Avast One Gold: Pricing
Avast One comes in four editions.
Avast One Gold covers up to five devices and adds many more performance, privacy and security tools .
Could be good value if youve a lot of hardware to protect.
Avast One Gold is our pick of the Avast range.
Avast One Gold: Getting started
Avast One installed easily on our testWindows laptop.
Its a smart way to help explain the very basics for security newbies.
Mostly, the Avast One interface works very well.
Avast One’s apps have the same light and friendly interface on mobiles and desktops.
Each test has its own scoring system, making it tricky to compare performance.
No antivirus provider excels at everything, and Avast does have one or two weaker points.
Thats good, but Avast does have one feature which could be annoying.
Avast One explains the basics of each feature when you select it for the first time.
Its also far more intrusive than many competitors.
But, theres no doubt Avasts approach is more secure.
But for everyone else, Avast just about earns a thumbs up for its tough security-first design.
Scanning speeds arent the best.
Avast stayed at around 35 minutes for subsequent scans.
And thats a concern.
All the labs agree Avast delivers well above average malware protection.
Youll assume that means all the files are clean, when that simply isnt true.
Bitdefender handles this much better.
If it finds a file is password-protected, Bitdefender prompts you for the password.
Avast One runs an in-depth scan on every app it doesn’t recognize.
If you dont know what it is, youre warned about any skipped files in the scan report.
This may not have much, perhaps any real-world impact on your security.
We test an antivirus ransomware-fighting abilities by pitting the app against our own simple ransomware simulator.
Scan files, folders or your whole system whenever you like.
Avast scored well initially, detecting our simulator before it was able to run.
Although thats not good news, Avast scores very highly when measured against genuineransomware.
MRG Effitas latest Ransomware tests pitted Avast against 37 ransomware samples, and it blocked every one.
You can schedule scans to run automatically when you’re not around.
Its not just about detection.
Avast One also has an extra layer of protection which prevents untrusted apps from modifying files in specific folders.
But this is still a useful extra feature which may protect your system from brand new ransomware threats.
We also compared Avasts results withChrome, giving us a better idea of how much additional protection it offered.
Avast One Gold: Email Guardian
Email Guardian scans your incoming and outgoing emails for dangerous attachments.
If you want to preserve the maximum possible privacy, that might be a step too far.
Avast One Ransomware Protection prevents unauthorised apps changing your files unless you give permission.
Instead, Avast One generally makes its own decisions about which traffic to block.
The firewall does allow you to choose processes which then wont be able to pull up the internet.
Put it all together and the firewall follows the same pattern as many Avast One features.
Avast One blocks more phishing sites than most of the competition.
Theres a version of the VPN available in the free Avast One Basic.
This looks better than most, thanks to a generous 5GB data allowance a week, but beware.
Fortunately, Avast One Silver and Gold include the full and unlimited VPN.
Top benchmark PCMark showed Avast didn’t significantly slow down our test device.
Avast One Gold: VPN Features
Avasts VPN options are a little limited.
The app does have a kill switch, and it worked reasonably well in testing.
Unfortunately, Avasts version just didnt work as expected.
Email Guardian can scan both local and webmail messages for malware.
Avast One VPN speeds varied quite a bit, but were generally very acceptable.
Unblocking results were poor.
It also failed with BBC iPlayer, ITV and Channel 4.
Avast One’s firewall is very short on features.
Avast did score one success in Australia, where we were able to access 9Now.
But most VPNs do the same, and Avast couldnt unblock the far better defended 10Play.
Or if you rarely use your webcam, theres a more extreme option to turn it off for everyone.
Avast One Secure VPN is easy to use, though a little basic.
This mostly worked as expected.
We noticed that if we simply closed the Block or Allow?
box, though, without clicking either option, Avast allowed the app to access our machine.
A sandbox can be handy for expert users who understand how they work, but they have their limits.
online grid Inspector is a feature which automatically scans new networks for vulnerabilities every time you connect to them.
Web Hijack Guard works by routing DNS requests through an encrypted connection to Avasts own secure DNS server.
The VPNauto-connect feature looked interesting, but didn’t work reliably for us.
The core of Bank Mode works reasonably well.
We launched it with a click, and browsed as usual.
But Avast Ones Bank Mode is more convenient to use, and adds some useful extra layers of protection.
Avast’s VPN didn’t unblock exclusive Netflix content in any of the regions we tried.
Tracking Prevention randomises your rig fingerprint, preventing sites tracking you with web client fingerprinting.
It doesnt need any configuration: just install Avast One Gold and it goes to work right away.
If there are problems, all you’re able to do is turn Tracking Prevention off entirely.
Webcam Protection aims to stop malicious apps secretly grabbing webcam images.
Thats good to see, and means youll stay logged into most websites when the wiping is complete.
you might get much the same information for free atHave I Been Pwned.
Privacy Advisor cant automate these changes, unfortunately.
Instead it displays step-by-step tutorials on how to find whatever parameters you might want to tweak.
The guides are well presented, with screenshots and occasional buttons to pop fire up right tweaks page.
Driver Updater finds and installs missing rig driver updates.
Avast One is great at detecting malware - but that’s just the start.
Driver Updater does still have some value.
But its best to use it, well, cautiously.
The less resources these processes use, the more your main apps will get.
The Network Inspector checks every network you access for security issue.
Using PC Speedup properly requires a lot of work.
(Including security issues, if we stopped getting updates.)
PC Speedup is an interesting feature which could make a real performance difference to some systems.
Do you store passwords in your browser? Malware may try to steal them, but Avast’s Password Protection can help.
We think Avira Primes Power Cleaner is a much better tool.
The app looks great, with the same clean and friendly interface as the Windows edition.
Tap the Explore icon on the left and everything you need is just a click or two away.
Access banking and other sensitive sites in a secure and isolated (-ish) browser.
We found the Avast app easy to use, and it generally performed well in our tests.
One exception was the VPNs auto-connect feature, which proved just as flaky as on Windows.
Not an option we can recommend.
Avast One for Mac is a little short on features.
Overall, Avast One for Mac scores for its excellent malware protection and unlimited VPN.
If you dont need the VPN, though, Avast One Free might be enough for you.
Clear all your browser histories with one click.
(Oh, and its cheaper, too.)
As with Avast One on the desktop, theres a VPN, too.
There are one or two features you wont find on Windows.
Overall, Avast One for iOS is a decent security app, but its exactly overflowing with features.
If you dont need the unlimited VPN, the free Avast One Basic may be enough.
Avast One is still worth a look, but test the free version before you buy.
Simple tutorials explain how to optimize your privacy with WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and more.
We’ve listed the best business password manager.
Avast One has a handful of tools which might be able to speed up your device.
Disk Cleaner can free up huge amounts of storage space, but beware - there’s sometimes a catch.
Avast One for Mac has much the same appealing interface as Windows (but with a few less features.
Antivirus, VPN and extra privacy protection for your Android device.
We like the VPN and web protection, but otherwise Avast’s iOS app doesn’t offer much.
