Premium Security Suite

• Expert Rating

  4.00 / 5

• User Rating

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• Price

  $ 69.80 (AUD)

Roger Gann PC Advisor (UK) 10/12/07 Follow @pcworldau

Pros

• Works on old as well as new PCs without any difficulty, it's an antivirus and firewall, easy to install

Cons

• Too many access approval requests, updating process can be slow, MailGuard doesn't integrate directly with your e-mail client

Bottom Line

A good, low-cost security solution, easily on a par with its rivals. Note that a free lite version of AntiVir is available – marry that with the free version of ZoneAlarm on the DVD and you have an effective but cheap security system.

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Avira's Premium Security Suite offers protection against viruses, adware, spyware, rogue diallers, phishing and e-mail viruses. However, it really boils down to a pair of products: a powerful antivirus, AntiVir, plus a firewall.

At just $69, Avira's a fairly inexpensive option. Installation is simple – it takes just a few moments to download the package and install the provided product key.

We especially liked AntiVir's light system footprint. Norton's antivirus in comparison imposes too high a system overhead, and slows systems down. We installed AntiVir on an old laptop and it ran nicely.

AntiVir provides the usual AV protection – a real-time monitor and a system scanner, which can be scheduled. Updates are provided frequently, but AntiVir uses heuristic techniques to detect virus-style action, too. And it will filter up to a dozen processes from on-access scanning, so it can coexist with, for example, a spyware scanner.

Avira's firewall offers far better protection than XP's built-in firewall, but it doesn't perform an initial sweep to automatically clear applications for Internet access. This makes for a lot of access approval requests – even Avira's own AV updater has to be approved the first time it updates.

However, we don't have many complaints. The updating process can be a bit slow and the MailGuard doesn't integrate directly with your e-mail client, but attachments are scanned upon detachment.