At Avira, we believe that everyone has the right to enjoy life online safely, securely, and privately. And that’s something we’ve believed in for decades. In that time, we’ve built a base of over 100 million customers and pioneered the freemium software business model—offering high quality, market-leading security products for free to. Original review: April 2, 2019. I have a paid for version of Avira Antivirus software but keep getting an Avira messages popping up on my desktop telling me to update software.
Avira Free Mac Security
Editor Rating: Good (3.5)
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Pros
Certified by AV-Comparatives, with top scores. Full scan ran quickly in our testing. Cleaned most Windows malware in hands-on tests. Free.Cons
Protection against malicious and fraudulent URLs requires separate download. Poor score in antiphishing test.Bottom Line
Avira Free Antivirus for Mac costs nothing, and one lab certifies its macOS protection, but it's not the best free Mac antivirus we've tested.
Though some Mac enthusiasts might argue the contrary, Macs aren't invulnerable. You need antivirus protection on your macOS devices. Sure, Windows and Android are much more popular targets, but Apple machines get hit with malware too, including nasty variants like ransomware. If you don't care to pay for antivirus protection on your Mac, consider Avira Free Antivirus for Mac. It doesn't cost a penny, and it did well in tests by the independent labs.
When you launch Avira's installer, it goes online to get the latest code and malware signatures. The main window features a simple menu down the left, most of which echoes the similar menu in Avira Antivirus and Avira Antivirus Pro. The rest of the window has plenty of whitespace around three main components: a round icon that reflects your security status, a big button to run a full or quick scan, and a drag/drop target so you can quickly scan specific files or folders.
SEE ALSO: The Best Antivirus Protection for 2019
Scanning and Scheduling
On the Apple MacBook Air 13-Inch I use for testing, the quick scan took just a bit over a minute, and the full scan took 25 minutes. That's almost precisely the average among current products for a full scan.
Scheduled scanning is enabled by default, once per week. You can add more scheduled quick or full scans, on a daily or weekly basis.
Clicking Modules in the left-side menu displays the status of four security modules: Real-Time Protection, Protection Cloud, Firewall, and USB Scanner (the last is reserved for the Pro edition of this product). Seeing the label Firewall, you might get the impression that Avira includes a firewall component, like Intego, McAfee, and Norton. However, this component simply controls the built-in macOS firewall component.
Pricing and OS Support
There's a big range of prices for Mac-based antivirus support. At the high end, Intego lists at $99.99 per year to protect three Macs, and Symantec Norton Security Deluxe (for Mac) asks $89.99 per year for five cross-platform licenses. Granted, these two are security suites, going beyond what a simple antivirus utility offers.
The most common pricing plan among products we've reviewed is $39.99 per year for one license and $59.99 for three. As for Avira, you don't pay a thing. Like Sophos Home (for Mac), it's totally free.
You do need a modern operating system to use this antivirus. Avira requires macOS El Capitan (10.11) or better. If you're using an old operating system, you may need to consider a different Mac antivirus. Sophos support runs back to Mountain Lion (10.8), Webroot works on Lion (10.7) or better, and ESET Cyber Security (for Mac) goes all the way back to Snow Leopard (10.6).
Good Malware Protection Lab Scores
When evaluating Windows antivirus utilities for malware protection, I use a wide range of tests that I've developed over the years. I don't have anything similar in hand for the macOS platform, as my many hand-coded testing tools are Windows-only. For Mac antivirus, I necessarily rely more heavily on the independent testing labs to know which products are effective. Fortunately, most of them do just fine.
Two of the independent antivirus testing labs I follow include macOS products in their testing, and both have Avira on their test roster. AV-Comparatives certifies Avira for malware protection, with the best possible scores. It achieved 100 percent protection against Mac-centric malware (to be fair, most of the products in this test reached 100 percent).
The experts at AV-Test Institute rate antivirus utilities, both for Windows and macOS, on three criteria: how well they protect against malware, how little they impact performance, and how carefully they avoid flagging valid programs as malicious. With six points available in each category, the maximum score is 18. Avira earned 5.5, 5.0, and 6.0 points in the three criteria respectively, for a total of 16.5 points. Others have done better. Bitdefender, Intego Mac Internet Security X9, and Trend Micro all earned a perfect 18 from AV-Test, as well as 100 percent from AV-Comparatives.
Windows malware can't infect Macs, but the Mac could act as a carrier, so AV-Comparatives also checks for detection of Windows-focused malware. Avira also managed 100 percent in this test, as did Avast, Bitdefender, Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac, and Trend Micro.
You may notice that there aren't any results in the table for Sophos, ESET, McAfee, and a few others. These products all earned high marks in past test reports, but the labs vary their product selection, and the latest reports didn't include them. Best mac lipstick for brown skin tone.
When I challenged Avira to clean up a USB drive containing the samples from my own Windows-centered testing, it finished quickly, eliminating 82 percent of the samples. That's better than most of the products I've tested in this way, though Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus (for Mac) caught 86 percent and Sophos managed 100 percent. In addition, Sophos jumped right in to scan the USB drive, without waiting for me to request a scan.
Protection Against Phishing and Malicious URLs
Phishing URLs are frauds that attempt to steal your login credentials by imitating sensitive websites. Phishing is a platform-agnostic crime—you can fall victim to fraud using absolutely any device that has a browser. That includes your Mac. Preventing access to such URLs, or to URLs containing malicious code, can be the first line of defense for an antivirus tool, whether it's Mac or Windows antivirus.
Avira Free Antivirus does not in itself protect against malicious or fraudulent URLs, but it does give users easy access to Avira's Browser Safety extensions for Chrome and Firefox. I installed the Chrome extension and proceeded to test Avira's browser-based protection.
For this test, I gather the newest phishing URLs I can find, especially ones that haven't yet been analyzed and blacklisted. I use one of my hand-coded tools to launch each URL and record results in three browsers, Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer, each protected by the browser's own built-in protection. As for the Mac product, my analysis tool works strictly on Windows, so I test by hand on the Mac. I ran this test simultaneously with my test of Avira Antivirus and Avira Antivirus Pro on Windows.
For testing purposes, I discard any URL that causes an error message in any of the browsers, and any URL that doesn't actively attempt to capture login credentials. Analyzing the remaining URLs, the undeniable phishing URLs, I found that Avira's detection rate came at 66 percent, as it did under Windows. That makes sense; the Chrome plug-in that handles phishing protection isn't platform-specific.
That 66 percent score is better than the 47 percent Avira earned last time I put it to the test. However, it's in the bottom half for macOS antivirus utilities that include phishing protection. McAfee AntiVirus Plus (for Mac) recently managed 100 percent protection in this test.
On the plus side, Browser Safety marks up unsafe links in search results, so you can avoid clicking them. It doesn't offer the detailed analysis that you get from Norton, but then, most of the time you don't need to see those details.
Should You Go Pro?
At the bottom of the main screen's left-side menu is a highlighted item titled 'Get Pro.' Clicking it gets you a laundry list of the virtues of the Pro edition. These include scanning USB devices, protecting emails, and full-scale phone support, along with more nebulous benefits such as 'award-winning shields against dangerous threats' and protection enhancement using 'smart learning algorithms.'
As with the free and Pro editions on Windows, perhaps even more so, the added benefits don't seem to merit the price. The free edition's real-time protection scans a file that enters your Mac via USB either when it's copied to the local drive or when it executes. Likewise, when you save or launch a malicious email attachment, real-time protection jumps into the fray. Personal tech support is nice—free users only get FAQs and community support forums—but not $44.99 per year nice. I didn't see a reason to review the Pro edition separately.
Free and Simple
Having heard for years that Macs don't get malware, Mac users may find paying money for antivirus protection hard to justify. It's a false assumption—macOS malware exists—but that still doesn't mean that you must pay. Avira Free Antivirus for Mac does a decent job, and it doesn't cost a dime.
Avira Pro Download
But you should also look at Sophos Home (for Mac). Like Avira, Sophos has certification from two independent labs. It wiped out all our Windows malware samples, beating out even its paid competitors. And in our antiphishing test it does much better than Avira.
If you have a little cash to splash on antivirus for your Mac, take a look at Bitdefender Antivirus for Mac and Kaspersky Internet Security for Mac. Both received certification from both labs, Bitdefender with all perfect scores and Kaspersky with near-perfect scores. Bitdefender includes such advanced features as ransomware protection for your documents and backups. Kaspersky is a full suite, with components including parental control and network protection. These two are our Editors' Choice products for Mac antivirus.
Avira Free Antivirus for Mac
Bottom Line: Avira Free Antivirus for Mac costs nothing, and it gets good scores from the independent labs, but it's not the best free Mac antivirus we've tested.
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Avira For Mac Review 2019 Reviews
Like its competitors, Avira For Mac Review 2019 has an “ultimate” package known as Prime that offers all its products to get a single price. It’s fairly pricey, however, at $120 to $156 per year based on how many devices you need to license.
![Avira For Mac Reviews Avira For Mac Reviews](/uploads/1/3/4/2/134299577/606472512.jpg)
Where to download sims 4 for mac free. Avira For Mac Review 2019 is far less expensive by comparison at just $45 per year for five devices, with assistance for Windows, Mac, and Android. At that cost, Avira is quite basic antivirus protection, with no extras. In fact, some customers may wonder why they should spend for Avira Pro over the company’s free antivirus providing.
Get award-winning antivirus protection that runs silently within the background to safe your data, protect your privacy, and keep your Computer malware-free.
Avira For Mac Review 2019 Features
It is easy to use - just download and set up, then sit back and relax… you’re protected for life! And it’s quick and light, so it does not slow down your browsing encounter.
- Delivers swift and smooth system scans at the push of a button. With the industry’s top detection rates, Avira For Mac Review 2019 Free Antivirus:
- Shields you in real time against 10s of millions of emerging threats every day.
Avira For Mac Review 2019 Performance
- Blocks potentially undesirable applications (PUA), viruses, worms, Trojans, ransomware, spyware, adware, and rootkits.
- Protects against harmful web sites, blocks browser trackers for much better internet privacy, and has a price comparison tool for finding deals from trusted sites when you shop online (all integrated within the totally free internet browser extension).
Germany-based Avira knows safety: Avira Free Antivirus shares exactly the same core technology as Avira For Mac Review 2019, named “2016 Product of the Year” by AV-Comparatives. Other independent antivirus critiques typically place it amongst the top antivirus software available - which implies that your look for the best totally free antivirus software is over!
Avira For Mac Reviews Consumer Reports
Avira’s protection-cloud AI technologies provides you not only a real-time malware scanner and virus detector, but also an early warning method, which analyzes unknown files within the cloud - anonymously - from millions of customers, to shield you from threats as they emerge in genuine time. Free keylogger for mac. https://rflbfkw.weebly.com/blog/quickbook-for-mac-2015.
Avira is deemed a top performer by third-party security testing firms. A-V Test stated Avira had a 99 % detection price for 0-day and malware attacks primarily based on 202 samples. Malware detection, meanwhile, was at 100 % primarily based on more than ten,000 samples.
A-V Comparatives found similar outcomes with one hundred % in the real-world protection tests, and 99.9 % in its malware test. It was also very good in the firm’s offline malware test detecting 98 % of the nearly 38,000 samples.
In our PCMark eight benchmark test, our test Pc scored the usual 2,538 with out any anti-virus installed, and 2,533 with Avira rugenning. The larger number is better, which means Avira caused a very minor drop in performance.
In the Handbrake test, Avira caused a slowdown of about 45 seconds within the encoding performance of a three.8GB HD video file. Generally, the test Computer can total that job having a fresh Windows ten install in 1 hour, 15 minutes, and 30 seconds. With Avira operating, that time went up to 1 hour, 16 minutes, and 13 seconds. Once more, extremely minor influence for home customers.
Avira For Mac Review 2019 Conclusion
Avira Antivirus For Mac Review
Avira For Mac Review 2019 offers great antivirus protection, but ought to you pay $45 for it? You definitely get value in comparison to similarly priced A-V suites. The trouble is that Avira’s free choice isn’t that various from the paid version. The only factor you do not get is the USB important warning (of arguable value), and web and mail protection.
If you do not use a mail desktop client, the mail protection isn’t much use, and web protection can be covered by a handful of totally free browser extensions alongside a contemporary browser.
In the event you need mail protection and/or you like the concept of the USB important warning, then Avira is a great choice. Otherwise, I’d suggest you try out the free version and see if you’re missing anything.