Avast Security Pro for Mac review: Everything a modern antivirus app needs and a little bit more An all-around champion has strong malware-fighting abilities packaged with worthwhile extras. If you’ve ever worked in the corporate world, you know every security-conscious business uses a firewall to protect their network by blocking unwanted incoming traffic. Mac Tip #6 — Install extra cybersecurity. Such as: Antivirus. Installing a strong antivirus for Mac is an excellent step in defending your digital life. Since 2016 AVG was acquired by Avast for $1.3 million and became a part of Avast family. AVG provides internet protection, performance and privacy solutions for individual customers and businesses for Windows, macOS and Android operating systems.

• Pros

  Easy to configure and install. Good detection ability for unknown files. Handy extras, such as a virtual private network, for travelers. Solid anti-ransomware prevention features.

• Cons

  Overly simplistic dashboard. Lacks good reporting features.

• Bottom Line

  Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus is a desktop-centric endpoint protection platform that ticks lots of boxes while still being simple to use. Where it falls a bit short is in reporting, no support for mobile devices, and a higher-than-average price tag.

Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus packs a good amount of feature punch into this business-grade endpoint protection platform, though it does so at $59.99 per device per year, which is higher than most of the competition. That price tag may push you towards some of the other Avast Business Antivirus tiers, which can start as low as $39.99 per device per year, though you'll be giving up advanced niceties, like a data shredder and a bundled virtual private network (VPN). Even with the niceties in the Pro Plus tier, however, we found it lags behind our Editors' Choice winners in this space, Bitdefender GravityZone Elite and ESET Endpoint Protection Standard, especially in terms of reporting and support for mobile devices.

• $81.00
• $206.50
• $20.00
• $39.60
• $4.08
• $68.00
• $75.50
• $30.16
• $112.49

Installation and User Interface

Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus' web console is simple but, while that's pleasant out of the box, you might find it excessively simple over time. The opening dashboard does give you a quick overview of the device count, number of threats detected, and a trend line of threats. But the dashboard doesn't include any more detail than that. For good insight, it is necessary to drill down to either the Reporting tab or click through to one of the Device Summary pages.

Once on a Device Summary page, there is a significant amount of detail regarding threats. In addition to showing the date detected and the threat name, the screen also shows the mode responsible for detecting it, similar to the Live Status page of Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Services, but devoted to a single device. Knowing whether the File Shield, Behavior Shield, or Web Shield blocked the threat can give some indication about where and how users are being attacked which, in turn, can drive newer and better security policies. You can quickly add new devices by clicking the Download Antivirus button and choosing an installer package to download, or by providing email addresses to receive the client download link. Devices can also be grouped together with Settings templates.

The Settings templates have undergone a significant visual overhaul. The major components are now just simple toggle switches that can be flicked on or off at will. While not everything is on by default, it's easy to go full tilt with the settings and then back down as needed. One feature in particular that I liked in the Antivirus settings was DeepScreen, which performs some additional checking when an unknown executable file is run. This works in tandem with CyberCapture, which checks all unknown files for potential threats. There is also a pull-down menu called Hardened Mode that lets you manually set how aggressive the Antivirus engine works. For testing, I set this to the most aggressive setting.

Notifications are also straightforward to set up. The available notifications are all on a single page, with a toggle switch to turn them on or off within the application. Below each is a pull-down menu that lets you specify if you want that notification in email instantly, batched and delivered at the end of the week, or not at all. There is enough detail in the notifications to be helpful without being annoying.

The Reporting page is a bit of a misnomer. There is only one report and it can't be saved off to a file or emailed unless you print the page as a PDF file. It does do a better job than the dashboard of giving you an overview of threat activity but that's about as far as it goes. It doesn't really do much in the way of providing an audit log, and you'll find yourself looking through client logs to get any real detail. For a centrally managed service, this could be improved.

Ransomware Protection

Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus' ransomware protection features are predominantly based on prevention as opposed to reversal. As such, there isn't a rollback feature available. It does make heavy use of behavior analysis via the Behavior Shield feature, which has a good shot at detecting new ransomware variants as well as a sandbox feature that provides a safe environment to test potentially dubious files.

Combined with the firewall and ongoing checks for security issues via Smart Scan, Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus does a good job of plugging potential holes that ransomware, or any malware, could slip through. There is still a little voice in my head that wants to emphasize good backups just in case Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus happens to miss something.

Test Results

My initial testing involved using a known set of malware collected for research purposes. Each was stored in a password-protected ZIP file and was extracted individually. The virus samples, when extracted, were detected immediately. Out of 142 malware variants, all items were flagged and quarantined.

To test protection against harmful websites, a random selection of the newest 10 websites were selected from PhishTank, an open community that reports known and suspected phishing websites. All of the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) attempted resulted in a the website in question being blocked. This was a significantly better performance than products such as McAfee Endpoint Protection Essential for SMB, which blocked only one, and Symantec Endpoint Protection Cloud, which has consistently lagged behind in this area.

To test Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus' response to ransomware, I used a set of 44 ransomware samples, including WannaCry. None of the samples made it past extraction from the ZIP file. This is not terribly surprising since each of the samples has a known signature. That being said, the response was swift and severe. The executables were promptly flagged as ransomware and removed from disk. KnowBe4's ransomware simulator RanSim was also flagged as a ransomware instance as well. Since it's likely these were picked up via known signatures, I proceeded with a more direct approach by simulating an active attacker.

All Metasploit tests were conducted using the default settings of the product. Since none of them succeeded, I felt confident in skipping any settings of a more aggressive nature. First, I used Metasploit to set up an AutoPwn2 server designed to exploit the browser. This launches a series of attacks that are known to succeed on common browsers such as Firefox and Internet Explorer (IE). Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus correctly detected each exploit and canceled the attack. This performed at or above expectations.

The next test used a macro-enabled Microsoft Word. Inside of the document contained an encoded app that a Microsoft Visual Basic Script (VBScript) would then decode and attempt to launch. This can often be a tricky condition to detect when various masking and encryption techniques are used. The file produced an error when opening, indicating that the attack failed.

Lastly, I tested a social engineering based attack. In this scenario, the user downloads a compromised installer of FileZilla using Shellter. Upon executing it, it will execute a Meterpreter session and call back to the attacking system. It was detected and blocked from executing.

In terms of independent lab testing, AV-Test reports Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus as blocking 100 percent of the 275 samples used in their testing, and delivers a '6.0 out of 6.0' score on usability and a '5.5 out of 6.0' on performance. MRG Effitas' 360 Degree Assessment & Certificate for the second quarter of 2018 also has good things to say about Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus. 99.5 percent of samples use were automatically blocked, and the remaining 0.5 percent were blocked based on the malware's behavior. It also blocked 100 percent of the tested ransomware out of the 29 samples used. This is excellent performance, and on par with our Editors' Choice selections such as Bitdefender GravityZone Elite.

Any threats that Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus picked up resulted in a response that was swift and final. Email alerts were triggered quickly and the client was shown a small panel that described the threat and the action taken against it. The dashboard also acknowledged the existence of a threat within a few seconds and displayed it as part of the summary, making it available on the Reporting page.

Final Thoughts

Overall, Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus is a solid service. It makes managing security an easy task for a small business administrator. While not quite on par with Editors' Choice-winning Bitdefender GravityZone Elite, it is one of the better solutions available for protecting your organization. That being said, it does not deliver the right level of analysis tools for a product of its price. It also lacks mobile device management, which is becoming a standard part of most hosted endpoint protection products. On the plus side, the company has announced it's added patch management to the capabilities of the Business Antivirus Pro Plus tier, though we weren't able to test that as part of this update.

Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus

Bottom Line: Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus is a desktop-centric endpoint protection platform that ticks lots of boxes while still being simple to use. Where it falls a bit short is in reporting, no support for mobile devices, and a higher-than-average price tag.

Avast 2019 is available for users to download and stay protected and secure with Avast advanced protection features and services. It is not only a single product, but Avast also gives you a variety of protection products so you may easily decide your protection product from its range.

Avast 2019 products come with absolute functionality to fulfill your need if you are a home user, student, professional or a commercial user.

Quick Summary

• 1 Avast Free Antivirus 2019
• 2 Avast Antivirus Pro 2019
• 3 Avast Internet Security 2019
• 4 Avast Premier 2019
• 5 Comparison Table

Let’s see what new features have been added in all of its products. you can have direct links for each product’s offline installer and enjoy offline installation which doesn’t need any Internet connectivity.

Avast Free Antivirus 2019

Avast Free Antivirus 2019 is the protection software for your non-commercial purposes which do not need any registration or license to purchase. It is free and will always be. It gives you the basic level of security that is needed for a home user or non-commercial user. The main features of it, are mentioned below.

Avast Installer Download

Block viruses and other malware: It detects viruses, ransomware, and other threats in real-time.

Scan for Wi-Fi security weaknesses: it exposes intruders and security weaknesses in your network.

Secure your passwords: It locks your passwords in our vault and logs in to sites with 1 click.

Download Link

Avast Antivirus Pro 2019

Avast Antivirus Pro 2019 is for commercial usage. It has all the essential antivirus protection you need, combined with powerful data and server securing capabilities. The features that make Avast Antivirus Pro 2019 distinguish are described below.

Antivirus: Actively scans files, URLs, and email attachments to protect your business from malware, spyware, ransomware and more.

File Shield: Automatically scans files that are opened on a PC to make sure they’re malware-free, without slowing users down or getting in their way.

Web Shield: Ensures every website visited is trustworthy by checking the URL and website certificate before any risky connections are made to your network.

Email Shield: Open every email and download every attachment confidently. We’ll check both incoming and outgoing emails to make sure they’re completely malware-free.

Behavior Shield: Deeply-rooted malware can hide inside your running programs. Behavior Shield monitors them all for any suspicious activity to shut attacks.

CyberCapture: When an unrecognized file is downloaded to one of your PCs, a copy will be sent to experts at the Avast Threat Labs to find if it’s safe or not.

Sharepoint protection: Checks all the files uploaded to your shared storage to make sure no malware gets the chance to compromise your data.

Exchange protection: Scans and filters emails with malicious attachments or unsafe links to make sure internal communications don’t become threatened by malware.

Software Defender: Don’t waste time updating application after application. Let Software Defender update your software automatically.

Data Shredder: Deleted files are easy to recover. Make sure confidential documents containing financial information or customer and employee data are destroyed forever.

Wi-Fi Inspector: There are more ways than ever for cyber-criminals to sneak on a network. Find and fix whatever weaknesses might be putting you at risk with our network scanning tool.

Firewall: You lock your business’ doors, so do the same for your network by employing a powerful, customizable Firewall that stops unwanted visitors in their tracks.

Download Link

This is the trial version of AV Pro 2019 which will expire after 30 days.

Avast Internet Security 2019

If you want deeper and stronger protection, then Avast has designed Internet Security to give you deeper and advanced internet protection for your system. With it, you can tweet to your heart’s content, shop, or bank safely and anything you like. Internet Security’s intelligent threat-detection keeps your identity safe online and now adds an extra layer of anti-ransomware protection for your most important files and photos. Its main features are mentioned below

Get an extra layer of ransomware security: It keeps personal photos and files safe from unwanted changes.

Avoid fake sites for safer shopping: It stops criminals from stealing your passwords and banking info.

Safely run suspicious apps: Sandbox any app to avoid affecting the rest of your PC.

Block hackers with the advanced firewall: Stop hackers from sneaking on your PC to steal your data.

Block annoying spam and phishing emails: Stop annoying junk mail for a safer, cleaner inbox.

Block viruses and other malware: It detects viruses, ransomware, and other threats in real-time.

Avast Business Installing For Macbook

Scan for Wi-Fi security weaknesses: it exposes intruders and security weaknesses in your network.

Secure your passwords: It locks your passwords in our vault and logs in to sites with 1 click.

Download Link

This is the trial version of Avast Internet Security 2019 which will expire after 30 days.

Avast Premier 2019

Avast Premier 2019 protection is not like others because it blocks all webcam-hacking, and stops ransomware before it starts. It protects your PC, home network, and passwords against zero-second threats with smart cloud-based detection. It updates your apps automatically and shreds your data permanently when you say so. That’s why you’ve never seen protection like this before.

Let’s have a few of its features.

Stop webcam spying: It prevents peeping Toms from watching you via your webcam.

Permanently shred sensitive files: It securely deletes files to make sure that no one recovers them

Get an extra layer of ransomware security: It keeps personal photos and files safe from unwanted changes.

Automatically update apps: It reduces security risks by keeping your other apps up-to-date.

Avoid fake sites for safer shopping: It stops criminals from stealing your passwords and banking info.

Safely run suspicious apps: Sandbox any app to avoid affecting the rest of your PC.

Block hackers with the advanced firewall: Stop hackers from sneaking onto your PC to steal your data.

Block annoying spam and phishing emails: Stop annoying junk mail for a safer, cleaner inbox.

Block viruses and other malware: It detects viruses, ransomware, and other threats in real-time.

Scan for Wi-Fi security weaknesses: It exposes intruders and security weaknesses in your network.

Secure your passwords: It locks your passwords in our vault and logs in to sites with 1 click.

Universal Usb Installer For Mac

Download Link

This is the trial version of Avast Premier 2019 which will expire after 30 days.

Comparison Table

Let’s have a more clear understanding and comparison of each product with the help of a comparison table. You can easily understand the features of each product if you don’t have much time to read above explanatory description of products and their features

Features Comparison

Adobe Flash Player Installer For Mac

Choose your security suite now from the latest products of Avast 2019. It is always recommended to use the latest products if you want to avail the new and advanced security features to secure and protect your systems and machines.

Avast Standalone Installer

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