Avira Antivirus (2017)

The airy main window of Avira Antivirus both reflects security status and offers fast access to actions such as launching a scan or checking for updates. Features only available in the Pro edition are grayed out and disabled.

During the installation process, you get the option to install a gaggle of additional Avira applications. Most of these are free and available independently of the antivirus.

In addition to the expected quick and full scan choices, Avira gives you a dazzling collection of other options.

It looks like this scan is almost finished, but in truth Avira runs the progress bar to 100 percent several times during a scan. The full process took well over two hours.

Several times during testing, Avira requested a scan using the Rescue System, a bootable Ubuntu-based tool. A full scan using the Rescue System took about 90 minutes.

Avira sends most detected malware directly to quarantine, displaying a transient notification of its actions. In some cases, it pops up to ask you how you'd like to handle a particular threat.

Avira's Browser Safety extension proved extremely effective at blocking access to malware-hosting URLs in testing. Note, though, that the extension is available only for Chrome and Firefox.

Browser Safety wasn't as effective at steering the browser away from fraudulent (phishing) websites.

Among the many additional Avira tools is this handy online dashboard. Here you can see all of your registered installations, along with a visual representation of which Avira tools are installed.

This montage shows Avira's Phantom VPN main window along with its simple configuration page. As a free user, you get 1GB of secured Web traffic per month.