware detection is not too rigid.

To complete the test, I released each sample that survived the initial massacre. Avira detected some, but not all, of those. The threats it detected still managed to plant some executable files on the test system. Overall, it scored 89 percent detection and 8.6 out of 10 possible points. Tested with these same samples, Cylance, F-Secure Anti-Virus ($ 39.99 / year on F-Secure), and McAfee achieved 93 percent protection and 9.3 points.

It's worth noting that Norton and Webroot SecureAnywhere AntiVirus achieved 100 percent detection and about 10 perfect points when tested on my previous collection of malware samples. The scores are not directly comparable, but the perfection is impressive.

As a sanity check against false positive detections, I keep about 20 old PCMag utilities in the same folder as the malware samples. In almost all cases, the antivirus correctly leaves these programs alone. Avira, however, identified three of them as malware. That is a little disturbing.

Avira Phantom VPN is a complete Virtual Private Network with servers in 20 countries around the world. The list of countries is weighted towards North America and Europe, although it includes China and Singapore. Using it is very easy; just select the country you want and click the big green button Secure my connection. This is a free installation of Phantom VPN, which means it lacks some advanced features, does not offer technical support and limits its bandwidth to 500MB per month.

Exploitation attacks exploit security vulnerabilities without patches. Avira Software Updater scans your system and lists any software with missing security patches. By clicking Download all you get all the updates; You can also download updates one by one or remove products from monitoring. Updating to Avira Software Updater Pro allows you to automatically install updates.

You can scan with Avira Home Guard to get a view of every computer, smartphone and Internet device of things that connects to your network. It also aims to report on network security issues, but its reports are not as clear and accurate as Bitdefender Home Scanner.

SecurityWatch

Do you have your system configured correctly to protect your privacy? Avira Privacy Pal checks over 200 privacy settings and fixes leaking ones. It also erases annoying traces of using your computer and browser. Other free tools available include a password manager and a Safe Shopping browser extension that helps you find bargains.

The best Avira discount code is "COUPON1001".