Avira Premium Security Suite 8.2 Review
Avira’s security suite is more suitable for a techie looking for an ideal malware detection system that doesn’t need parental controls or phone support.
Avira Premium Security Suite topped in the very task for which it has been created and it costs only $54 for single user according to the information collected latest by 23rd Nov. 2008. This product has continued the well-known performance of all other past products of Avira, by convincingly staying ahead in the test of “Paying for Protection”, for our nine security suites test, 2009 and in several other detection tests.
But the reasons for which we have pushed it to the fourth position include its more technical interface (not suited for common user) and the absence of a proper parental – control feature.
There is a German antivirus testing lab, AV-Test.org (partner of PC World), that put this suite against several milder to more threatening applications like, 654,914 Trojan horses, several malware and password stealers. But this suite effectively detected 99.2% of the threats and also detected 99.6% of the threats in case of adware. It also excelled in detecting any new unknown malware (heuristic test) and it successfully detected 55.3 percent of the malware.
Avira’s suite is also quite adept at identifying active as well as inactive rootkit, but is unable to eradicate any rootkit that has already infected your system. It secured the second place just behind the ‘Panda Internet Security 2009’ in on-access scan speed (while saving or opening a file) and ended up to the third spot for on-demand scan speed (in case of scheduled or manual scan).
Although, the Avira’s suite needs no modifications as far as malware detection is concerned, but it will be very helpful if the interface of the suite could be made somewhat more user friendly for an average person. There are terms like ‘Local Protection’ that is quite familiar to a techie but is somewhat difficult to be understood by an average user. Besides, there are several small icons that represent different applications, which constantly need the mouse to be placed over them to see what each one of them does.
It would have been better if the two types of interfaces, basic and expert, could have been avoided, as it makes the working interface a little bit tardier and complex. Its anti-spam feature is also unique in having no additional toolbar for the e-mail applications, e.g. Outlook; so you need to execute some extra functions on your own. Avira’s suite backup feature is commendable as it provides flexibility in choosing different directories & drives for back up and also the schedules for back up.
The Avira Company doesn’t provide any customer service over phone and this makes it quite an unpleasing experience if you don’t find a solution to your question in the help section of the suite. In this case you can only rely on the not-so-fast-e-mail-service. Avira’s suite will be a better choice for a techie that is happy with finding out new applications on their own. But if someone is looking for more comprehensible malware detection system, one should look for some other suites. Avira’s suite is definitely no-no, if your system is already a home for some rootkit.
