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Avast: what this site can tell you, and what it cannot
A deliberately limited page. Avast is the vendor Arcadia Group has a commercial relationship with, which is exactly why we hold this page to a narrower standard of claim than any other page on the site.
The commercial relationship, stated up front
Arcadia Group is paid by Avast on a per-signup basis. If you follow our link, go to the vendor's site and create and activate an account there, we receive a commission for that referral. Nothing is added to your price, and the vendor has no involvement in what this page says — including the parts of it that tell you to go and check our claims elsewhere. Our affiliate disclosure sets out the arrangement in full.
Why this page is written the way it is
Most pages on affiliate sites describe a product in confident detail: performance, value, how it compares, what it is best at. Very little of that detail is knowable to a publisher that has not tested the product in a laboratory, and stating it anyway is how readers end up making decisions on the basis of writing that was never verified.
So this page does three things instead. It states the small number of facts we can state. It says plainly which questions we are not in a position to answer. And it tells you where the answers actually live. If that makes the page less persuasive than the alternative, that is the intended trade-off.
What we can state
- Avast is a consumer antivirus vendor, and antivirus software is the subject category of this site.
- Its consumer products cover desktop computers running Windows, macOS and Linux, which is the scope this site writes about.
- Access through the link on this page goes to the vendor's own website, where you create an account and activate it. That account creation and activation step is what our commission is paid on.
- Both free and paid consumer tiers exist, as with most vendors in this category. What sits in each tier is stated by the vendor.
That is the complete list. Everything below is either general guidance that applies to any vendor, or a pointer to a source.
What we do not claim, and why
| Question | Our position | Where to get the answer |
|---|---|---|
| What does it cost in AUD? | We publish no prices. Introductory and renewal figures differ and change without notice, and a stale price on a third-party page is a misleading one. | The vendor's own site, at the point of purchase, before you confirm. |
| How well does it detect malware? | We run no tests and publish no scores. | Independent laboratories: AV-TEST and AV-Comparatives, checking the date and the edition tested. |
| Is it better than the alternatives? | We have not surveyed the market, so we do not rank products. Our coverage by name is limited to vendors we have a relationship with, and we would rather say so than imply a comparison we did not perform. | Laboratory comparatives, and your own trial on your own hardware. |
| What exactly is in each tier? | Tier contents are changed by vendors regularly, and we do not restate them. | The vendor's current product pages and terms. |
| What data does it collect? | We do not summarise another company's privacy practices, because a summary is exactly where an inaccuracy would hide. | The vendor's own privacy policy, read before installation. |
| How does it run on my computer? | Unknowable from here — it depends on your hardware, operating system version and what else is installed. | A trial period on the machine itself, measured as described in our choosing guide. |
What "create and activate an account" involves
Signing up with a consumer security vendor generally follows the same shape, and it is worth knowing before you start so that nothing on the way through is a surprise.
- You arrive on the vendor's site, not on ours. Everything from that point — the pages, the prices, the terms, the payment handling — belongs to the vendor.
- You choose a product and tier. This is the moment to read the renewal terms, not only the headline figure.
- You create an account, typically with an email address and a password. Use a distinct password, stored in a manager.
- You activate it, usually by confirming the email address and, for paid tiers, completing payment. The account is what ties your licence to your devices.
- You download and install from the vendor's site, never from a search advertisement or a pop-up offering the same product.
- You keep the confirmation. The confirmation email is your record of what you bought, on what date, for how long, and at what price.
Arcadia Group has no visibility of any of this. We do not receive your email address, your payment details or your account information — see our privacy policy, which describes a site that collects nothing at all.
Questions worth putting to any vendor first
- What is the price at renewal, and where is that figure stated?
- How many devices does this licence cover, and can they be changed during the term?
- How is the subscription cancelled, and can it be done without contacting support?
- What are the system requirements, and does this machine meet them comfortably rather than minimally?
- What is the refund policy, and how does it sit alongside my consumer guarantees?
- What does the privacy policy say is collected, and is any of it optional?
- Does the tier I am buying include tools I already pay for elsewhere?
Two things outside this site's scope
Business and enterprise editions. We write about consumer desktop products only. Organisational security involves obligations and products we do not cover, and an organisation handling personal information in Australia should start with the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner rather than with a consumer buying guide.
Mobile applications. Phones and tablets have a different security model, and nothing on this site is written with them in mind.
Going to the vendor
If you have worked through the questions above and want to look at the current products and terms, the link below goes directly to the vendor's site.
Paid link — Arcadia Group earns a commission if an account is created and activated after you use it. The commission is paid by the vendor, not added to your price, and it did not influence the cautions on this page.
If something goes wrong after you subscribe
Start with the vendor's own support channel, in writing where possible, and keep the correspondence. If that does not resolve it, purchases by consumers in Australia are covered by consumer guarantees that operate independently of a supplier's own refund policy; the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission explains them at accc.gov.au. Our subscriptions and renewals guide sets out the order to work through.
Arcadia Group is not a party to your contract with the vendor and cannot act on your behalf, cancel a subscription, or issue a refund. What we can do is answer a question about something written on this site — info@arcadiagroup.online.
Related questions
Is Arcadia Group an official Avast site?
No. This is an independent publication by Human Protection s.r.o. with a paid referral arrangement. It is not operated, authorised or endorsed by the vendor, and it is not a reseller. Anything official comes from the vendor's own domain.
Would you still cover this product if the commission stopped?
Honestly, the commercial relationship is why the product is named here at all — that is stated on our about page as well. The guides around it, which are the larger part of the site, are written to be useful with every paid link removed.
Why is only one vendor named on the whole site?
Because naming a second one without a commercial relationship would imply we had compared them, and we have not. Categories of product are discussed throughout; names are used only where we can explain why the name is there.