TotalAV, a relatively new UK-based internet security solution, will occasionally appear among big antivirus brands. It is affordable software designed to actively identify and eliminate potential malware threats on your computer. Additionally, the antivirus offers numerous privacy protection and impressive web security features in an intuitive interface.
Although TotalAV may not be the most affordable, versatile, or popular antivirus software, it is a decent all-around solution. This TotalAV antivirus review will look at its performance, ease of use, system impact, customer support, and much more.
TotalAV overview
TotalAV is a trustworthy antivirus program that is packed with lots of features. It will protect you against viruses, ransomware, spyware, and other types of malware that can severely damage your device.
Here are some of its key features
- Real-time malware protection
- Virtual private network (VPN)
- Anti-phishing scam
- Smart scanning
- Remote firewall
- Password manager
- Updated virus definitions
- Identity theft monitoring
- Data breach monitoring
Moreover, the service has other features you can explore by subscribing to any reasonably priced packages. Also, you can utilize the 30-day money-back guarantee to test the service or the free version if you are on a budget. So, TotalAV is an excellent choice if you want a simple-to-use antivirus with excellent malware detection rates.
TotalAV security features
This software has all the tools you might need in an antivirus application. Combining these features will provide you with decent protection against most online threats.
Malware scans
TotalAV offers three malware scan types that include:
- Quick scan – Scans temporary files where viruses usually hide
- System scan – Scans the entire system for malware
- Smart scan – Scans a large but targeted files and folder selection on your hard drive
- Custom scan – Scans a single file, folder, or the whole disk
I started our test with the system scan, which took around 1 hour. Fortunately, it didn’t take a toll on our computer’s performance, which is great. Most of its competitors, like Kaspersky, put a strain on the CPU during such scans.
We downloaded over 900 test files comprising viruses, ransomware, Trojans, rootkits, keylogging, and spyware malware in this test. The results were remarkable, with the antivirus detecting almost all the files (99.6 %), including spyware and ransomware. This is great news, as some antiviruses don’t consider spyware malware.
If you don’t have the time to perform the full system scan, you can do a quick or smart scan. During my tests, both scans run for about 10 minutes.
TotalAV offers you several removal options on the malware files it identifies – delete, quarantine, whitelist, or ignore at the end of each scan. If you don’t know how to handle the file or its origin, it is best to quarantine it. On the other hand, you can whitelist a program if it doesn’t show any traces of malware. Fortunately, TotalAV did not present false positives during our tests.
Real-time protection
TotalAV’s real-time protection is highly effective. It is always in the background, analyzing programs and scanning downloads to protect your computer from malware.
I downloaded malware files, including ransomware and rootkit, to test the real-time scanning engine. TotalAV immediately identified and quarantined the malicious files even before we could run the scan.