[null, {"document_url": "https://in.pcmag.com/software/126062/avira-free-security-suite", "unformatted_src": "https://sm.pcmag.com/pcmag_in/category/s/software/software_6vgw.jpg", "src": "https://sm.pcmag.com/pcmag_in/category/s/software/software_6vgw.jpg", "formatted_filename": "software vgw", "alt_text": "Software Reviews"}, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null]

Avira Free Security Suite

Oct. 5, 2018 Neil J. Rubenking There are plenty of free antivirus products around, but a free security suite is a rare find. True, the new Avira Free Security Suite does not have all the features most people expect in a security suite, but it automatically installs all the features of Avira's antivirus, all that product's associated apps, and more. Just how much more is undefined, as any new, free Avira products automatically show up in your free suite. It's a convenient way to install all those free products, though it's not a full-blown security suite, as it lacks a firewall, antispam, parental control, backup and other typical suite components.

When you install the free Avira Antivirus, the installer cycles through slides extolling the virtues of numerous other Avira products: Phantom VPN, System Speedup, SafeSearch Plus, Browser Safety, and more. The Avira Connect app serves as a launcher for the antivirus. You can also use it to install and manage the ancillary apps touted during the installation process.

With Avira Free Security Suite, the installer automatically adds all those items. Once installation is complete and the antivirus and software updater have run their initial scans, you've got a whole Avira army on hand. Well, almost. You need to actively accept the browser extensions in Chrome and Firefox (Avira doesn't support Internet Explorer) and you must actively choose to install the Home Guard network scanner. View All 7 Photos in Gallery

The full pantheon of Avira products installed by this suite consists of Antivirus, Software Updater, Password Manager, Phantom VPN, System Speedup, Safe Shopping, System Speedup, Browser Safety, Home Guard, Privacy Pal, and Identity Scanner. I'll cover the added components in detail after going over features shared with the basic antivirus. Shared Antivirus

All essential and optional components of Avira Antivirus also appear in this suite. You can read my review of the antivirus for complete details, and I'll also summarize here what I learned from evaluating the antivirus.

Lab Test Results Chart Malware Protection Results Chart Phishing Protection Results Chart

All four independent antivirus testing labs I follow include Avira in their lineup of products for testing, and they give it good ratings. In four tests by AV-Test Institute, Avira earned two Advanced+ and two Advanced certifications. It also passed one of two difficult tests by London-based MRG-Effitas (few products pass both). Along with several others, Avira earned the top rating, AAA, from London-based SE Labs. In the three-part test by AV-Test Institute, Avira scored 18 of 18 possible points, matching Kaspersky's score. Bitdefender came close with 17.5, and both Bitdefender and Kaspersky Anti-Virus earned perfect scores in all the other tests.

Results in my own hands-on tests were mixed. Avira detected 89 percent of my samples, the same as IObit Advanced SystemCare Ultimate. But incomplete blocking of detected malware dragged its overall score down to 8.6 points. Cylance, F-Secure, and McAfee share the best scores against this current malware collection, 93 percent detection and 9.3 points. Challenged with my previous collection, Norton and Webroot achieved a perfect score of 10 points.

I also evaluate how well antivirus products prevent downloading of malware from recently active malware-hosting URLs, giving equal credit for preventing access to the URL or for quarantining the payload during download. Avira's Browser Safety extension managed 96 percent protection in this test, in almost every case diverting the browser from the dangerous site. That score beats all but three competing products: McAfee, Norton, and Bitdefender Antivirus Plus earned 97, 98, and 99 percent, respectively. Phishing websites don't rely on malware to steal your data. Rather, their creators aim to trick you into entering your credentials for the secure site they mimic. Avira didn't fare so well in my antiphishing test, detecting just 66 percent of the verified fraudulent sites. In their respective latest tests, McAfee AntiVirus Plus and Kaspersky both detected 100 percent of the samples.

Shared Bonus Features

As noted, many of the bonus features installed as part of this suite are available for installation with the free antivirus. The biggest difference is that the suite's installer adds all these optional components automatically (well, all but one), and the suite includes a password manager that's not shared with the standalone antivirus. In both cases, the Avira Connect tool serves to manage and launch these bonus tools. From Connect you can also launch the online dashboard, which lets you view all your devices and their installed Avira tools. From the dashboard, you can send links to install additional products on your devices. Phantom VPN is a virtual private network with servers in 20 countries, most of them in North America and Europe. One click connects you to the nearest server, or to the server of your choice. This is a free installation of Phantom VPN, which means it lacks some advanced features, doesn't offer tech support, and caps your bandwidth at 500MB per month. If you want to use it seriously, you'll need to upgrade to the Pro edition, which costs $10 per month.

Identity Scanner isn't a local app. Rather, it connects you to an online page that lets you check whether your email address has been leaked or breached. However, as with the free antivirus, I found that searching on my email just redirected me to the search page, without actually showing me any information about possible breaches.

Browser Safety, as mentioned above, keeps Chrome and Firefox from visiting dangerous or fraudulent websites. It also marks safe and dangerous links in search results. Safe Shopping works in those same two browsers to find you better deals when you're doing online shopping. It also marks safe and dangerous links in search results.

Avira Free System Speedup scans your system to perform various optimizations. Its boot-time scan times the boot process and helps you speed things up by delaying or disabling some processes that launch at startup, and its device optimizer gets rid of junk files, useless Registry items, and privacy risks. Full optimization and other features, including power mode management, disk optimization and other disk-related speedups, backup and restore, require an upgrade to the paid edition. It's really more of a preview for the full Avira System Speedup, which costs $29.99. When you launch Avira Home Guard, it scans your local network and reports all found devices. With more and more appliances and devices gaining internet connectivity, the list is probably longer than you'd expect. Home Guard also flags possible security problems, but its reports aren't as useful as what you get from the similar Bitdefender Home Scanner.

Windows is loaded with settings that can affect your data and your privacy. Do you have them all configured correctly? Avira's developers identified more than 200 such settings and created Avira Privacy Pal to check your configuration and make any necessary changes. It also includes a file shredder, to wipe out sensitive documents beyond the possibility of forensic recovery.

Between the time a hacker discovers a security hole in some popular application and the time that vendor patches the hole, users of that app are vulnerable to exploit attack. If you don't install the security patch once it's available, you're expanding that window of vulnerability. Avira's Software Updater tool looks for missing security patches, but doesn't update them automatically the way the for-pay Avira Software Updater Pro does. Once you've manually installed the updates suggested by the free updater, you should run it again to make sure you got everything.

Avast's product line has a similar app update feature, even in Avast Free Antivirus. But you don't get automated installation unless you spring for the top-of-the-line Avast Premier suite. 
Simple Password Manager

Everything I've mentioned so far is something you can get with Avira's free antivirus. The main difference is that the suite handles all the installations for you, rather than making you perform them one by one. The one big exception is the password manager that the Free Security Suite installs. Avira Antivirus users can go online and download it for free, but it's not present by default in the Avira Connect console. I've reviewed Avira Password Manager separately; please read that review to learn all about the product. Briefly, it installs as a browser extension in Chrome, Firefox, and Opera (but not Internet Explorer or Safari) and performs the basic password management tasks of capturing credentials as you enter them and replaying them as needed. It offers two-factor authentication, and syncs across all your Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS devices (for the mobile devices, it uses an app). But it doesn't offer form-filling, secure sharing, digital inheritance, or other features found in the best competing products.

Adds Some Convenience

Putting Avira Free Security Suite side by side with an all-options installation of Avira Antivirus, you would hardly see any difference. The biggest addition in the suite is a basic password manager, something you could install for free alongside Avira Antivirus. Avira also promises that any new, free features will get pushed out to the suite with no effort on your part, something you don't get with the simple antivirus. Avira Antivirus scores well in independent lab tests and in some of our own tests. If you're attracted by the bevy of bonus features, you might as well install the suite, rather than the free antivirus.

On the other hand, if your aim is simply to get effective antivirus protection without spending any of your hard-earned cash, you should give serious attention to our Editors' Choice free antivirus utilities, Avast Free Antivirus, AVG AntiVirus Free, and Kaspersky Free instead.

Of course, given that it's named Avira Free Security Suite, you may have expected it to offer something closer to a full range of security suite features. It doesn't; considered as a suite, it's not impressive, beyond the fact that it's free. If what you really want is a true, full-scale security suite, our Editors' Choice products in that realm are Bitdefender Internet Security and Kaspersky Internet Security. They're not free, but they're worth the price.
