It also collects and sells your search and browsing history to third parties - although you can opt out to some extent - and shows you ads for other Avast products. On the downside, Avast's malware defenses are a rung below the best, and you'll have to suffer through long scans and deal with its complicated interface.
It also works with all recent Windows versions and lets you customize the program to suit your computing style.
I've turned off file scanning for the present, but am.Īvast's Free Antivirus costs nothing, but it does an excellent imitation of a security suite, tossing in a password manager, a hardened browser, a gaming mode and a Wi-Fi scanner. Given that my ability to run Windows software via Parallels is my main activity, this is upsetting. To my astonishment, it prevented Parallels from loading. I've had the paid version in the past, but installed the free version yesterday as a trial.