AVG vs Avira – which will do a better job protecting your PC? Last time we have compared Avast Free Antivirus vs Avira Free Antivirus and this time we will compare AVG’s free antivirus with Avira Free Antivirus.

Market share

We will start with market-share. This is a good indicator of how popular particular antivirus brands are. As stated in previous comparison, Avast acquired AVG a while ago and its total user-base round up to 400 million users around the world. However, to make it more fair, we will compare only user-base of AVG prior to the acquisition back in September 2016.

Market-share of AVG is currently around 8.77% (January 2017) whilst Avira protects 7.53% of market-share world-wide. The difference is rather small however if you are picky about the number of users, AVG will be a clear choice.

If we combine market-share of Avast and AVG which are now one company, we will get to 27% which is a good indicator of stability and popularity.

Source: Opswat.com

System impact

A good antivirus shouldn’t slow down your PC. The more system-demanding is antivirus the less resources will be available for your work on computer.

AVG AntiVirus Free is quite lightweight and didn’t slow down our test computer too much. Test PC with AVG AntiVirus Free 2017 was able to boot-up in 27 seconds which is considered above average result.

Avira’s Free Antivirus boot-time was 2 seconds better and took 25 seconds. This is a decent result and it is most likely that you wouldn’t feel any difference between AVG AntiVirus Free 2017 and Avira Free Antivirus 2017.

Installation process

Although installation is a one-time process it has also impact on overall user experience. In our test we have measured the total time of pre-downloaded antivirus from the point when installation started to the point user interface appeared after successful installation. All installations are measured as regular one and no custom installation was selected.

AVG Antivirus Free 2017 took over 7 minutes in total to finish installation. This might be due to fact that installer offered Google Chrome during installation and it was installed with AVG Zen which is something as hub for AVG products. Avira Free Antivirus 2017 achieved significantly better result with total installation time of 4 minutes and 39 seconds.

Size

When it comes to installation size we measure the size of installer and size of the program after it is installed on hard-disk. Installer size when it is downloaded from website is not really a decision factor. Majority of installers are quite small and once executed, additional files are downloaded during installation. AVG and Avira installers are quite comparable when downloaded from website with AVG being approximately 1MB smaller compared to Avira’s installer (4.4MB). The main difference comes once you install both programs on hard-disk. Avira Free Antivirus 2017 took only around 400MB while AVG AntiVirus Free needed almost double space (770MB). This is still around the average in the antivirus industry and unless you are running a PC with very limited resources, you don’t have to pay a lot of attention to this factor.

Detection rates

The most important factor of any antivirus remains detection rates which define how many of malicious samples are detected by the antivirus. The higher the percentage, the better is final result. Although it is important to state that most probably, you will not notice any differences below 1% in detection rate in a real world.

Avira Free Antivirus 2017 achieved really good detection rate in a file-detection test by AV-Comparatives and detected 99.9% of malicious samples. This is an outstanding result and with this level of protection you can be sure that your PC is well protected. AVG AntiVirus Free is running on the same engine as Avast Free Antivirus and therefore was able to detect 99.6% which is also top result in antivirus industry.

Summary

As you can see, both AVG and Avast have a lot to offer. If you are looking for a free antivirus, you should definitely include these two brands into consideration. If you want to decide between these two, here’s an overall comparison.

AVG Free AntivirusAvira Free AntivirusMarket share9%7%Boot-time27s.25s.Installation-time7:10 min.4:39 min.Installer size3.5 MB4.4 MBSize on hard-disk0.77 GB0.4 GBDetection rates99.6%99.9%False positives134