When I started using Avast (before I started blogging for Avast), it was because I liked the light load it put on my computer, I liked the lack of over-demanding, over-frequent pop-ups and I liked the fact that was fast and caught the bad stuff. To me, AV is a background task that needs to just get on with the job, only bothering me when I really do have to make a decision.
It seems that the product has not changed in its essential character, as it’s won an Advanced+ award (that’s the highest accolade) in a wide-ranging test of AV packages by AV Comparatives. The website tested a bunch of packages from the usual suspects, including Avast, rating them on how well they caught malware, how fast they were, and the degree to which they generated false positives — reporting the presence of a virus where there was none.
Avast was fastest by quite a margin of all of the 20 packages tested and, while it didn’t quite hit the top spot in terms of malware caught, being shaded by some half a percentage point, it was among the top runners when all the other criteria were taken into account.
It’s a thorough report and worth a look.
