Avast Antivirus has several tiers to its products. It is a legitimate and high performing software. It consistently ranks in the top 3 in 3rd party testing metrics. The free version is good enough for most users. If you frequent sketchy sites go for the paid version. They also have a business version. All work very well and use minimum system resources. Avast recently bought up its competitor AVG which was also an excellent product.
I personally have Avast installed on over 200 machines. I have been using it for about 10 years. I find it runs much better than McAffe or Symantec.
It is not a scam. Remember to run it in silent mode or you may get dashboard notifications with the free version.
I used AVAST for many years. IT IS NOW ITSELF MALWARE:
- It installed its own browser as default without my permission. This is hijacking, the sort of thing one runs security software to prevent.
- It has no way to control updating and will take over your machine destroying its performance and forcing reboots even when you are doing something critical.
- There is no “uninstall” option provided! You have to download a separate program and boot your computer in SAFE mode, something which is becoming increasingly hard to do with new windows versions. Many users would simply be stymied.
After spending half an hour figuring this out and running avastclear, my computer is about 3x faster!
Some answers here defend Avast practices and pushiness necessary to make money. Why should Windows be insecure in the first place and require 3rd party measures? It should not, which Microsoft has finally recognized by providing decent security measures with Windows.
