Avast Antivirus One Review (2026): Is it the right choice?

Full Review

Avast is ranked #2 of the 28 best antivirus of 2026.

Avast provides two main security apps: Avast Premium Security and Avast One. Premium Security is customizable, while Avast One offers more features and is easier to use, although it’s available in fewer countries. Despite differences in features and interface, both use the same robust anti-malware engine, which achieved a 100% malware detection rate in our tests.

Both apps are user-friendly, offer comprehensive security, and come with extra features like web protection, a firewall, breach alerts, a secure browser, anti-tracking, and system optimization tools. Free versions cover essential security needs, but upgrading to Premium Security or a paid Avast One plan unlocks more advanced features.

Avast offers a 30-day money-back guarantee across all plans and a 30-day free trial for Premium Security (no card required), though there is no free trial for Avast One.

Anti-malware

Avast’s malware detection engine consistently delivers perfect scores across comprehensive testing scenarios. It detects and removes all forms of malicious software, including viruses, trojans, ransomware, spyware, and rootkits. The engine is shared between Avast One and Avast Premium Security, providing identical results across both applications.

In controlled tests using over one 1,200 malware samples, Avast achieved a 100% detection rate, matching the performance of leading competitors such as Norton, Bitdefender, and McAfee. The real-time protection system successfully blocked both encrypted and compressed threats before they could execute.

A full system scan completes in under an hour, performing comparably to Bitdefender and McAfee, though slightly slower than Norton. Despite continuous background scanning, the software produced no noticeable impact on device performance or system responsiveness.

Users benefit from multiple scan modes, including Smart, Targeted, Boot-Time, and Custom Scans. These provide flexibility for focused threat detection, ensuring comprehensive yet efficient protection across devices.

Anti-phishing

Avast’s anti-phishing defenses provide strong protection against fraudulent and malicious websites. During extensive testing, the system blocked nearly every phishing attempt, far exceeding the capabilities of Chrome, Firefox, and Edge’s built-in safeguards. Both Avast One and Premium Security share this high detection accuracy with minimal false positives.

The integrated Web Shield continuously scans encrypted websites, filters unsafe downloads, and blocks attacks from botnets or malicious scripts. This proactive filtering ensures real-time prevention of data theft and credential compromise.

Avast’s browser extension extends protection through ad and tracker blocking, cookie management, and color-coded security indicators for search results. It also assists users in managing privacy settings on Google and social platforms. However, site whitelisting within Premium Security requires manual configuration and is less intuitive than in competitors like Bitdefender.

Although not flawless, Avast’s anti-phishing suite remains a reliable defense against phishing pages, infected websites, and drive-by downloads, making it one of the stronger web protection systems available.

Firewall

Avast’s firewall actively monitors all incoming and outgoing network connections, blocking unauthorized or suspicious access attempts. It performed exceptionally well in testing, successfully intercepting intrusion simulations and exploit-based attacks with little user involvement required.

The Premium Security version offers four operational modes—Smart, Allow, Block, and Ask Me—each designed for different user preferences. Advanced users can create custom rules and adjust application permissions, while most will prefer the automated Smart Mode for balanced protection.

Avast One simplifies these settings, automatically applying Smart Mode without the customization depth of Premium Security. Despite reduced control, both versions include critical protections such as leak prevention, port scan alerts, and ARP spoofing detection.

This combination of automation, configurability, and alerting features ensures Avast’s firewall provides effective and user-friendly network defense, suitable for both casual and advanced users.

VPN

Avast’s VPN service offers dependable privacy and speed within the Avast One app or as a standalone product. It provides strong encryption, a kill switch, and a broad global server network, ensuring secure browsing and data transmission. Performance tests indicated only minor slowdowns during high-bandwidth activities like streaming.

However, torrenting is unsupported, and streaming access is inconsistent. It reliably unblocks Amazon Prime and Paramount+ but struggles with Netflix and fails to access Hulu. Free users are restricted to 5 GB of data per week and cannot select server locations, limiting usability for frequent or heavy browsing.

The VPN adheres to a no-logs policy and maintains operational transparency, though data retention for diagnostic purposes lasts up to two years. While sufficient for general privacy needs, it lacks advanced features like split tunneling and independent audit verification, placing it behind competitors such as ExpressVPN or ProtonVPN.

Overall, Avast’s VPN offers reliable protection and good speeds for casual use, complementing the antivirus package but not replacing premium standalone VPN services.

Other security features

Avast’s extended suite of tools significantly broadens its security coverage beyond core antivirus functions. The Secure Browser enforces encrypted connections, blocks most trackers and ads, and integrates with the VPN for enhanced privacy. Its Bank Mode isolates online banking and payment sessions within a protected virtual environment, reducing exposure to financial theft.

Optimization tools within Avast One include junk and duplicate file cleaners, driver and software updaters, and a PC Speedup utility that suspends resource-intensive background tasks. These tools streamline system performance while maintaining operational stability.

Hack Alerts notify users of email address breaches, monitoring up to five addresses (or thirty in family plans) and providing actionable recovery steps. Identity protection under the Platinum plan adds credit and transaction monitoring, dark web surveillance, and up to $2 million in insurance coverage for U.S. users.

Additional features include Mail Shield for scanning attachments, Tracker Prevention for mitigating browser fingerprinting, and a Sandbox for safely testing suspicious applications. Data Shredder securely erases sensitive files, while Webcam Shield prevents unauthorized camera access. Rescue Disk provides system recovery for heavily infected devices.

Collectively, these modules reinforce Avast’s ecosystem, combining preventive, reactive, and performance-oriented utilities that enhance overall digital protection and privacy.

Plans and pricing

In the table below are the core products with their features and prices.

The prices shown are from the USA. However, most brands have different prices (and currencies) in other regions. So visit the brand’s website to see the price in your country.

A lot is on going at Avast Software. The company has recently merged with Norton and it is overhauling its product lines. Currently, the old products (Avast Antivirus Free, Avast Premium, and Avast Ultimate) are still on the site, next to the new products of the Avast One group.

We suspect that all security products will soon be consolidated into the One group, including the free version. From that moment, we think that only the privacy products will remain as standalone offers (Avast SecureLine VPN, Secure Browser, Secure Identity, BreachGuard, and Anti-Track). 

Plan description

Avast offers various plans for both home users and businesses. There are six home security plans, while businesses get three options. Avast One is currently only available in certain countries.

Home Plans:

• Avast One Essential: The new free option combines antivirus protection with a VPN limited to 5GB / week, which is pretty generous for a free VPN.
• Avast Free Antivirus: The old free option offers antivirus protection but no VPN.
• Avast One Individual: The new premium option combines all protection and privacy features and protects up to 5 devices.
• Avast One Platinum: The new premium option combines all protection, privacy, and identity features. It protects up to 30 devices.
• Avast Premium Security: The old premium option offers many security features but no VPN. Avast One is slowly replacing it.
• Avast Ultimate: The old premium option offers security features and the VPN. Avast One is slowly replacing it.

Business Plans:

• Essential Business Security: Basic features tailored for businesses, supporting multiple operating systems.
• Premium Business Security: Adds unlimited VPN and USB protection.
• Ultimate Business Security: The most comprehensive, including patch management for software vulnerabilities.

Business plans offer more flexibility regarding device coverage, ranging from 1 to 999 devices.

Test score comparison

We conduct in-house anti-malware tests and review the results from AV-Test, a German lab renowned for its objective evaluations. Below is the average of the last 10 AV-Test results for Windows. Their scoring criteria are:

• Protection (1-6): Effectiveness in blocking malware.
• Performance (1-6): Impact on system speed.
• Usability (1-6): Frequency of errors like false alarms.

We calculate a final score using this formula:

Final Score = 60% Protection + 20% Performance + 20% Usability.

While these results influence our choice of the best antivirus for Windows 11, other factors like privacy and identity protection also play a key role. For a similar analysis for Android or macOS, visit our other comparisons:

• The best antivirus for Android.
• The best antivirus for Mac.

Note: Brands not listed in the table either do not participate in AV-Test trials or are tested too infrequently, such as Surfshark Antivirus.

Source: AV-Test (Last updated: November 2025).

Price comparison

We’ve compared the prices of the top antivirus products for Windows. To make it a fair comparison, we looked at what it would cost us, to protect a  single Windows PC with the most essential features:

• Anti-malware
• Anti-phishing (web protection)
• Firewall
• Password manager
• Unlimited VPN (no data limit)

A few notes:

• Some brands are missing features, lowering their value for money.
• Prices are second-year prices in the USA, without first-year discounts.
• Prices are rounded up for readability (e.g., $99.99 becomes $100).

Brands have different prices outside the USA. See those on their website.

User reviews

We’ve compared the user reviews of all antivirus brands. We’ve used the scores and review count of TrustPilot, a leading user review platform. 

We consider scores above 4.0 very good. Lower scores indicate that the brand might have a poor product or customer service. McAfee’s scores, for instance, are worrying.

Source: TrustPilot. Last Update: November 2025.

Company Profile

Avast is owned by Gen (NASDAQ: GEN).

Avast is part of the Gen Digital family (NASDAQ: GEN), a global leader in Cyber Safety with a mission to make the digital world safer and more private for everyone.

Gen is a collection of renowned cybersecurity brands that serve over 500 million users in 150 countries. Its portfolio includes Norton, Avast, LifeLock, Avira, and AVG.

Operating from dual headquarters in Tempe, Arizona, and Prague, Czech Republic, Gen brings together cutting-edge AI technology and data analytics to tackle today’s most pressing cybersecurity challenges. 

By consolidating these brands, Gen combines expertise and innovation to address both current and future cybersecurity threats.