Avira, best known for its Free Antivirus program for Windows, released a new product called Avira Free Security Suite 2017 with the traditional 2017 refresh of its product lineup.
As a user, you are probably wondering how the new product differs from the Free Antivirus, and whether you should pick the classic product or the new one if you are an Avira customer or consider becoming one.
To make it simple: Avira Free Security Suite 2017 is a software bundle that includes the company’s Free Antivirus for Windows and other products.
What those other products are? Browser Safety, Phantom VPN and System Speedup. These products are also available as standalone downloads from Avira.
Avira Free Security Suite 2017
You install Avira Free Security Suite 2017 by downloading a small stub from the Avira website that triggers the network installation of the security program suite on the device when run.
Basically, what it does is install Avira Connect, the company’s program manager and launcher, and then the products that ship with the security suite bundle.
There is no customizing of what gets installed which means it is an all or nothing approach. If you just need some of the products included, you are better off installing them individually.
Also, and this needs to be mentioned, you are not getting the full versions or unrestricted versions of some of the products.
For Avira Phantom VPN for instance, you get 500 Megabyte of free data per month. That’s not a whole lot and can be burned through quickly in a matter of minutes depending on how you are using the computer.
Even with conservative use, you may end up running out of data quickly. Assuming that a modern site has 1 Megabyte of data, you’d be able to visit 500 sites or pages before the thing runs out.
The situation is a tad different for Avira System Speedup. What you get is a free trial version of the full product. When you start it up, you are reminded right away that you are running a trial version, and that it will expire soon.
The core of the suite, Avira Free Antivirus for Windows, is the 2017 version of the security program. This means that you can take advantage of all the improvements that went into the program. According to Avira, this means better protection against ransomware attacks.
There is also Browser Safety, another product that is part of Avira’s new security suite. It adds a third-party safe browsing implementation to the browser that protects users from malicious sites, dangerous downloads and potentially unwanted programs. It dies ship with Avira Price Comparison on top of that however so keep that in mind.
Closing Words
Avira Free Security Suite 2017 is not your typical security suite bundle that you’d expect. It does not ship with a firewall or improved security tools. That’s understandable considering that those are found in the commercial security suites that Avira offers.
If you look at it from a user perspective, there is little that the suite offers that you don’t get when you install the products individually.
Considering that you get a trial version and a very limited VPN software, most customers may be better off just installing the free antivirus product on their machines.
Now You: What’s your take on Avira Free Security Suite 2017?