Avira Internet Security Suite

Many security product lines start with a basic antivirus tool and attract security-minded people with a comprehensive security suite that adds a firewall, spam filtering, parental controls, security, or components. They consider it important. Some go further with a feature-rich mega-suite or cross-platform protection. Avira is a little different. The company is currently focusing on a separate antivirus program to focus on a free suite, a basic suite, and an all-inclusive mega suite. Avira Internet Security is this basic suite, but it adds little to what you get at Avira Free Security.

In keeping with the focus on suites, Avira has offered all three suites a complete user interface update and improved integration. The independent antivirus program is expected to be reviewed in the third quarter of this year.

The main window of this suite is almost exactly the same as that of Avast Free Security. It has a menu on the left where you can select status, security, privacy or performance. A banner above shows the security status. Large data protection and security symbols dominate the main part of the dark window. Interestingly, the high-performance icon is missing from the free suite.

SecureAnywhere Internet Security Plus achieved a perfect 10 using the same examples. Bitdefender, like Avira, achieved excellent results in the labs, but only poor results in my practical tests.

Avira antivirus security is installed as an extension in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Opera and is used to keep the browser away from dangerous websites. In a test with recently discovered malware hosting URLs, Avira blocked 81%, some preventing access to the site and others removing data on malware usage.

Avira Antivirus Pro adds web protection that works below the browser level, and therefore can prevent an Internet-compatible application from running on a dangerous website and not only in compatible browsers. However, in a face-to-face test, Web Protection did not block pages ignored by browser security and 70% of pages captured by browser security.

Phishing websites do not depend on malware for their dirty work. Rather, they mimic secure websites for the purpose of collecting credentials from unobserved users. Once you have entered your username and password on such a fake website, scammers will have your account. In my actual phishing protection test Avira found 93%, much better than the last review, but not the best yet. Topping the list, Trend Micro and Kaspersky Internet Security discovered 100% of the fraudulent websites.

As already mentioned, most of the functions of this suite are also available for free in Avira Free Security. All variants of malware scanning, quarantine access and simple control through Windows Firewall are available for free on the Security page. Both editions include a software update program that finds applications that require security fixes. Professional users can choose to apply updates automatically instead of on demand.

In the area of ​​data protection, I have already mentioned the browser security extension. Free and paid suites include a shredder for safe removal and an automatic scan that configures your system's privacy settings.

When it comes to performance features, upgrading to Pro doesn't give you any advantage. Pro and free editions have the same limited performance enhancement features. To take full advantage of the Avira system acceleration tool, you must purchase it separately or upgrade to Avira Prime.

With both editions, you can start a Smart Scan that performs various functions. Scans for privacy issues, viruses, outdated applications, and network threats. Interestingly, Smart Scan only looks for performance issues in the free edition.