TotalAV Antivirus Expert Review for 2021

Table of TotalAv Features

Threat Protection

Privacy Features

TotalAV comes with must-have privacy features that you would expect from a top antivirus software which we will test and discuss in this section. 

Webshield

Webshield gives you protection against fake, spooked, and malicious websites that try to install malware or steal your information

When you enable WebShield, it will automatically block crypto mining URLs and untrustworthy websites, protecting you from cybercriminals. For extra protection, you can also whitelist website domains you want and submit suspicious URLs.

In addition, their WebShield extension provides a layer of extra protection when you browse, monitoring for harmful activity at all times.

It is supposed to show harmful websites in the red cross and non-harmful websites in a green tick. But when we checked for some website URLs that host test malware, they didn’t appear in the red cross mark. Also, it doesn’t show any status for some of the websites. So we think Web Shield is not always accurately showing potential malicious websites.

Safe Browsing VPN

TotalAV’s Safe Browsing VPN comes with more expensive plans and includes many features of a well-recommended VPN. Safe Browsing VPN offers you unlimited data, and you can connect to 70+ super-fast servers locations in over 30 countries worldwide. 

According to its official website, TotalAVs’ safe browsing VPN supports OpenVPN and IKE2 protocols. It also comes with a kill switch to maintain anonymity if you suddenly got disconnected from the VPN. You can also access Geo-restricted websites and content from this VPN. However, it lacks some of the most important information a typical VPN user may seek such as encryption mechanism and logging policy. Therefore, we think the VPN is not as good as industry-leading VPNs like NordVPN, ExpressVPN, or HotspotShield, but it still provides a decent set of features. 

Cookie Cleaner

Tracking cookies can allow third parties to track you and your browsing activity which will harm your privacy. TotalAV can isolate such cookies and remove them from your system. It comes as part of its Malware Scan, where it shows you the number of tracking cookies stored in your system, including a breakdown of the number of cookies from each browser. You can expand and see from which sites those cookies come. You can then clear the cookies you want to be cleared by clicking on ‘Clear Tracking Cookie.’ 

TotalAV antivirus provides useful and must-have privacy features. In all our scans, cookie cleaner worked as expected, listing all the tracking cookies, but the web shield did not list the malicious URLs as expected in both Chrome and Firefox browsers. The VPN is only available with more higher-priced plans, and although it has essential features, it lacks information regarding its logging policy and encryption mechanism. 

Therefore, based on our experience using the cookie cleaner and web shield and the available information on the VPN,

Security Features

There are a lot of security features of TotalAV that save your device from several cybersecurity threats. In addition to those, it has a password vault and a data breach checker. 

You can find out our review about all of them in the following sections.

Malware  protection

TotalAVs’ malware scanners can identify different types of cyber threats.  

For example:

• Malware
• Ransomware
• Spyware
• Adware
• Scareware
• viruses

The end of a complete malware scan provides the following list of information with some optimization options. 

• Number of Malware Threats
• Number of tracking cookies
• Size of the junk files in the machine
• The number of autorun programs enables
• History entries and cookies
• Duplicated files
• Potentially unwanted files

During our tests, we performed quick scans by downloading test malware files from ecar.org. The TotalAV malware scanner was able to detect all those malware successfully. So we saw a 100% success rate in TotalAVs’ malware protection tool.

Total Ad Block

The software also has an ad blocker that can block intrusive and annoying ads, browser notifications, and trackers. It is a freely available feature that comes as a browser extension compatible with Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. Once installed,  you can see a Total Adblock icon in the top right of your browser window. Then it will be actively blocking unwanted ads from all the websites you are visiting.

It worked well with all the sites we visited that had tons of ads before. When you click on the Total AdBlock Icon, it shows how many ads and trackers it blocked from your site. Not only that, it shows you how many web pages were loaded faster and how much data you saved. You can also add a list of websites that allow acceptable ads and popups and enable and disable notifications from its settings.  So we think this is a pretty helpful and intuitive feature you can get free to enjoy tracking free and faster browsing experience.

Safe Site (Phishing Detection)

TotalAV’s Safe Site browser extension has several features to give you tracking-free and an ad-free, safe browsing experience. It includes the web shield feature (which you can access through your app) for blocking malicious and phishing websites and untrusted domains. Apart from that, you can easily clear cookies while you are browsing and instantly clear your browsing history. It also includes the ad Block Pro feature you need to buy as an add-on, using the TotalAV Pro plan.

Data Breach Check

TotalAV’s Data Breach Test can show you if your password has been compromised as part of an online data breach. You can simply enter your email and click the ‘check now button, and it opens up a web page showing the breach information. When we entered one of the email addresses, we were amazed to find the email in 8 data breaches. It will show you the website site, the date of the breach, and a description of the data breach.

Password Vault

TotalAV Total Security subscribers can get a free password vault feature to store and manage email addresses, usernames, and passwords securely in an encrypted format. It means you don’t have to remember passwords all the time, but you can pre-populate them into login forms when you visit websites that need them.  When setting up, you need to use a master password to access the password vault, and you can import the passwords from a browser or a previous password vault. 

You can also auto-lock the password vault if your system is idle for a defined period. It can integrate directly into Chrome, Firefox, and Edge using its ‘TotalAV Password Vault Assistant’ Extension. From that extension, you can auto-fill and auto-save passwords directly from your browser so that you can log in to your accounts conveniently. 

TotalAV provides several basic security features to more advanced security features. The malware scanner was 100% efficient in identifying all our threat files and ad blocker was also able to block the ads on every known site with ads we tested. (The malware scanner was 100% efficient in identifying all our threat files and the adblocker was also able to block the ads on every known site with ads we tested.)

We found a data breach checker as a very useful tool to find if the emails involved in data breaches. 

Performance

TotalAV provides several performance options like privacy and security features, which we will see in the following sections.

Scanning options

 Malware protection comes with three scanning options for all subscriptions.

• Quick Scan - This feature will scan files and folders on your hard drive, focusing mainly on the areas where malware is most likely to be found.
• System Scan - This scan is a comprehensive scan that scans all the files and folders, identifying various types of files including cookies, and junk files.
• Custom Scan - You can specify files and folders to scan and files and ignore. Also, there are miscellaneous options like scan inside archives to prevent the scanning of subfolders.

When we tested TotalAV’s System Scan, it examined over 1000,000 files which took around 1 hour on our Windows PC, but it did not hinder the performance of my machine noticeably. But as expected, it consumed around 50% of the computer battery power. The quick scan also took approximately 30 minutes, and we did not observe a significant impact on other functionalities.

You can also have the option to set up scheduled antivirus scans, like every hour or every day, and define the active hours of those scheduled scans. It ensures your system remains secure from cyber attacks all the time.

Tune-Up Optimization Tools

TotalAV provides several system Tune-up Optimization tools.

• Junk Cleaner
• Duplicate file finder
• Application uninstaller
• Startup Manager
• Browser Cleanup

TotalAV’s Junk Cleaner and duplicate file finder feature can help you locate unwanted files and remove them to create space in your system. Application uninstaller lists down all the software installed with its publisher and the URL. Then you can select one or more applications to uninstall at once.

Using its Startup Manager tool, you can control what applications you need to execute automatically when your operating system boots up. Running this tool provided us with a list of auto-starting apps which slows down the system boot time. You can then either enable or disable that application from auto-running.

The Browser Cleanup tool helped us to clean the browsing data and keep the online activity private. It will show you all the cookies stored on your system for each browser, and you can clear all those cookies easily at once. 

Overall, TotalAV has pretty good scanning options and system optimization tools. 

Lab Test Results

TotalAV recently appeared in independent lab tests done by several well-known institutions. One of the institutes is AV-Test Institute that rates antivirus software from 3 different aspects: protection, performance, and usability.  All products can get a maximum of 6 points for each category. 

According to its evaluation of the best windows antivirus products for home users conducted from July to August 2021, TotalAV has been able to achieve 6 points for all three categories and certified as a top product. It is similar to the results achieved by other top antivirus products like Kaspersky, Norton, AVG but better than McAfee, which showed slightly lesser performance.

It also appeared in real-world protection tests done by AV comparatives in July-August 2021. The results show the protection scores for the months of JULY and AUGUST 2021 for 380 test cases. TotalAV showed a 98.2% protection rate which was slightly less than McAfee, AVG, Avast, and Kaspersky, which showed more than 99% protection rate. 

Ease of Use and Interface

TotalAV has a very simple but well-designed and very attractive user interface. Every functionality has a short description about it so that first-time users will never get confused about them. 

The software uses icons and graphics smartly throughout the UI, which are soothing for the eye. Its intuitive dashboard lets you know the progress of your smart scan results,  the status of your real-time protection, and access to quick smart scans. 

Its sidebar automatically pops up the related sub-menu and displays a small lock icon with currently locked items. Therefore, you can easily recognize what features you do not have access to. There are several settings you can configure for most of its features.

Moreover, there are links to the help center and release channels to get early access to new features. 

We evaluated this section based on the following factors.

• How quickly you can access its features
• The look and feel
• How quickly it can help anyone with little knowledge to grasp the functionalities.
• The customization options 

TotalAV Mobile Security

The antivirus has apps for both Android and iOS mobiles. There are several download options:

• Download the TotalAV app directly from the app or google play store
• Scanning the QR code provided in your account from your mobile camera
• Email the link to download it. 

We found scanning the QR code is the easiest option since it directly goes to the download page.

TotalAV for iOS ( for Mac)

TotalAV iOS app provides a similar user experience but with a different set of features which are listed below. 

• Web shield
• Secure browser
• Private connection 
  
• System security
• Data breach check
• Protect my devices’ option

It also has the following interesting tools useful for a mobile:

• Device locator
• Photo manager
• Battery monitor

Therefore it lacks some essential security features the desktop application provides; real-time protection and malware scanners. 

Its System Security feature lets you find your overall system security measures. It shows if your system is up-to-date and whether the device has a passcode and a Face ID, providing the ability to configure them. You can use the device locator to keep track of your device so that you can locate it if it’s lost or stolen.

TotalAV for Android

On the other hand, the Android app includes a system scanner and some features you can’t find in the iOS app. 

• Security Scan
• Real-time Protection
• VPN
• Web shield feel
• Wi-Fi Checker
• Data Breach Check
• Protect My Devices
• Secure browser
• App Lock

Its app lock feature, which is not available on the iOS app, can restrict access to sensitive apps hiding your sensitive data and preventing identity theft. The Wi-Fi Checker scans the Wi-Fi connection, and it notifies you if it is safe to use or not. 

How to Set It Up and Uninstall

 Setting up TotalAV Antivirus software is an easy and quick process. 

1-   First, download the software from the download page you get once you complete your registration. The download only takes approximately 2 minutes, and its size will be 34.6 MB. 

2-   After you downloaded it, go to the file location and click on it. It will open up the installation page, and you can click on the Install button.

3-   After that, it will start installing the software, which will take less than 5 minutes to complete

4-   If the installation were successful,  it would open up a login page. Enter the email address and password you used to register for the product. If you enter them correctly, you will be redirected to its dashboard..

5-   Finally, you can enable real-time protection and configure settings to adjust the user experience according to your preference.

To uninstall the software, you can go to the windows start menu, locate the TotalAV icon, right-click on it and click on the uninstall option.

Pricing and Packages

TotalAV has three pricing plans:

• TotalAV Antivirus Pro
• TotalAV Internet Security
• TotalAV Total Security

These are the prices that each plan will cost you.

All these costs are for the first year only, which means TotalAV will automatically renew the price at the regular rate if you fail to cancel or update the plan from the next year onwards. One disadvantage of these subscriptions is the fact that the only payment method available is Paypal. 

You will get a notification about the renewal before 30 days. For all these plans they provide: 

• Real-time antivirus protection
• Malware scanner
• Zero-day cloud scanning
• PAU protectionPhishing scam protection
• Disk cleaner
  
• System Tune-Up
• Browser Manager and Cleaner
• Ransomware protection
• Data breach check
• iOS and Android protection
• 24/7 customer support.
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• Share additional licenses with friends or family.
  

After explaining all the pricing details, let’s have a look at the details of the packaging plans.

TotalAV Free Plan

Currently, TotalAV does not offer any free plans, which seems to be a disadvantage. On the other hand, it provides a huge discount with all the three plans ranging from 80-60%.

TotalAV Pro plan

This plan is the cheapest option out of the three plans, supporting the protection of up to 3 devices. Even if this is a basic plan, it covers all the essential security features listed above. You will not get the safe browsing VPN,  total ad blocker, and password vault for this plan. 

But most good antivirus software like Kaspersky and McAfee also does not provide these features at a 29$ per year rate. On the other hand, Norton provides a password vault for $19 per year but lacks features like data breach checks that TotalAV provides with the pro plan. So we think this is a very affordable plan and an excellent deal for someone looking for just the essential security features.

TotalAV internet security plan

This plan supports the protection of up to 5 devices and comes with a safe browsing VPN with unlimited data. This plan is a better choice if you are looking for an antivirus with a VPN for this price. Although McAfee and Kaspersky provide a free VPN for this price, the data usage is limited. So we think this is a pretty attractive plan that comes with online protection, security, and VPN privacy.

TotalAV Total security plan

TotalAV Total Security plan is the best subscription they provide, which you can protect up to six devices. Apart from all the essentials, it also comes with the VPN, Total AdBlocker, and the password  Vault. With those features, you get a comprehensive set of features for just 59$, which you cannot get from other antivirus software like McAfee, Norton, and Kaspersky at that rate. This is the best choice you need to get 100% complete online protection and security. 

So in our opinion, we think they should provide a free trial option as well. Besides, we see not providing a password vault with its basic plan as a negative thing. 

Customer Support

All their plans include 24/7 customer phone support. But with its basic plan, the only form of contacting them is via email, either by filling out the contact support form and submitting a ticket or directly emailing them.  There is no mention if the live chat support is available in their other two plans.

However, we found that the account provides the following support information for your reference.

• FAQs available in their help center
• Video tutorials
• Recommended articles on different support topics

Overall, we think customer support is an area they need to improve more because it lacks essential support options like live chat support, and the knowledge base needs to be more comprehensive than the current state. So, because of these reasons,

Our Verdict 

According to all the testing we did regarding the key areas of the brand, we think TotalAV is good antivirus software that is worth its prices and the features they offer. We saw the actual use of its tools during our tests like data breach checker, system tune-up tools, and ad blocker.

Despite all its features, there is a lot to improve as well. Especially the customer support, pricing plans, and the web shield feature.

FAQ