In today’s antivirus market, you can be sure to find a lot of free versions of premium and not-so-premium AV apps. TotalAV certainly considers itself to be a premium product, snagging a couple of awards here and there, and like most in the field offers a free version which should give you a taste of the real product. Downloading and installing the free version took under five minutes (including the download of the antivirus engine), and we did not notice RAM usage spikes during this process. The initial scan was relatively quick, but the upsell tactics used made the entire experience feel like a marketing ploy. We understand that they’ve built the software and that developers and investors need to be paid; however, focusing on quality and value should bring in customers without aggressively upselling in the free version. It is basically a detection and removal program that offers real-time protection in the premium version. There are multiple bundles available, but the most comprehensive one includes an ad blocker, phishing protection, a secure browser, a VPN, and a browser extension that blocks malicious websites and trackers.
