Avira.Antivirus.Pro.15.0.41.77
Avira Antivirus Pro 2019 is the commercial edition of Avira's popular antivirus software.
The new release sees the debut of 'Project AGEN', which supplements checksum-based virus definitions with far more efficient pattern-based machine learning. This can cut virus definition files by up to 75%, improving startup times, speeding up detection and reducing the time and bandwidth required for updates.
Avira claims that the 2019 edition now averages '2-5 times better performance than other security products on the market' in terms of minimizing any lag during startup and operation. Sounds good to us, although these figures come from 'internal studies', apparently, so we'll need to wait for confirmation from the big testing labs.
You'll get much the same speed gains with Avira Free, of course, but the Pro release has benefits of its own. The 2019 incarnation introduces smarter ransomware protection, with new behavior monitoring which can detect even brand new and undiscovered ransomware by looking out for suspicious actions.
Setup
The easiest way to try out Avira Antivirus Pro is to download and install the free version. You won't get the premium benefits, but there's enough to give you a good idea of its speed and ease of use, and of course you can carry on using it for as long as you need.
Testing the Pro version is more difficult, as we couldn't find a direct download for a trial build. Fortunately, there's a simple alternative.
We went to the Avira Prime page (Avira's all-in-one plan which gets you all of its products for a simple monthly fee), moved our mouse cursor back to the browser tab, and a prompt asked us if we'd like a free one-month trial, no payment details required.
We accepted the trial offer, then downloaded and installed Avira Prime, which got us access to Avira Antivirus Pro 2019 and every other Avira product and service.
There's a price to pay for this in the shape of up to 10 background processes running on your PC. Most require minimal system resources, though, and overall we didn't notice any significant performance impact on our system
Features
Avira Antivirus Pro has a clear and straightforward interface which makes it easy to find the core functions you need.
The opening console displays your security status, for instance, along with any active modules (Real-Time, Ransomware, Web and Mail protection), a Quick Scan button, and the date and time of your last scan. One glance tells you everything you're likely to need to know, and you can run a scan with a click.
If the Quick Scan isn't enough, clicking Scan on the left-hand sidebar displays buttons to run a full system scan, or launch a custom scan to check a specific area of the system.
