It seems only logical that a free antivirus company should offer basic protection for free, but reserve advanced bonus features for the paid edition. However, in the real world, many of the most widespread free antivirus tools actually pack a ton of extra features. Avast Free Antivirus 2017 in particular gives you more than many competing commercial products. On top of excellent antivirus protection, it adds a network security scanner, a password manager, a secure browser, and more.
You may have heard that Avast acquired rival free antivirus company AVG last year. Fans of both tools can rest easy; there’s no plan to merge them into a single product. Both have many thousands of users worldwide, but each is strong in geographical areas where the other isn’t. High-end security technologies continue to show up in both product lines.