Avast Premium antivirus review | Tom’s Guide
Avast Premium is a powerful antivirus program that’s loaded with extra features. Compared to some of the best antivirus programs, this low-cost package doesn’t throw in bloatware to make it seem like the subscription fee is worth it. Instead, you’ll be able to create a backup of your sensitive files to protect against ransomware, search for sensitive files and protect them against prying eyes, and even block your webcam.
The biggest surprise with Avast Premium is that the list of security features doesn’t stop there — there is so much to explore in the app that it might even seem overwhelming at first. The antivirus software doesn’t mess around, it also offers a highly capable security tool for protecting your email called Email Guardian. The app protects against DNS hijacking and remote desktop exploits, both dangerous and all-too-common attacks.
Yet, with all of this power comes a downside: Avast Premium does not include a VPN or a password manager, features that are often included in competing products. You can still rely on the extensive security protection but will have to add a VPN and password manager if those are features you’re going to need.
That means Avast Premium can’t best Bitdefender Total Security, our top pick for antivirus software. It’s also not as capable as McAfee+ Premium or Norton 360 Deluxe. All three of those top picks include a VPN and a password manager for one subscription fee. (Thought Bitdefender Total Security has a 200 MB per day limit on the VPN and includes a trial version of the password manager.)
Avast also tends to include many “reminders” to upgrade to their VPN app, Avast SecureLine VPN, and add their performance tool, Avast Cleanup. That said, if you’re mainly looking for extensive security protection, Avast Premium is a wise choice.
Avast Premium: Costs and what’s covered
Even with all of this security capability, Avast Premium is actually one of the lowest cost options out there, cheaper than most security packages for consumer use. To protect one device, the subscription fee is only $79.99, which is a good $30 less than most antivirus programs like Bitdefender. For protecting 10 devices, the yearly cost is only $99.99, which is about $10-$20 less than antivirus products from Norton, Bitdefender, and McAfee with a similar feature set.
There’s an exceptional value here if you can set aside the fact that the Premium version does not include a VPN or a password manager — which are included with Norton 360 Deluxe and McAfee+ Premium. In fact, McAfee+ Premium does not set a limit on how many devices you can protect. With Avast, you can select the package for one device or 10. The app works with Apple Mac, Windows, tablets or your smartphone (iOS or Android).
Avast includes limited privacy protection features, such as a data shield for your sensitive documents and a data shredder. For performance tools, the app only includes a tool for seeing if your installed software needs an update and a way to disable notifications while you work. That last feature is a bit unusual and seems to be mostly about not being interrupted.
Avast Premium: Protection
As mentioned, the security features are quite extensive and include a few options that go beyond our top picks in the category, such as Bitdefender and Norton 360. For virus scanning, you can do a quick scan or targeted (which allows you to select specific folders). Like Norton 360, you can also do a boot detector scan which runs before you load Windows.
Digging into the app, there’s a new feature to explore at every turn. You can scan your computer for sensitive information — such as a Social Security number in a PDF or login info — and then add extra protection to those documents by blocking access to them.
The Email Guardian feature worked perfectly by scanning incoming messages, then adding a “safe” label to emails that did not pose a threat. There’s a sandbox mode to run any app in a protected environment, and a banking mode that lets you conduct financial transactions in a browser that runs on top of Windows. (You can’t even take a screenshot when in that mode.)
Avast doesn’t stop there. You can run a dedicated browser beyond the bank mode, although it should be noted this Avast browser is available for free. The browser runs in a safe mode that doesn’t allow you to be tracked by advertisers and blocks harmful sites.
Avast Premium: Performance
Avast Premium is a speedy and capable app while lacking some of the polish of Norton 360 Deluxe (though both apps are made by the same company). That straightforward design is a benefit for those who just want to run antivirus scans. In our tests, a fast scan only took about three minutes; faster than the Bitdefender, McAfee, and Norton antivirus offerings. The full boot sector scan took 12 minutes, which is about 15-20 minutes faster than the competing apps. However, Avast Premium only found about 900,000 files on the same PC used to test the competitors, which found about 1.5M files.
Since Avast Premium does not include a VPN, we weren’t able to test downloads using that encrypted connection. However, Avast Premium generally ran faster than the glossier competing apps, and we noticed the iOS and Android apps both operated in a streamlined way.
When looking to measure how an antivirus program protects against actual threats, we compare the results produced by independent labs: AV Test, AV Comparatives and SE Labs. In AV Test’s Jan/February 2025 Product Review and Certification Report, Avast scored 6 out of 6 in protection scoring where it was able to scan through over 16,000 samples in four weeks to search for malware samples. It also produced only three false positives in over 850,000 samples.
In AV Comparatives March 2025 Malware Protection Test Avast scored a 99.96% protection rate and scanned over 10,026 files, correctly catching 4 compromised ones. However it produced ten false positives during this testing, much the same as Norton. In SE Labs’ 2023 Endpoint Security testing, Avast produced 100% accuracy against both targeted and general attacks with zero false positives.
Avast Premium: Features
While Avast Premium is loaded with security features as described above, the package is a little thin on extra protection for privacy and when it comes to disk cleanup tools and other features meant to make your PC or Mac run faster and leaner.
It’s clear that Avast Premium is focused primarily on antivirus protection, and if that is what you really need, this might be a top choice. Some of the competing apps in the space add both privacy and performance enhancing features designed to make your PC run safer and faster, but Avast mostly points you to add-on programs with a separate subscription fee.
For example, you can scan for privacy problems and see the results, but to actually fix any of those issues, Avast only offers an option to buy Avast Secure Identity which costs $99.99 per year. That app does provide access to experts to help resolve identity theft problems, so it may be worth it depending on the issues you’re facing. For performance-related functions like disk cleanup, you will need to buy Avast Cleanup Premium which costs $41.88 per year. That app can remove hidden files, clean up a broken registry, and even fix fragmented disk problems. It’s similar to the Norton disk cleanup app.
Product name: Interface
Avast Premium is a slim and functional app. It lacks the polish of a slicker and more polished app like Norton 360 Deluxe, which has a clean white and yellow look. The Avast interface looks more dated, although it was never hard to find a feature or run a utility.
The interface has a black and green interface with red labels on anything important or that needs to be addressed. As such, you can find issues and solutions for them quickly.
There are obvious buttons on the left for protection, privacy and performance — although as stated above, the privacy and performance functions are limited. That means you might spend most of your time running antivirus tools. However, that may be exactly what you need and is what Avast Premium focuses on most.
Avast Premium: Support
Avast Premium comes with 24×7 tech support by chat, and during our tests, the technicians helped resolve a question about cloud storage easily (the app does not offer cloud storage). The phone support is more for billing questions, but you can also send in a support ticket by email.
Avast Premium: Verdict
Avast Premium is a highly capable antivirus package that focuses on the most serious security threats — protecting you from ransomware scams, protecting sensitive documents, and even offering a safe browser for banking and other online activity. It’s also reasonably priced,protecting one device costs lower than Norton, McAfee, and Bitdefender. In the end, Avast Premium is a good choice for antivirus protection at a fair price, but the lack of any privacy protection, a VPN or a password manager makes it less compelling.
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