Avasts strong core protection engines block access to phishing and other malicious websites, for instance.
(Thats not just a theoretical privacy point; it has practical benefits, too.
Bitdefender doesnt allow you to use its free app on more than three devices per account.
Avast One’s installer will install Avast Secure Browser unless you click ‘Decline'
Its important to pay attention when installing Avast One on Windows.
Its a little cluttered, but we quickly found our way around.
Avast One mostly does its antivirus work in the background, without you noticing, but theres one exception.
The Avast One dashboard can seem a little cluttered.
An Explore menu has individual options covering Avasts various antivirus, privacy and performance features.
That confidence seems fully justified, too.
(ESET, F-Secure and Norton are equal fourth, and Avira follows in seventh place.)
Browse every single Avast One feature in the lengthy Explore menu.
Lab results are important, but were always keen to run further tests of our own.
We began by attempting to access 50 of the latest phishing URLs, as collected by experts OpenPhish.
Avast did a good job, blocking 86% immediately.
Avast Free beats many paid antivirus for protection in independent testing.
Avast One Essential: VPN
Avast One Essential includes a free edition of Avastsfree VPN.
AvastsRansomware Protectionadds an extra layer of security which prevents files in key folders from being modified by untrusted apps.
A clever PC Speedup tool aims tospeed up your PCby ensuring background processes use less resources.
Avast One blocks phishing and malicious websites for all your apps.
The Software Updater highlights missing updates for 50 popular applications.
As most of these apps automatically update themselves anyway, there may not be much value here.
A Clear Browsing Data tool frees up space by wiping away your Chrome or Edge browsing history.
Avast One Essential: Whats not included?
Theres a lot to like about Avast One Essential, but also plenty of reasons to upgrade.
Read our Avast One Gold review to find out more.
Avast’s Ransomware Protection is an extra protective layer for your key folders.
But if youre not interested in the extras then Avast Free Antivirus might be better.
Its less configurable but has exactly the same protection and is easier to use.
We list the best cloud antivirus.
Avast One has a lot of features you can only access if you upgrade.
