Yes, the interface is laden with enticing buttons for features that aren’t included in this free edition, but they’re all clearly marked with little orange padlock icons, so you never feel deceived. The premium subscription isn’t offensively expensive – the recommended two-year option works out to £22.68 per annum – and once you start using the program proper, there’s very little in the way of pushy marketing.

Yet it’s hard to feel too annoyed by this. Predictably enough, clicking “Resolve all” takes you to a purchasing page, where you’re invited to pay up for Avast Premium Security. We were irked but not entirely shocked when, even before the program had launched for the first time, the installer popped up a warning that the firewall and phishing protection modules weren’t enabled. Admittedly, the free website offers the same service, but it’s handy to have the function built into your security software – and it works continually in the background, so you don’t need to keep checking back to ensure your logins are still safe.Īs a rule, the catch with free software is the inevitable upsell. If any credentials connected to your email address are found to have been compromised you’ll be warned immediately, giving you a chance to change your password before someone else does. READ NEXT: Our pick of the best password managersįinally, Avast’s Hack Alert feature extends protection outside of your own network, by monitoring releases of leaked or hacked data from third-party servers. When an untrusted program tries to write to a protected location, Avast immediately flings up a requester that lets you block or approve the app with a single click, rather than requiring you to rummage around in the settings. The Avast Ransomware Shield, meanwhile, does the same job as Windows’ built-in Controlled Folder Access feature, but in a much more user-friendly way.

Does avast update automatically