User guide

Product Review: Mac Security ‐ July/August 2014 www.av-comparatives.org
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The pop-up alert seems rather uninformative
to us; we suggest “Malware deleted” would be
clearer. In any event, the alert disappears so
quickly that most users will not have time to
read it. However, with regard to the scan,
quarantining all items detected as malware
strikes us as ideal for inexperienced users, as
there are no decisions to be made and no
chance of making a mistake. Expert users can
retrieve individual files from quarantine if
necessary.
Malware protection test
Mac malware detected: 91%
False positives: 0
Windows malware detected: 100%
Help
Clicking on the question-mark symbol in the
bottom right-hand corner of the program
window opens Avira’s local help service. This
is context-sensitive, that is to say, the help
page that opens relates to the page of the
program window currently being viewed. For
example, if the user clicks on Scheduler in the
left-hand column of the window, and then on
the question-mark button, the Help window
will open the article on scheduling scans:
Clicking on “Avira Help” in the Help menu
opens the start page of the local help, which
has a prominent link to the Avira Help Center,
its online knowledge base. This could be
described as an online manual, covering
installation, configuration and use of the
program. The start page is an index of the
various topics; clicking on a topic takes the
user directly to the relevant explanation.
We found Avira’s local and online help
services to be easily accessible, with clear and
straightforward instructions.
Verdict
Avira Free Antivirus for Mac combines good
malware protection with a very well-designed
interface.
The design of the program is clean and
simple, and provides easy access to all the
essentials. We particularly liked the “Show
details” link in the main window, and the fact
that admin credentials are required to switch
protection off, but not to switch it on.
Avira’s detection score of 91% of Mac malware
samples is good. It had no false positives, and
recognised all of our Windows malware
samples.