It’s our new top pick for free antivirus software.ĪVG is owned by Avast but unlike Avast’s One suite, AVG hasn’t had a recent interface refresh, with the dark grey and green highlights not quite conveying the same friendly atmosphere. However, limitations are inevitable: Avast can’t give absolutely everything away for free and what you get with One Essential is surprisingly generous. It just connects to the fastest location, which is usually in your own country, so it won’t unblock websites or streaming services for you.Įssential will check specific email addresses and tell you if they’ve been included in breaches, but to monitor an address and get alerts, you’ll again need to pay for Premium. The bad news is you can’t pick from the list of 35 countries available in Avast One Premium. Quite a few big-name, paid-for security suites offer less than that, so for free, this is great. There’s also a decent VPN built in which offers a generous 5GB per week of bandwidth. As well as blocking viruses, it’ll reliably warn you of fake websites (where you might inadvertently type your login details) and by default prevents ransomware from encrypting files saved in typical folders.

Underneath that new interface is the same excellent antivirus engine from Avast Free Antivirus, and it scores exceptionally well in testing by independent labs. That’s standard, mainly because of the way iOS works. Windows and macOS get the lion’s share of features, though, with iOS the most limited. Although it also works on iPad, it’s really just the iPhone app scaled up. It has a friendly, light interface which is easy to understand and use on all the devices it supports: Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. If you visit the website, the ‘Free download’ messaging is a bit confusing but there is a completely free version called Avast One Essential.

Avast One is a new security suite that combines antivirus, anti-phishing, VPN and other protections into one app.

Avast one essential free download