Avast Premier 2017 Review (2023)

Just about every antivirus and security suite vendor offers multiple levels of protection, with a higher price and more features at each level. It's important for a vendor to balance the features among the levels so that each product is attractive to some group of users. I don't think Avast has managed that balancing act with Avast Premier 2017. It costs quite a bit more than Avast's capable entry-level suite, and offers very little in return. On the other hand, looking at it on just its own merits, it's a decent suite with some nice bonuses.

Avast Premier occupies the mega-suite slot in the pantheon of Avast products. From that point of view, its list price of $89.99 per year for three licenses looks reasonable. Bitdefender Total Security 2017(44.99 5 devices / 1 year – 50% off at Bitdefender)(Opens in a new window), Kaspersky, Norton, and McAfee all cost the same, at first glance. However, Bitdefender and Kaspersky both give you five licenses, not three. Norton gives you ten licenses, and throws in 25GB of hosted storage for your online backups. And a McAfee subscription lets you install protection on every device you own.

Required Reading

This product is nearly identical to Avast Internet Security 2017(47.99 Per Year at AVAST)(Opens in a new window). The differences are minor enough that I don't see a need to recap or summarize that review. Please read it first, then come back to learn what Avast Premier adds.

Briefly, Avast Internet Security earned good scores from the independent testing labs. It also did well in my own tests, particularly the antiphishing test. The firewall resisted my attempts to disable protection by attacking processes and services. A simple spam filter keeps your Inbox clean without a plethora of configuration settings. Bonus features include a network security inspector, a basic password manager, a hardened browser, an active Do Not Track tool, and a price-checker that finds better deals when you're shopping online.

Since I first looked this software a few months ago, Avast has added a ransomware protection feature called Ransomware Shield. Like the similar feature in Bitdefender, this component monitors programs that attempt to modify files in folders defined as protected. It queries a cloud database of known safe programs and automatically allows them access. When it detects an unknown, it asks you whether it's legit. If it's a program you launched, no problem. If the warning is a surprise, you should block access and run a full scan. In testing, it performed as promised, even when I turned off all other protective layers and released real-world ransomware.

Note that despite the impressive Premier name, this product does not unlock the two extra-cost features present in the whole Avast product line. If you click the SecureLine VPN, hoping to protect your network connections, you get a price list, not a secure connection. And while you can run the cleanup component to scan your PC for junk files and such, proceeding to actually fix the found problems requires payment.

Comprehensive Data Shredder

Have you ever deleted a document by mistake and found, to your great relief, that it was merely moved to the Recycle Bin? The ability to recover deleted documents can be a lifesaver. However, if you're trying to permanently delete a sensitive document, the Recycle Bin is not your friend.

Even if you bypass the bin, deleting a file doesn't actually remove its data from disk. It simply marks the disk clusters occupied by the file's data as available. Forensic recovery software can often claw back a deleted file's data. That is, unless you use a data shredder utility for secure deletion. Avast's Data Shredder component goes well beyond the basic task of securely deleting files.

The easiest way to securely delete a file or folder is to right-click it and choose Shred using Avast from the context menu. This causes Avast to overwrite the file's data with random bytes before deleting it. A forensic recovery utility will just recover those random bytes.

If your data is so critically important that someone (law enforcement?) might employ forensic hardware to recover the data, you can dig into the shredder's settings and choose the three-overwrite algorithm, approved by the Department of Defense. There's almost certainly no reason to opt for the Gutmann algorithm, which overwrites the data dozens of times with different data patterns. And just because Avast, like G Data Total Security 2017( at Amazon)(Opens in a new window), lets you choose 99 random overwrites doesn't mean you should actually do that.

Like adaware antivirus total 12, Avast can also shred all free space on a disk, including the unused space at the end of each file's last cluster. In effect, this applies secure deletion to all the files you've deleted in the past. Avast also wipes clean file's name and other file system data, so the feds won't see that you deleted a file called Nuclear_Codes.doc.

Many security suites include a file shredding utility for wiping out the unsecured originals of encrypted files. Kaspersky Total Security(49.99 5 Devices / 1 Year at Kaspersky)(Opens in a new window) makes shredding originals part of the encryption process. But free space shredding is more often found in encryption-specific products such as Folder Lock and Steganos Safe.

You can also use Avast to shred an entire drive, perhaps before selling or giving it away. Note, though, that you can't shred the boot drive, which kind of defeats the purpose.

Software Updater Upgrade

Hackers find security holes in popular programs and exploit them to steal data or take over computers, Security vendors patch those holes as quickly as they can. But if you don't install those patches, your systems remain vulnerable. Avast's Software Updater component is all about ensuring that browsers and other popular third-party applications stay up to date, security-wise.

This component isn't special to Avast Premier, though. It's in the entire Avast product line, even Avast Free Antivirus 2017($0.00 at AVAST)(Opens in a new window). All of these products can check your system for outdated software, and in most cases you can apply all the updates just by clicking a button.

What you get with Avast Premier is automation. Once you turn on the Automatic updates feature, you don't have to think about this feature again. It works in the background to ensure that you always have the latest versions of the products it tracks. Instead of one click to update, you don't click anything at all.

A Good Suite, Not a Great Deal

Avast has never been good at balancing just which features to offer in which product, to my way of thinking. At one end of the spectrum, the free antivirus includes a very generous collection of security features. At the other end, Avast Premier adds very little, and costs a lot. But seen just for itself, and not in the context of Avast's other products, it's a decent suite, though not up to Editors' Choice quality.

Our Editors' Choice products for security mega-suite are Bitdefender Total Security and Kaspersky Total Security. Both products earn high marks from antivirus labs, both give you five licenses for the price of Avast's three, and both are packed with effective, security-specific features.

Sub-Ratings:
Note: These sub-ratings contribute to a product's overall star rating, as do other factors, including ease of use in real-world testing, bonus features, and overall integration of features.
Firewall:
Antivirus:
Performance:
Privacy:
Parental Control: n/a