At PCMag, we carefully evaluate and report on available security suites, so you can make an informed decision as to which one’s best for your situation. Usually, changing to a different suite comes after you’ve mulled over all the possibilities. Last year, though, millions of Kaspersky users woke up one day to find their Kaspersky protection replaced with UltraAV. Its range of features roughly matches Kaspersky’s, but where Kaspersky’s components were all top-notch, UltraAV’s vary quite a bit in quality. If you received it as a Kaspersky replacement, keep it until the subscription runs out, but then consider switching to one of our Editors’ Choice winners, as there are quite a few better suites depending on just what features you’re seeking. Bitdefender Total Security is an excellent entry-level suite, while for security plus identity theft protection, both Norton 360 With LifeLock and Bitdefender Ultimate Security far outperform UltraAV.

How Did I Get UltraAV?

In June 2024, the US government banned the sale of Kaspersky security applications in the US. The ban further declared that as of September 29, 2024, Kaspersky must not interact with existing users in any way, including providing antivirus updates or support.

Rather than leave millions of US users high and dry, with zero protection, Kaspersky made a deal with Pango, the company from which it licensed VPN technology. Pango would take over servicing all those Kaspersky subscribers, supplying them with antivirus, VPN, and identity protection. Pango has since melded into the Point Wild security group, a collection that also includes TotalAV Antivirus Pro, Hotspot Shield VPN, and several other VPN services.

Kaspersky notified users that this change would occur, but never included precise details. Details got real when a Kaspersky update deleted the existing suite or antivirus and installed UltraAV, which also includes UltraVPN, an identity protection system, and more. Some subscribers were unhappy with the change, and most were at least surprised.

Initially, those not switching from Kaspersky could only purchase a stripped-down antivirus plus VPN bundle, but the current UltraAV has the whole range of features, including antivirus, password manager, VPN, and more. I previously reviewed it as an antivirus, with the thought that a separate security suite would soon be on offer. That didn’t happen; the current UltraAV is clearly a suite.

How Much Does UltraAV Cost?

On UltraAV’s website, you’ll see a $99.99 price, but once you’ve passed the first-year discount, UltraAV costs $199.99 per year for 20 licenses. The standalone UltraVPN, without antivirus protection, runs $149.99 after the first-year discount.

UltraAV is more expensive than most security suites. F-Secure Total charges $149.99 for 20 licenses, and you can get a 25-device subscription to Bitdefender Total Security, an Editors’ Choice, for $139.99. Avast One Silver comes in a 30-pack for $129.99, and your $149.99 subscription for McAfee+ covers unlimited security suite licenses.

Comparing UltraAV with other suites that include identity theft protection, its price isn’t quite so far out of line. The top protection tier of Norton 360 With LifeLock costs $349.99, for example. Note, though, that that price gets you the best identity theft coverage, unlimited security suite licenses, unlimited VPN licenses, and 500GB of storage for your backups. With Bitdefender Ultimate Security, a $199.99 subscription, the same price as TotalAV, gets you protection for 25 devices and thorough identity protection for five individuals, rather than limited protection for one.

McAfee+ includes identity protection starting at the Advanced tier. This tier runs $199.99 per year, again the same as UltraAV, but you can install its security apps on every device in your household running Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and even ChromeOS.

In addition, most security suites let you choose a smaller number of licenses to match your needs, typically offering subscriptions for one, three, five, or ten devices. With UltraAV, you always pay for 20. However you slice it, UltraAV is expensive.

Lab Test Results

Kaspersky always used to earn stellar scores from the four independent testing labs that I follow. In the most recent 10 years of testing, it took the highest possible score in 90% of its tests and came close to perfection in the rest. It remains to be seen whether UltraAV can meet that standard.

When I last tested this suite, my contacts at the company were still working on getting the program tested by multiple labs. Since then, I’ve seen UltraAV turn up in a report from AV-Test Institute. In this lab’s scoring system, antiviruses earn up to six points each for protection, performance, and usability, so a perfect score is 18 points. Over 80% of antivirus apps included in this test reached that perfect score. With 5.5 for protection, 5.5 for performance, and 5 for usability, UltraAV came in at 16 points, nearly the lowest score. The very latest test from this lab doesn’t include UltraAV.

Each lab uses a different scoring system. AV-Comparatives eschews numeric ratings, certifying antivirus tools at three levels: Standard, Advanced, and Advanced+. SE Labs certifies the most capable antiviruses with AAA certification, while the rest may be certified at the AA, A, B, or C level. With MRG-Effitas, tests are closer to a pass/fail mode.

I’ve devised an algorithm to map all these disparate reporting models onto a 10-point scale and, for those with at least two lab scores, report an aggregate lab score. Avast, Microsoft Defender Antivirus, and Norton are the only ones appearing in the latest reports from all four labs. Of those, Avast leads the pack with a 9.9-point aggregate lab score. Bitdefender, ESET, and McAfee+ turned in an impressive 9.8 points based on results from three labs. I look forward to seeing more (and better) scores from UltraAV.

Getting Started With UltraAV

Some of you didn’t have to lift a finger to start using UltraAV. It simply appeared one day, replacing your copy of Kaspersky. If you actively choose UltraAV, you need to create an account and verify your email, but after that, the installation is quick and simple.

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The UltraAV main window features a simple menu down the left side, with items for Home, Security, Performance, Privacy, Identity, and Profile. A second set of items below lets you contact support and view help and About information.

That menu has a gray background, while the rest of the main window is white, with gray panels and orange accents. A banner at the top reports security status—you want to see “Your PC is protected” here. Three panels let you launch a quick scan, view a report on the latest scan, or trigger an on-demand update. There’s a button to launch the separate UltraVPN app. A banner below that reports how many devices you’re currently protecting, but doesn’t link to an opportunity to add more devices.

Sharp-eyed users may notice that the UltraVPN panel includes the statement “Included with Premium,” implying that there’s a non-Premium UltraAV edition without VPN support. That was once the case, but not anymore.

Scans and Scheduling

As noted, the Scan Now panel on the main window launches a quick scan. In testing, that scan finished in just a few seconds. For a more comprehensive scan, you choose Security from the menu and open the Full Scan tab. You can select which drives will receive UltraAV’s attention and opt to shut down the PC once the scan has finished.

For testing purposes, I selected the virtual machine’s hard drive and launched a full scan. This scan ran to completion in 71 minutes, which is speedy, given that the current average is just under two hours. That first scan clearly performed some optimization tasks, as a repeat scan finished in 42 minutes.

UltraAV’s repeat scan cut its time almost in half, but some competitors cut way more time on the second scan. Bitdefender Total Security went from 90 minutes to six, for example, and ESET from nearly two hours to 11 minutes.

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Shortly after installation, UltraAV offers to schedule a daily quick scan and scan the system once a week. Be sure to accept that offer, as the rest of the scan scheduling system didn’t quite make it into the current release. It’s planned for the next point release, which is in QA as of this writing. For now, if you dismiss that initial offer, you can’t configure scan scheduling.

Clicking Scan Report on the Home page takes you to a report of what UltraAV found in its latest scan. It shows the number of files scanned, the number of threats found (none, we hope), and how long the scan took. The adjacent tab, Scan History, is less useful. After a scan with no threats found, it’s just blank. You can reach that page directly by clicking the link titled Last scan history at the bottom of the Home page. For reasons that aren’t clear to me, Scan Report and Scan History appear on the Performance page, along with Total Cleaner, which I’ll discuss below.

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Malware Protection

Even when an antivirus boasts top scores from many labs, I still put it through my hands-on testing regimen. When no lab results are available, as with UltraAV, these tests become especially important.

An initial full scan eliminates any malware that was lurking on your PC before you installed protection. After that, real-time scanning should detect any new threats. Some antivirus tools scan files on any access, even the tiny access that occurs when Windows Explorer displays the file’s properties. Others wait until just before launch or give special attention to downloaded files.

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In testing, I found that UltraAV started detecting and quarantining samples as soon as I opened their folders containing them. It processed the files quickly, popping up a new notification as soon as the previous one cleared. UltraAV’s real-time protection eliminated 100% of the samples at this phase. That’s impressive. Detection percentages for most competitors at this stage tend to run in the 70s and 80s. Normally, I finish this test by launching any malware samples that survived the initial on-sight massacre, but this time there were no survivors.

With the complete elimination of all samples on sight, UltraAV earned a perfect 10 points. That’s the best score among current antivirus apps. Also tested with my current malware collection, Avast, AVG Internet Security, Norton, and Webroot Total Protection vie for second place, all with 9.7 points. F-Secure and ZoneAlarm Extreme Security scored 9.7 points against my previous malware collection, while Guardio, with 9.8 points, holds the best score against the collection before that. UltraAV’s perfect 10-point score beats them all.

I maintain a second set of samples, hand-tweaked to challenge too-rigid signature-based detection. I start with the original set of samples and make some simple modifications to each one, appending nulls to change the size, giving it a different name, and replacing some non-executable bytes within the malware file. Some antiviruses aren’t fazed by my chicanery. Avast, AVG, and Norton caught almost all of them, while ZoneAlarm and G Data Internet Security detected nearly 90%. UltraAV, on the other hand, missed every single one of the tweaked samples, including all the ransomware samples. That very unusual result suggests an over-strict malware detection system.

Winnowing down thousands of possible malware selections to six or seven dozen samples and retaining detailed analyses of those samples takes a lot of time, enough that I can only do it once a year. To evaluate each antivirus tool’s ability to stand up against the very newest malware, I run a different sort of test. I start with a feed of malware-hosting URLs discovered in the last few days by the experts at MRG-Effitas. I launch each one in turn, skipping dupes and any that have already devolved into browser errors. For each extant malware sample, I record whether the antivirus steered the browser away from the dangerous page, slammed the malware download into quarantine, or sat like a lump, taking no action.

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When last tested, UltraAV was at a disadvantage here because it did not attempt to prevent your browser from connecting with malware-hosting pages. The current edition offers a browser extension to detect dangerous websites, though at present it only supports Chrome. In testing, it blocked 99% of the malware downloads, a bit over half by diverting the browser from the malware-hosting page and the rest by eliminating the downloaded malware. Norton and Aura also scored 99% protection, as did NordVPN.

A few competitors scored even higher. Avira Prime, Bitdefender, Guardio, and Sophos Home Premium all earned a perfect 100% in their own latest tests. Still, UltraVPN’s score is impressive.

Phishing Protection

Writing a new Trojan, bot, or ransomware app isn’t a task for beginning coders. It’s not enough to develop the code modules required to seek out and steal personal data, encrypt important documents, or enlist the victim computer in your bot army. You also need machine-level coding skills to evade antivirus programs and defeat the operating system’s built-in defenses. Engaging in phishing fraud is a much easier gig. You don’t have to trick the antivirus or evade the operating system. All you need to do is fool the user.

Almost all the antiviruses that I test do their best to steer you away from these fraudulent sites. Most rely on a browser extension that replaces the fake page with a warning and explanation. Some work below the browser level. As for UltraAV, the new Chrome extension that detects malware-hosting URLs also aims to keep you from visiting phishing websites. In fact, its message is the same for any unwanted page, whether the problem is malware, phishing, or spam.

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To test phishing protection, I start by scraping hundreds of known and suspected fraudulent URLs from websites that gather them. I set up four browsers, one protected by the antivirus under examination and the other three by the phishing protection built into Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. I use a purpose-built app that launches each potential fraud in all four browsers and lets me record whether each is blocked or missed. If any of the four can’t load a page, I discard it. I also toss any pages that don’t clearly fit the profile of a credential-stealing phishing fraud. When I have a hundred or so data points, I throw them into a spreadsheet to see the results.

On its first try at my phishing protection test, UltraAV didn’t do so well. Its score of 85% detection puts it in the bottom third of current suites. It did outscore Edge and Chrome, but not Firefox. If you do wind up relying on UltraAV for phishing protection, you’ll want to leave the browser’s protection turned on and hone your own skills so you can spot any fakes that get through.

Ransomware Protection

Whenever an antivirus includes ransomware-specific protection, I attempt to test it by turning off all other protective layers and challenging the unaided ransomware layer to defend against real-world ransomware samples. UltraAV doesn’t have a separate component for detecting and eliminating ransomware. However, the fact that its real-time scan overlooked all my hand-tweaked ransomware samples gave me an unusual opportunity for testing.

For this challenge, I cut off the virtual test machine’s network connection and then simply launched each sample in turn, reverting the virtual machine after each sample. The results weren’t encouraging.

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Out of a dozen malware samples, UltraAV did catch and kill six, with the uninformative message “Process terminated.” However, the other six ran completely unhindered, one encrypting the whole (virtual) disk, one wiping the disk, and the rest encrypting from hundreds to thousands of files. This behavior suggests that UltraAV is lacking in the realm of behavior-based detection, and that it could well be vulnerable to a zero-day ransomware attack, one too new to be detected as a known bad file.

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USB-Specific Security

Out of the box, UltraAV scans every USB drive you mount for malware. It also suppresses the processing of the AUTORUN.INF file, which USB-based malware uses to launch itself the moment you plug it in.

Those defaults are a good start toward USB security, but UltraAV can do more. To see just what’s available, click Security from the menu and then click USB Manager. You’ll see three main sections: Auto USB Scan, USB Features, and USB Whitelist. The first simply lets you turn off the automatic scan I mentioned. But don’t do that! I should mention that at the time of my last review, these settings were a confusing jumble. Not anymore; they’ve been organized nicely.

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The settings under USB Features control overall access to USB drives. Access Block is the strictest. If you enable it, any attempt to even view the contents of a USB drive will get an “Access Denied” message. If you turn on Write Block, USB drives become read-only, heading off the movie-like scenario where a spy sneaks in and copies important files to a USB drive. And Execute Block prevents execution of files that come in on a random USB, which makes sense.

Then there’s the option to define a list of allowed USB drives, blocking access to all others. To get started, enable the USB Whitelist feature and insert a USB drive. You’ll get a warning because the USB is not (yet) trusted; ignore it and click the Add USB button. You should see your drive identified by its current drive letter and a cryptic USB serial number. At the bottom of the window, you’ll find a spot to give the drive a name. Be sure to do that, as the serial number isn’t much use, and any existing drive label doesn’t come through. Click the big Add USB to Whitelist button and you’re all set.

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Once you understand the USB manager settings, there are a few useful things you can do with them. As noted, it makes sense to prevent the execution of files from a USB, and you can foil spies by blocking the ability to write data. You may choose to block access for any USB drive other than a few personal ones that you’ve whitelisted.

G Data Total Security’s Device Control feature is much more comprehensive and polished. It offers separate settings for various media types, including USB drives, optical drives, and floppy drives. You can also define exceptions for specific devices or users. The settings are complex but logical. ESET Home Security Essential offers device control for a wider range of device types than G Data.

Scanning every USB drive you mount and preventing programs from automatically running from USB drives are good things, and UltraAV does both by default. The reconfigured USB management component makes it easy to take more detailed control of USB activity on your computer.

UltraAV Online Console

Depending on how you obtained your UltraAV subscription, you may have already visited the online console. To reach it from the app, click Profile in the menu and then click the Manage link. You’ll need to sign in with the username and password you created at installation.

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From the console, you can see that your subscription comes with much more than just antivirus. A menu at left gives you six choices: UltraVPN, UltraAntivirus, Ultra Identity Defense, Dark Web Scan, PassWatch, and Total Cleaner. While you’re looking at the console, you might as well install all these additional features.

Dark Web Scan

It’s always possible that a data breach somewhere could expose your personal data, leading to your profile going up for sale on the dark web. You can’t prevent that from happening, but with an early warning that it did happen, you can take appropriate action. That’s what UltraAV’s dark web scan is for. You access this feature through UltraVPN—there’s no visible connection directly from the antivirus. If you try to reach it through the online console, you just get instructions to find it in the VPN.

When I tested this feature, it reported, “All Good. No email or passwords were found on the dark web.” I found this slightly odd because every other similar scan I've run has found anywhere from a handful to dozens of breaches.

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This type of scan is also found in many other antivirus and security suite apps and password managers. Typically, you click a breach found for details, take any appropriate action, and click to archive the report. In some cases, you can expand the search to other email addresses or add non-email personal details.

When I last tested UltraAV, the scan initially found nothing, but a re-scan reported about two dozen hits. At that time, I discovered that you can’t dig in for more detail, and there’s no option to suppress the display of breaches you’ve already dealt with. I couldn’t double-check that behavior, as the scan found nothing this time around. Dark web scanning in UltraAV is limited compared with most.

VPN Performance

You can launch UltraVPN from the Privacy page in UltraAV, but it’s a totally separate app. If you haven’t already installed it, it will install on the first launch. We’ve reviewed UltraVPN separately, concluding that it’s expensive, slow, and lacking in features. Please read that review for full details. I’ll summarize here.

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As a standalone VPN, UltraVPN costs $149.99 per year after a steep first-year discount. The average among current VPN services is closer to $60, so that’s quite a gap. True, you get UltraVPN as part of your UltraAV subscription, but note that you get 10 VPN licenses, not 20 licenses like the antivirus.

When you first launch the VPN, you just see a dark window with a big Not Connected icon. Clicking that icon connects you to a nearby server. Once you’re connected, the display shifts to show useful information like the amount of data securely uploaded and downloaded, the duration of your session, and your virtual IP address.

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Of course, one virtue of using a VPN is that you can spoof your location. By observation, UltraVPN lets you choose from over 120 cities in 85 countries. The selection process is awkward, as the only way to scroll the lengthy list is by using the mouse wheel. Page up, page down, home, end, arrow keys, dragging with the mouse—none of these techniques work.

Every VPN encrypts your online traffic, but they use a variety of encryption protocols. We at PCMag prefer the OpenVPN and WireGuard protocols, as they’re modern, secure, and open-source. UltraVPN does support WireGuard, along with the Hydra protocol developed for Hotspot Shield and the less secure IKEv2. By default, it automatically picks “the fastest and most secure protocol,” but you can lock in a specific choice if desired.

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Because your internet traffic has to go to the VPN server and then to its destination, using a VPN usually slows your connection, by a little or by a lot. We test each VPN’s speed impact by averaging numerous tests with and without the VPN enabled. In download speed, upload speed, and latency, UltraVPN proved to have more impact than almost all the competition. We do advise you not to pick a VPN based solely on speed tests, as the impact can vary at different times and on different networks.

UltraVPN’s split tunneling feature lets you avoid slowdowns for apps and websites where speed is more important than privacy. Be sure to turn on the kill switch option—this ensures that if the VPN connection drops, your computer doesn’t transmit any data without protection. By default, UltraVPN launches when Windows does and reconnects if it loses connection.

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That’s about it for options and features. UltraVPN doesn’t include advanced features like multi-hop connections, filtering ad sites at the domain level, or selecting specialized servers for tasks like using P2P.

Our reviewer concluded that UltraVPN isn’t a great replacement for Kaspersky’s VPN and suggested instead selecting one of our Editors’ Choice VPNs. Since you’re getting UltraVPN as part of your UltraAV subscription, that’s not an option, but this judgment might influence whether you pick UltraAV in the first place.

Cross-Platform Password Manager

You might not realize that UltraAV on your PC comes with a password manager. Fortunately, the VPN app has a link to it on the same page as the dark web scan, and you can access it from your UltraAV account online.

Rather than existing as a standalone program, PassWatch is an extension for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari. Once you activate it, you just click the appropriate link to install it in your browser. You can also install the PassWatch app on your iOS or Android devices.

Activating the Password Manager

After installing the extension, you must register your account and create a strong master password. You can recycle the password that protects your UltraAV account or choose an even stronger one. As part of the process, you receive a 24-character recovery key that you can use if you forget the master key. It goes without saying that you should store this key securely.

Analysis of the browser extension’s appearance and behavior reveals that it’s a licensed version of the SaferPass password manager. UltraAV isn’t the only suite to rely on SaferPass. Panda Dome Complete, and ESET Home Security Premium also use it, and Bitdefender Total Security licensed it until recently.

Password Capture and Replay

You can get a head start on filling your password vault by importing passwords from Chrome, Edge, or Firefox. PassWatch also imports from over a dozen competing password managers, among them 1Password, Bitwarden, Dashlane, KeePass, LastPass, RoboForm, SaferPass, and Sticky Password.

When you manually add an account, you fill in the website URL, username, password, and a friendly title. If this is a new account, you can invoke the password generator. Conveniently, you can click a link to check whether the password you entered has appeared in a breach.

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However, as with most password managers, you don’t want to enter credentials manually. Rather, you let PassWatch do all the work. When you log in to a secure site, PassWatch offers to save your credentials. You can OK the capture, decline it just this once, or permanently suppress the offer for the current site. Clicking the edit pencil icon lets you name the saved entry with a friendly title. In testing, it captured most credential sets correctly, including two-page logins such as Google and Yahoo.

When you return to a site, the password manager fills in your credentials, so all you need to do is submit them. If you’ve saved multiple credential sets, it offers a list for you to choose from.

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Whether imported, captured, or entered manually, your passwords appear in an account list that’s accessed by clicking the toolbar button. Clicking one of those accounts navigates to the site and fills in your username and password. Improved since my last review, you can now sort the list by title, website, or user login, or by the date the item was created or last used. There’s still no ability to organize items using folders or tags. If you accumulate a lot of saved logins, you’ll appreciate the search bar at the top.

Password Generator

When you’re updating a weak password or creating a new login, you can use the password generator to create a unique, strong password. PassWatch defaults to creating 16-character passwords using all four character types. You can raise the password length as high as 32 characters. That’s a bit extreme, but you might consider 20 or so. After all, you don’t have to remember the resulting password. Password Boss Premium and 1Password default to 20 characters, while Enpass and F-Secure default to 30 or more.

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Some password generators include an option to create pronounceable passwords, like waxiwubicose or gatisitezoco, the idea being it’s something you can memorize. PassWatch doesn’t do that, but it defaults to an option called Easy to Type. By observation, this option seems to suppress less common punctuation marks such as the square and curly brackets. For the broadest selection of possible passwords, and thus the best defense against brute force attacks, I suggest choosing All Characters rather than Easy to Type.

Filling Web Forms With Personal Data

There’s little difference between automatically filling in passwords and automatically filling in other personal data in web forms. Like many competitors, PassWatch extends its skills to help you with that kind of data entry. To start, it lets you save details for any number of credit cards, so you don’t have to whip out the card and copy the numbers when purchasing online. Separately, you can create one or more identities with personal data such as your physical address, email address, and phone number.

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When PassWatch recognizes that you’ve opened a web form, it puts an icon in the data fields it can fill. All you need to do is click that icon and choose the appropriate identity or credit card. In testing, it filled all credit card data except the first name. Tested with saved identity data, it omitted a few stored items, including the first name and phone number. Of course, anything that fills automatically is something you don't have to type.

Simple Password Security Report

Getting all your existing passwords safely stored in a password manager is an excellent first step, but you can’t stop there. You need to check those passwords and upgrade any that are weak or that you’ve used more than once. Top-notch password managers such as Editors' Choice NordPass and Proton Pass include a full security audit that rates all your passwords and flags weak and duplicate ones. Some competitors help automate the process of updating passwords, replacing bad ones with strong ones, and recording the change.

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PassWatch only reports weak and duplicate passwords, along with any found in breach reports and any that it considers old. Clicking any of those categories simply gets you a list of the problem accounts, but it’s up to you to replace the problem passwords. By observation, only truly dreadful passwords get flagged by PassWatch. In testing, it called out “123456” but accepted “Password1!” as slightly better than weak and hence not subject to reporting.

Secure Your Accounts Remotely

You can install the PassWatch browser extension on all your desktop computers and add the app to all your mobile devices. That’s convenient, but there could be a security risk if one of your devices gets lost or stolen. The Secure Me feature lets you see all the devices that have an active connection to the password manager. If anything looks even slightly off, you can disconnect a device or shut all of them down remotely. The Secure Me feature is uncommon, and one of the clues that reveals this app is licensed from SaferPass.

Secure Me doesn’t just defend against dire situations like stolen credentials. Maybe you just forgot to sign out of PassWatch on your work system before leaving for the weekend. No problem: you can sign out remotely.

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You open the Secure Me system by clicking its icon at the top of the browser extension’s window or by choosing it from the app’s menu. At least one connection, representing your current device, will always be listed. Cutting a connection is as simple as clicking the power icon next to it and clicking to confirm the action.

If a hacker or opportunistic snoop has gained access to your account, shutting down PassWatch is a good start, but the Secure Me feature can do more, at least on Windows. At your command, it can log out of any sites it logged into, delete cookies and history, and close the associated browser tabs. Once you’ve taken care of the immediate worry, you should change your master password and engage multi-factor authentication. Let’s hope you don’t need to use this feature. But I can confirm that in testing, it totally did the job.

Multi-Factor Authentication

Even if your master password is a 40-character monster, it can be a single point of failure. A hacker or snoop who gets hold of that password owns all your login credentials and can access them from anywhere in the world. Unless, that is, you enable multi-factor authentication. When logging in requires both your master password and another factor that nobody has but you, your accounts remain safe even if the password is compromised.

When you turn on multi-factor authentication, PassWatch prompts you to connect your account with an authenticator app on your phone. It specifically lists Google Authenticator and Microsoft Authenticator, as well as Authy and Duo Mobile. In truth, any compatible TOTP (Time-based One Time Password) authenticator app will do.

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In an interesting twist, PassWatch can also be your authenticator app for other websites and apps. Open the page for any of your accounts, scroll to the bottom, and you’ll find a link titled Two-factor authentication. Click to configure it for the selected site, either by scanning the QR code or entering the multi-digit security key. Now, when you log in, PassWatch enters the calculated TOTP along with the username and password.

PCMag doesn’t advise promiscuously sharing your passwords, but sometimes you must, for example, when you share an account with a spouse or partner. Many password managers, among them Keeper, Dashlane, and 1Password, let you securely share passwords with other users. A similar digital legacy feature lets you define an heir to receive your passwords in the unfortunate event of your untimely demise. Neither of these advanced features shows up in UltraAV’s password manager.

PassWatch offers a full cross-platform experience, with mobile apps for Android and iOS and browser extensions for popular browsers. You can use it on any platform that has a supported browser, just by adding the browser extension or by syncing with a browser instance where the extension is already installed. The apps look and act just like the browser extensions, with a few very minor differences. Secure Me can’t log out of websites or clear history for mobile apps, for example.

Many security suites include some form of password management, but few are as effective as the best dedicated password managers. Norton Password Manager is roughly on par with UltraAV, for example. Neither has advanced features like secure sharing or digital inheritance. Both flag weak and duplicate passwords to improve your security. The same is true of Trend Micro Password Manager. And while they support filling in personal data in web forms, this feature proved somewhat limited in all three.

UltraAV’s password manager isn’t going to challenge the top competitors, but it’s a decent basic tool. Now that you’ve paid for UltraAV, it’s nice to know you don’t have to shell out more for a separate password manager, but if you already have one you enjoy, you probably shouldn't give it up.

Total Cleaner

Tuning up your PC’s performance isn’t precisely a security measure, but many security suites include it. There’s even a modicum of justification. If your system is lagging and running slowly, you might be tempted to turn off security so other processes can use more CPU cycles. Keeping the system performing optimally prevents that possibility.

Like UltraVPN, Total Cleaner is a separate utility that you can install from the UltraAV main window or from the online console. The Performance tab in UltraAV helps you keep track of what Total Cleaner does. Note that this app is effectively borrowed from Total Security, which, like UltraAV, falls under the control of the Point Wild group. In fact, the installer for Total Cleaner includes an invitation to buy TotalAV Antivirus Pro.

(Credit: UltraAV/PCMag)

Once you’ve installed Total Cleaner, its ActiveCare component scans for performance issues in the background. You can click for a manual scan at any time; it doesn’t take long. On my test system, it quickly found 160 issues, but didn’t specify any details. When I clicked to fix the issues, it did its job in a flash and then offered what it called Deepclean.

Deepclean

The Deepclean intro page promises it will “rid your computer of unnecessary clutter.” Specifically, it runs seven cleanup tasks: NetBooster, Internet Cleanup, Windows Cleanup, Registry Cleanup, Security Optimizer, Program Accelerator, and Memory Mechanic. When I launched Deepclean, it ran each of those tasks in turn, stopping as necessary for my permission to clean up what it found.

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NetBooster found some unspecified settings to change in my network configuration. It warned that changing these would temporarily cut the connection, so I turned off the VPN and made sure no downloads were in progress. I’m not sure exactly what it did, and any increase in network speed didn’t come up to the level of noticeability.

The next three items aim to clean up junk and unnecessary stuff in your browsers, in Windows, and in the Registry. These are familiar; almost every tune-up tool handles this kind of junk cleanup, and they always find a lot to do. Imagine my surprise, then, when Total Cleaner found nothing at all to clean in the browsers and Registry, and just a handful of log files for Windows cleanup. A little experimentation revealed that the initial not-deep scan removed plenty of items in all three categories, leaving little for Deepclean to do. When I reverted the virtual machine test system to an earlier snapshot and ran Deepclean first, it behaved as expected.

You don’t get any indication of what the basic cleanup removed, not as it’s running or in a report afterward. Deepclean shows you details of what it will remove but doesn’t let you exempt specific items the way some competitors do. And there’s likewise no after-action report.

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The Security Optimizer feature proved more interesting. This scan found several Windows settings not configured for optimum security and displayed its findings clearly. With one click, it fixed them. Good show!

As for Program Accelerator, it’s just a fancy name for disk defragmenter. Modern Windows versions defrag in the background, making active defragging somewhat redundant. Annoyingly, you can’t skip this page until it completes its fragmentation analysis, which takes a couple of minutes. And if you dare choose to optimize, you’ll find that Total Cleaner is tied up for several hours.

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The final item, Memory Mechanic, also seems redundant, with modern computers having so much memory. It claims to free up memory that’s allocated but not in use, and perhaps it does. But do we need it?

Total Cleaner Toolbox

Beyond simple cleanup and performance tune-up, Total Cleaner offers a box of handy tools for file management and system management. Under file management, the Advanced Uninstaller simply lists installed programs, with buttons to uninstall some of them. I couldn’t determine why it’s called advanced, and it listed just 14 programs, whereas the regular Add/Remove Programs page showed 48.

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Also for file management is the Incinerator Extension, a secure deletion file shredder. When enabled, it puts Send to Incinerator and Incinerate Now options on the right-click menu for files and folders. Send to Incinerator queues up files for irreversible deletion, but doesn’t wipe them out immediately.

By default, it overwrites files as advised in the government document NIST.SP.800-88r1, which means it overwrites file data once before deletion. NIST has determined that’s all you need, despite long-ago recommendations to use three, five, seven, or even 35 overwrites. If you’re determinedly old-school, you can configure Total Cleaner to overwrite file data as many as 9,999 times—but don’t. Incinerating a file with that many overwrites would take an absurdly long time.

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In the system management section, the Process Scanner does nothing you can’t already do using the built-in Task Manager, and its display is awkward. As for Startup Optimizer, it’s not like the useful Startup Manager supplied by Norton, G Data, and others, which lets you suppress or delay programs launched during the Windows startup process. Total Cleaner lumps those programs in with a ton of things you really shouldn’t touch, including drivers and Windows services. It even warns that this feature is for experts only. That’s not useful.

If you’re on the tech-savvy side, you’ll get more value from the Network Scanner. It scans your local network and lists its findings: Computers, Suspicious Open Ports, Open Ports, Found Devices, and Bluetooth Devices. The scan can’t do anything about open ports, suspicious or otherwise, but it does link to a page explaining the concept. Oddly, the explainer page comes from competitor iolo.com. Found Devices is where the real action is. This page gives you a list of devices connected to your network with device type, name, and MAC address.

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Finally, we come to the pointless Deceptive Programs scan. This component claims to remove items such as “fake trialware, browser hijackers, or ad spammers.” But since you have an effective antivirus running, it’s not likely to find anything.

LiveBoost for Peak Performance

The final arrow in Total Cleaner’s Quiver is called LiveBoost. LiveBoost promises peak performance with memory-intensive applications, powered by features with fancy names like OptiCore, RAMJet, and AcceleWrite. I’m not equipped to test the boost these features may give.

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LiveBoost also offers a feature called PowerSense that optimizes your processor for different usage modes. These include Ultra-Performance Gaming, Endurance-Maximum Battery, Balanced-Office Productivity, and more. I’m not convinced the average user will pay any attention to this feature, and, as mentioned, I’m not equipped to test it.

Identity Theft Protection

When I last reviewed UltraAV, Ultra Identity Defense was only present in the version supplied to former Kaspersky customers. Now it’s fully available to all users.

To get started with Ultra Identity Defense, you launch it from the Identity page in the app’s main window or from the online UltraAV console. As expected, the service starts by asking for some personal details, including your full legal name, home address and phone, date of birth, and SSN. You also need to pass a simple verification test involving a code sent to your phone or email address.

Identity Defense Dashboard

Once you’ve passed the initial configuration, you'll encounter the identity dashboard. A menu across the top lets you select from the various features, while icons, charts, and other visual elements provide another way to view and access those features. The menu includes Dashboard, Alerts, Identity, Financial, Security, and Resources.

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Scrolling through the lengthy dashboard or exploring the menu, you’d think UltraAV does a lot to protect your identity. However, looking deeper reveals that most of the apparent features are just informational. For example, the only item under Security is a page extolling the virtues of UltraAV. From the Identity menu, you can only select Identity Monitoring, but the resulting page simply explains the types of activities that the service monitors. These include High-Risk Transactions, Account Openings, Password Resets, Account Updates, and Claim Applications.

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The Resources menu looks a bit juicier, starting with choices for Security Freeze and Wallet Protection. However, the former simply provides links and phone info for agencies that handle various types of account and credit freezes. The latter directs you to UltraAV customer care for help after your wallet is stolen. Bitdefender Ultimate Security and ESET Home Security Ultimate, among others, prompt you to record the contents of your wallet to ease the process. UltraAV just offers some advice, things like don’t carry your Social Security card in your wallet. This menu also offers news articles about identity theft and a set of FAQs—again, strictly informational.

Million-Dollar Guarantee

The most useful selection under Resources is the one titled Insurance. Choose that one, and you get full details on exactly what guarantees your subscription provides. Like almost all identity theft services, UltraAV offers a million-dollar insurance policy to cover the costs of identity theft recovery. This includes lost funds and legal fees, as well as lost wages ($2,000 per week for up to five weeks). As with most such guarantees, there are exclusions and hoops to jump through for a claim, but it’s all laid out clearly. Note that at its highest tier, Bitdefender covers up to $2 million in recovery expenses. Norton backs its top tier with three separate $1 million pots of money, covering lawyers, stolen funds, and compensation for expenses.

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Alerts and Identity

When you initially configured the identity defense service, you gave it your full legal name, address, phone number, email, date of birth, and SSN. Using that data, the system monitors the dark web and other sources for any untoward activity involving that personal data. As with the separate Dark Web Scan feature, UltraAV didn’t find anything to report in testing.

Unlike every other identity theft protection service I’ve seen, UltraAV doesn’t let you enter additional personal information for monitoring, though you can change your (single) phone number and address. Every other similar service I’ve evaluated lets you add your driver’s license for monitoring, as well as multiple credit cards and bank accounts. They all let you enter multiple email addresses and phone numbers, from five to no limits.

ID Monitoring in F-Secure Total tracks 10 items, including bank accounts, credit cards, driver’s licenses, email addresses, gamer tags, passports, phone numbers, and SSNs. IDShield tracks 14 types of personal data, allowing 10 entries for most types. Norton 360 With LifeLock lets you monitor five physical addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses, as well as 10 apiece for bank accounts, credit cards, and more. Any way you slice it, UltraAV’s identity monitoring is painfully limited.

Financial Tracking Features

Clicking the Financial menu heading reveals a submenu that looks promising: Transaction Monitoring, Bank Account Monitoring, and Spending. However, there’s not as much meat as it seems. Bank Account Monitoring is just another informational page, assuring you that UltraAV watches for activities like opening new accounts in your name, changing the personal information for your accounts, or adding new signers. Spending simply displays a pie chart of purchases made on any accounts you’ve linked for Transaction Monitoring, organized by category.

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The transaction monitoring system is the most visibly effective of all the identity features. To get started, you give UltraAV access to one or more of your financial accounts. This connection occurs through a third-party financial partner called Plaid. At several points in the process, it urges you to sign up for Plaid, which is separate from UltraAV. You don’t have to sign up, and I didn’t.

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For each account, you can set a threshold for transaction alerts. By default, you get an alert for any transaction more than $250—you can adjust this individually for each account. Most similar features offer more flexibility. With Bitdefender, you can set individual limits for purchases, withdrawals, and transfers. Aura doesn’t distinguish transaction types, but it lets you set different thresholds for bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and investments. Norton’s similar feature specifically watches for anomalous events such as charges that don’t fit your patterns. IDShield offers a collection of specific triggers, including high credit account balance, large credit card purchases, large account withdrawals, low account balance, and more. UltraAV’s simple single trigger looks a bit pale by comparison.

As with most services that let you link accounts for tracking, UltraAV does provide a single, merged display of all current account activity. Like the spending pie chart, this isn’t directly related to identity protection, but it can be a handy place to see all your activity.

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While the Ultra Identity Defense dashboard looks impressive, it really doesn’t do much. Explanatory panels promise various types of monitoring, but the personal data used for monitoring is minuscule compared with competitors. You can configure it to monitor your financial accounts and warn you of any transaction above a certain threshold, but competitors do the same thing with much more flexibility. It offers no credit bureau monitoring or credit reports, and there’s no tracking of things like court records and home title. Most similar services provide a 24/7 help line and access to a personal recovery agent if needed, backed by a million-dollar guarantee. UltraAV does come with a guarantee, but it doesn’t promise recovery help. If you want a security suite with identity theft remediation, look elsewhere.