Avast One Silver Review (2024)

Many security companies offer a free antivirus; Avast is unusual in offering a free security suite, Avast One Basic. Upgrading to Avast One Gold gets you enhancements in Protection, Privacy, and Performance at a hefty price. Avast One Silver, reviewed here, costs a good bit less than the Gold edition and enhances Protection, Privacy, or Performance—just one of the three. The best thing you can get from Silver's partial protection is VPN access without limits. Other than that, it's not much better than the free edition. Before choosing Avast One Silver, consider Bitdefender Internet Security for an entry-level suite or Norton 360 Deluxe for a cross-platform suite. Bitdefender costs a bit more than Avast and Norton is a bit more than that, but both offer a complete set of suite features rather than making you choose between partial feature sets.

How Much Does Avast One Silver Cost?

You pay $79.99 for an Individual subscription to Avast One Silver, which lets you install protection on up to five devices running Windows, macOS, Android, or iOS. Choosing a Family subscription raises the cost to $129.99 per year and lets you extend protection to 30 devices. If you instead selected Avast One Gold, you’d pay $179.99 for an Individual subscription or $279.99 for Family. In both cases, the Gold price is more than double the cost of Silver.

Quite a few security companies offer five suite licenses for $79.99, among them ESET Home Security Premium, Total Defense Premium Internet Security, and Webroot Internet Security Complete. Some are priced even lower. For example, ZoneAlarm Extreme goes for $69.95 and K7 Total Security costs just $65.

With more features than most, Bitdefender Internet Security runs $89.99 per year for five licenses. Norton 360 Deluxe costs $119.99 and protects devices running all popular OSes. Yes, that’s more than Avast Silver, but with these you’re getting a full-blown suite with all features at full power.

For many households, there’s no practical difference between Avast’s 30-license Family pack and unlimited licenses. If you really need all those licenses, Avast looks a little better. An unlimited subscription for McAfee+ costs $149.99 per year, for example. The only way to get unlimited Norton licenses is to opt for the Ultimate edition of Norton 360 With LifeLock, which costs $349.99 per year. But once again, these give you fully functioning security features, with nothing held back, and the Norton package includes top-tier identity protection.

Getting Started With Avast One Silver

As with other Avast products, you begin by creating an online Avast account and purchasing the desired subscription. With the subscription activated, you can install protection on the current device or send a link to install it on another device. After the quick installation, you’re protected.

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For many years, Avast products presented users with a dark gray textured background, with highlights of green and purple, and an orange company logo. Rectangular buttons served to launch scans, choose between protection areas, and so on. A few years ago, that all changed. Now, the user interface features stylized line drawings of people, pets, trees, and more, with daubs of color to brighten it up. The old impression of a security fortress has morphed into something that suggests a partnership, happily keeping you and your devices safe.

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Just looking at the main window, it seems at first there’s no way to tell whether you’re using Avast One Silver, Gold, or Basic. Sharp-eyed users may spot the difference. All three have a button titled Upgrade near the top right corner. Silver and Gold display a silver or gold icon next to that button.

The difference is clearer when you click Explore from the menu. This reveals the Explore menu, which offers easy access to all the program’s features, divided into Device Protection, Online Privacy, and Smooth Performance. In Avast One Gold, the three category headings have a circled checkmark on the left with dabs of blue and green; the same headings in Avast One Basic have a circled checkmark but no color splashes. And, of course, when you view the details for any category, those not available to Basic users are marked with locks.

In Avast One Silver, it’s a combination of the two. The category selected for enhancement is marked with colors, and the features it contains are fully available with no locks. The other two, as in the Basic edition, have no colors marking the category and locks on the unavailable features.

Avast One Basic comes with an impressive collection of suite-level security features, enough to make it an Editors’ Choice for free antivirus. Naturally, Silver incorporates all the protective features that Avast offers for free. You might consider starting with Basic and then upgrading if you find its limitations grating. Please read my review of Avast One Basic before continuing. Too impatient? OK, I’ll summarize my findings here.

Antivirus protection is at the heart of every security suite, and Avast’s antivirus is top-notch. All four of the independent testing labs that I follow consider it worthy of their attention, and it earns perfect scores in almost all tests by those labs. Its aggregate lab score of 9.6 points is second-best among products tested by all four labs, surpassed only by Norton with 9.8 points. Tested by three labs, Kaspersky and McAfee+ reached a perfect 10 points.

Not every security product gets tested by the independent labs I follow, so I always perform my own hands-on tests. One test uses a collection of real-world malware that I collected and analyzed myself. Avast detected 99% of those malware samples and scored 9.9 of 10 possible points. AVG Internet Security, which uses the same antivirus engine as Avast, scored precisely the same. Norton came very close, with 99% detection and 9.8 points.

Avast and AVG racked up the best score among antivirus tested either with my current malware collection or with the previous collection. Among those tested using the previous collection, Guardio and Malwarebytes Premium matched Norton’s 9.8 points. In a separate test of protection against recently discovered malware-hosting URLs, Avast rated just 75%, down from when last tested. Five competitors, among them Sophos Home Premium and Trend Micro Maximum Security, reached 100% protection when put to the same test.

The same browser-independent filter that lets Avast detect and deflect dangerous URLs also serves to defend against phishing URLs and fraudulent URLs that mimic secure sites to steal login credentials. It proved much more effective at this task, detecting 99% of the real-world phishing URLs. Avast One Basic for Mac, tested at the same time, earned an identical score. Guardio, McAfee, Trend Micro, and ZoneAlarm Extreme Security NextGen all reached 100% in this test, as did the fraud-fighting Norton Genie.

The antivirus protection layers described above really should eliminate any attempted malware infestation. Even if they miss a brand-new attack, Avast’s protection should soon get an update to root out the problem. But if the attack involved ransomware, that update is too little, too late. The Ransomware Protection system adds protection to files in folders you’ve selected, blocking all unauthorized access. It proved effective in testing, though ransomware samples managed to encrypt some ancillary Windows files outside the protected folders.

Secure Browser Not Shared

After installing Avast One Basic or Gold, you’ll find an icon for Avast Secure Browser on your desktop. This browser’s Security & Privacy Center boasts almost a dozen security-related features, but closer examination reveals that most of them aren’t all that useful. The most interesting is Bank Mode, which opens the Secure Browser in a separate desktop that’s hardened against interference. It’s similar to the SafePay feature in Bitdefender Internet Security.

(Credit: Avast/PCMag)

Strangely, I found that Secure Browser wasn’t installed along with Avast One Silver. The Bank Mode feature shows up in the Explore menu, but the button to launch Secure Browser in Bank Mode is absent. You can always download the Secure Browser separately from Avast’s website if you wish.

Other Shared Device Protection Features

Looking at the Explore menu, the features described thus far correspond to Scan Center, File Shield, Web Shield, and Ransomware Protection. Also available to Basic users are Email Guardian, Firewall, and Network Inspector, though each of these has some limitations.

Email Guardian scans messages that come into your email client via the POP3 or IMAP protocol, as well as messages you send. It blocks dangerous attachments and marks infected messages by adding “VIRUS” in the subject. Premium users can configure it to protect their webmail accounts, across all devices.

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The Firewall component defends your computer against port scans and other attacks from across the network and internet. It blocks all unsolicited connection attempts and, for untrusted networks, prevents connections within the network. It doesn’t pop up queries when programs attempt network access, though you can manually define access rules. Its advanced settings are locked and accessible only to premium users.

Avast users have long enjoyed access to impressive network security scanning. The Network Inspector feature checks your home network security and optionally checks the security of all connected devices. Premium users can configure it to send a notification when a new device accesses the network for the first time.

The rest of the Device Protection features are marked with a lock icon, meaning they’re completely or partially unavailable to Basic users and to Silver users who didn’t choose to enhance Protection. I’ll discuss these below.

An antivirus wipes out malware from your system and foils new malware attacks. Many can even defend against web-based attacks before they reach your computer. The data on your device should be safe when your antivirus is active. However, when your data heads out into the wilds of the internet, all bets are off. The antivirus can’t do a thing. A VPN is essential to protect your privacy, and VPN protection is the prime feature of Avast’s Online Privacy collection.

Feature-Limited VPN

You can buy Avast SecureLine VPN as a standalone product for $99.99 per year. PCMag has evaluated this VPN and found it to be decent but not outstanding.

Even at the free level, Avast’s VPN is integrated right into the suite. Just click VPN Secure Connection in the Explore menu for a quick look. From here, you can flip the VPN on or off and view how much VPN bandwidth you’ve used. You get 5GB per week for free, and Avast clearly shows how much you’ve used and how long until you get your next 5GB dose.

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Limitations on the free edition mean you gain a lot by unlocking the VPN. There’s an option to select a VPN server of your choice, but it’s locked. Also locked are options to automatically turn on the VPN on untrusted networks or when doing activities such as banking or shopping. To be fair, with bandwidth capped, you probably don't want the VPN to turn on by itself. You also can’t enable the kill switch feature, which ensures you don’t accidentally send unprotected data if the VPN connection drops.

VPN limitations are probably the biggest impetus to upgrade, either to Avast One Gold or to Avast One Silver with privacy features enhanced. Conversely, if you need a VPN and don’t have the budget, there are some very good free VPNs to choose from.

Other Free Privacy Features

A snoop who gains remote access to your computer (or sits down at your desk) can theoretically learn too much about you by scrutinizing your browsing history, download history, and other traces of web surfing. If those traces get swept away, there’s less for a snoop to grab.

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To get help with that cleanup, click Clear Browsing Data from the Explore menu’s Online Privacy category. Avast scans your browsers for cleanable items in the background, so as soon as you request it, you’ve got a list of what it can do. On my test virtual machine, it found items to remove for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Opera. If you dig in to review its findings, you’ll see that not everything gets marked for removal. For example, by default, it wipes the browser’s cache files but not browsing history. To take full advantage of this feature, check the boxes to clear history as well.

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The Dark Web Monitoring feature would better be called Dark Web Checking in the free version. You can enter any email address and get a report on data breaches that include that address. There’s a button labeled Change Password, but it just displays minor details about the breach, along with a big button inviting you to Go Premium and get additional help. Even at the premium level, there’s no actual help for changing passwords. The option to monitor for new breaches in real time is also a premium-only feature.

Privacy Advisor is free for all Avast users. It offers numerous short instructive videos about managing your privacy, organized into advice for the web, for iOS, and for Android. These include things like how to control who sees your profile and posts on Facebook or how to protect your Amazon account with multi-factor authentication. There’s nothing automated here, just good advice spelled out simply and visually.

Private Mode and Tracking Prevention round out the set of Online Privacy features. However, these are locked away, unavailable for non-premium users.

Enhancing Performance isn’t exactly a security feature. On the other hand, if the user sees a problem with their system's performance and blames the security software, that can be a problem. Components to improve performance are a common addition to security suites of all kinds. Avast offers six Performance-enhancing features: PC Speedup, Software Updater, Do Not Disturb Mode, Disk Cleaner, Driver Updater, and Duplicate Finder. Users at the free level can run any of them but can’t activate automation features in the last three.

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PC Speedup could mean a lot of things, but in Avast’s case, it refers to minimizing the impact of background programs. It can recover resources allocated to programs that are idle and do not need them. It can also prevent programs from automatically launching at startup, leaving you to launch them when they're actively needed. You don’t have the option to delay rather than disable startup the way you do with Norton’s startup manager—in fact, you don’t have app-by-app control over launching at startup. You just click to optimize the programs suggested by Avast and (in theory) enjoy faster, more efficient computing.

(Credit: Avast/PCMag)

Software isn’t perfect. If a popular app has a security hole, malware coders will find it and exploit it, at least until the app’s publisher releases a security patch. The Software Updater component checks apps on your computer for missing security patches and lets you install those patches with a single, simple click. Premium-level users can enable automatic updates, eliminating the need for that single click.

If Avast notifies you about an update or malware detection while you’re in the middle of a game, you could get fragged. To avoid that aggravation, you can list your games and other full-attention programs in the Do Not Disturb component’s list. Programs running full-screen get added automatically. By default, it only suppresses its own notifications and scheduled events, but you can set it to pause Windows updates and suppress notifications from other apps.

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Free-tier users can run Disk Cleaner, Driver Updater, and Duplicate Finder. Respectively, these identify junk files taking up disk space, list drivers that need an update, and report on space wasted storing identical duplicate files. If you want Avast to clean up those junk files and dupes, you’ll have to upgrade.

Enhanced Protection Features

Everything I’ve mentioned so far, in all three categories, comes at no cost in Avast One Basic. When you upgrade to Avast One Silver, you get to push one of those categories up to premium level. Doing so unlocks a half-dozen protection components and adds minor enhancements to a few more.

Protection Components With Enhancements

Basic antivirus protection doesn’t change. Scan Center, File Shield, Web Shield, and Ransomware Protection work exactly as they do in the free edition.

Network Inspector still gets you a useful list of all the devices connected to your network, along with their security status. As possible, it identifies each device with its name, type, and manufacturer name. That’s not always possible, though. Network-savvy users can track down an unknown device using the supplied IP address and MAC address and edit its entry so Avast will know its details. That much is free. If you’ve chosen to power up your Protection Features, you can tell Avast to notify you any time a new device connects. You don’t get the option to block intruders, but a surprise notification is a clue you should change your wi-fi password.

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Upgrading to a premium suite significantly changed Email Guardian. It gains the ability to filter out dangerous messages and attachments before they ever reach any of your devices. Enabling this protection for an email account requires that you give Avast your email address and password or an app-specific password. Don’t worry; it explains how to get this app-specific password. At this point, Avast has full access to your account, so it can read and analyze messages, filtering out malware and other dangers. If you’re OK with giving your security company full access to your email, this can be an effective way to purge any dangerous content.

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Bank Mode is visibly locked for free users, but it just as visibly works. As noted above, when you browse the web in Bank Mode, your activities are isolated from other processes in their own separate desktop. The one premium-level enhancement is the ability to define exceptions for certain sites, suppressing Avast’s notifications suggesting you use Bank Mode.

Premium-Only Protection Features

If you didn’t choose to enhance Protection when you purchased Avast One Silver, you’ll find that Sandbox, Sensitive Data Shield, Remote Access Shield, Web Hijack Guard, Webcam Protection, and Password Protection are locked. If you did choose Protection as your premium category, these features all become available, but they may not impress you.

The Sandbox is a virtual environment that lets you run suspect programs without permitting any permanent changes to your computer and files. You can right-click any program and choose to run it in the Sandbox for a quick look or always run it in the Sandbox. By default, sandboxed programs can access the internet and download files that don’t vanish, but you can remove these privileges. In testing, I couldn’t get the Sandbox to activate from its item on the right-click menu for programs, but it did work when invoked directly from Avast. Seriously, though, how many users are going to run a suspect program at all?

Your computer almost certainly holds documents with sensitive data that a snoop or thief could misuse. Sensitive Data Shield seeks out such documents and applies an additional layer of protection. Files identified for protection can’t be opened by other user accounts on the PC, and you can limit which apps are allowed to open them. In testing, I found that files needed to contain seriously personal data to even qualify for protection. With my test system’s default Windows settings, other users already couldn’t access my private files. And I learned that you don’t get a warning when unauthorized apps attempt access the way you do with Ransomware Protection. Rather, you have to add such apps to a list manually.

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The last thing you want is to have a RAT (remote access trojan) gain remote control of your computer. Remote Access Shield, enabled by default, denies access to the remote-control protocols used in such attacks. This is a good thing, most of the time. But if you’re working with live chat tech support and the agent requests remote access to diagnose and repair a problem, you’ll have to disable it.

When your browser requests a page using a domain name like PCMag.com, the DNS (Domain Name System) is what translates that request into a machine-readable IP address. Malefactors can weasel into this system, directing your requests to their own corrupted DNS servers. The result is like phishing, but even though you’re visiting a fake website, the Address Bar shows the URL you expected. Web Hijack Guard, enabled by default, locks your system to legitimate DNS, preventing such hijacking. I assume it works; it’s not something I could test.

These days, you can’t get along without a webcam for all those video meetings. But did you know it’s possible for malware to turn on the webcam without your knowledge and without lighting the LED that lets you know you’re on the air? That sort of peeking is perhaps the ultimate form of spyware. Like Bitdefender, ESET Home Security Premium, and Kaspersky, Avast allows trusted applications to access the webcam but notifies you when an unknown program tries to get a look. If you’re using a new video meeting app, just click to trust it, but if you didn’t initiate the use of the webcam, slam the peephole shut. You can also set Webcam Protection to require permission even for known and trusted programs or to cut off all access to the camera.

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Password Protection sounds like some kind of password manager, but it’s no such thing. It has just one ability—preventing outside apps from accessing the passwords stored in Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. If you’re smart, you’ve transferred those less secure browser passwords to your password manager app.

You may have noticed a trend in this list of premium-only Device Protection apps. Yes, they don’t do a lot to protect you. For the most part, they offer minor defense against uncommon security problems.

Enhanced Privacy Features

As noted earlier, the VPN component is the most important feature in the Online Privacy category. Choosing this as your premium category in Avast One Silver removes bandwidth and feature limitations from the VPN. It also gets you some minor enhancements and added features.

VPN Without Limits

Avast’s antivirus components eliminate any malware infestations present on your devices and work in real time to prevent new attacks. However, when you send your data and queries across the internet, antivirus protection has no power. To protect your data as it travels, you need a VPN.

The VPN creates a secure encrypted connection between your device and a hardened server managed by the VPN provider. No snoop, not even the owner of the shady coffee shop network you’re using, can access your data in transit. The VPN server queries the site you selected and returns its responses back to you through the same encrypted connection. A side benefit of this process is that your network traffic seems to come from the VPN server. That means a site can’t determine your location based on your IP address, which in turn may let you access content that would normally be restricted based on your location.

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Avast’s free edition includes integrated VPN protection but with limits. You don’t get a choice of servers or server locations—you must use whatever the system chooses. And you’re limited to 5GB of bandwidth per week. To be fair, that’s more generous than most. The free edition of Hotspot Shield VPN allows 500MB per day, a bit less than Avast. With TunnelBear VPN, non-paying users choke out at 500MB per month. On the other hand, you can useProton VPNfor free with no bandwidth limits.

PCMag has analyzed the standalone Avast SecureLine VPN and found it to be a decent VPN but not an outstanding one. You can read PCMag's review for a full understanding of Avast’s VPN technology. Briefly, it uses recommended VPN protocols and offers a widespread but somewhat sparse selection of servers (about 500 servers in 36 countries). Its privacy policy clearly states what information it collects; our review notes that it gathers more data than is needed and more than most competitors. It doesn’t offer features beyond VPN the way some similar products do, but it earned decent scores in our speed tests.

(Credit: Avast/PCMag)

The VPN is an integrated component of Avast One Silver, not a separate product, but it uses the same underlying technology. You choose your country and, when available, location within that country. Icons identify the fastest servers, as well as ones that are especially good for streaming or torrenting. You turn on the VPN to protect your web traffic. And that’s all you really need to do.

Running on macOS, Avast’s VPN reminds you to turn on protection when you connect to an untrusted network, with an option to just turn on the VPN automatically in that case. You can also set it to either turn on or remind you when you do things like shop online or connect to your bank. The Windows edition skips the reminders, leaving you the option to turn on the VPN automatically when you connect with an untrusted network or when you are banking, shopping, accessing sensitive content, streaming, or torrenting. By default, it doesn’t turn on automatically.

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There are just a few settings beyond those related to connecting automatically. The VPN can notify you when it makes an automatic connection, for one thing. When you’re connected through a VPN, you’re technically not part of the local network; Avast’s VPN includes the option to retain access to local devices such as network printers. It also offers a kill switch feature. If the VPN connection drops or wobbles, Avast cuts all internet traffic until the connection is restored. That way, no data goes out unprotected. On the Mac, you can choose between the old IPSec protocol and a proprietary protocol called Mimic. The Windows edition doesn’t offer a choice of protocol.

That’s it for VPN configuration options, even in the paid edition. You won't find the split-tunneling feature (the ability to send less sensitive traffic outside the VPN's protection) you get with CyberGhost VPN or Surfshark VPN. There’s no option for the added security of a multi-hop VPN connection. You can’t get a static IP address (useful for evading services that try to block VPN usage).

Norton 360 Deluxe also includes full-scale VPN protection, and we rate Norton’s VPN 3.5 stars as a standalone, one notch above Avast’s. Yes, if you’re a VPN enthusiast, you can do better with a top-tier standalone VPN. But having VPN technology integrated with your security suite is a very big plus.

Here’s one more point, perhaps the most important. When purchased separately, the VPN lists at $99.99 per year, while Avast One Silver goes for $79.99. When you get the VPN as part of Avast One Silver, you save $20 and also get security suite protection for five devices. That’s quite a deal.

Other Online Privacy Enhancements

It’s a good thing the VPN’s enhancements are so impressive because you don’t get much else by going premium in the Online Privacy category. Dark Web Monitoring earns its name at the premium level. You can register one or more email addresses with this feature, and Avast will keep an eye out, warning you if any of them appear in a new data breach. Of course, you also get the search for existing breaches that comes for free. Setting up monitoring for an address does require you to respond to a validation email to prove you own the address.

That leaves Private Mode and Tracking Prevention, which are unavailable at the free level. When you enable Tracking Prevention, it does its best to foil browser fingerprinters, trackers that process the information sent with every browser query into a unique fingerprint that lets them track you. This ability is a prime component of the separate Avast AntiTrack app. In Avast One Silver, it’s a simple on/off toggle with no visible effect.

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As for Private Mode, its such a minor feature I’ve wondered why it isn’t free. When you enable it, Private Mode in turn enables the VPN connection and Tracking Prevention. It can optionally open your default browser in its Incognito / Private / InPrivate mode. And that’s all it does.

Enhanced Performance Features

I mentioned that speeding system performance isn’t a security feature as such but that it can protect against having users turn off security when they suspect it’s harming performance. You get almost all of Avast’s Smooth Performance scans and features for free. Choosing this as your category for enhancement mostly just enables automated cleanup.

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PC Speedup optimizes apps so they don’t use resources in the background, and Do Not Disturb mode suppresses interruptions when you’re running full-screen programs (or other programs you specify), just as they do for free users. Software Updater identifies and lists apps on your system that need updates for security. Even free users can apply needed updates with a single click. Upgrading to premium protection lets you check a box to have those apps update automatically in the background without your intervention.

Disk Cleaner, Driver Updater, and Duplicate Finder are marked with lock icons, but free users can still run them. Disk Cleaner reports on junk files that could be deleted to free up space. Driver Updater identifies system drivers that aren’t the latest version. And Duplicate Finder reports on disk space wasted by identical duplicate files. If you upgrade to the premium level, Avast will delete those junk files and eliminate all but one from each duplicate group.

That’s it for the benefits of selecting Smooth Performance for enhancement.

Which Category Should You Enhance?

When you buy Avast One Silver, you select one of three categories to enhance with premium features: Device Protection, Online Privacy, or Smooth Performance. Yes, Avast One Gold enhances all three, but it costs $100 more than the Silver edition, so Silver can be a practical choice.

Don’t choose Smooth Performance, though. Its features aren’t even central to security, and you get most of their benefits without paying. For the most part, upgrading this category simply automates some processes that you can handle for free on a DIY basis.

All the truly essential components of Device Protection come as part of Avast’s free protection. Seven additional components show up as locked to free users. Unlocking those doesn’t do a lot for your overall security, as most of them protect against obscure or uncommon dangers.

That leaves Online Privacy. Enhancing this category removes bandwidth and feature limitations from the integrated VPN, which is a major improvement. Buying Avast’s standalone VPN would cost $20 more than the cost of Avast One Silver. Online Privacy is definitely the best category to choose.

Verdict: Choose Avast One Silver for the VPN

With the introduction of Avast One Silver, the price of the fully premium Avast One Gold soared. If you don’t need an all-premium suite, you can save $100 by choosing Silver over Gold. But you can save even more by sticking with the free (and very capable) Avast One Basic. The one choice that makes sense with Avast One Silver is picking enhanced Online Privacy, as that gets you Avast's VPN with no limits. Really, though, you’re better off paying a little more for a suite with more components, all of which are top-notch. Bitdefender Internet Security, our Editors’ Choice for entry-level security suites, earns top scores from the antivirus labs and includes a range of features even broader than Avast’s, all of them at full, premium power. If you’re looking for protection across a range of operating systems, Norton 360 Deluxe comes with plenty of features, including a no-limits VPN.