The 3 Best Norton Antivirus Alternatives in 2024

1. TotalAV Antivirus

SecurityScore:

9.7 /10

View Packages Links to TotalAV Antivirus

How We Review

Product Specs

Virus Detection	Yes
Malware Detection	Yes
Firewall	No
On-demand Scanning	Yes
On-access Scanning	Yes
Behavior-based monitoring	Yes

View Packages Links to TotalAV Antivirus

An Overview of TotalAV

When you’re looking for the single piece of software that gives you the most malware protection, TotalAV is it. All of the core functionality you expect from an antivirus, like defense against Trojans and worms, comes with your TotalAV subscription. On top of that basic functionality, TotalAV also improved the performance of our computer and helped us step up our privacy. And compared to Norton, we liked the interface of TotalAV a lot better.

Bundling Options

While you’re shopping for antivirus software, you’ll notice that almost all of them offer huge discounts on your first year and then jack up the price when you renew. Unfortunately, TotalAV is no different. To cut through that marketing ploy, here’s a breakdown of TotalAV’s bundling options and pricing:

App Experience

The app experience of TotalAV is one of its best qualities. When we first opened it up, it ran a smart scan immediately. That took a little while since it ran a complete system scan to check the current health of our computer. This scan checked for:

• Malware
• Trojans
• Junk files
• Duplicate files
• Wasteful startup programs
• Tracking cookies
• Potentially unwanted programs (PUPs)

You know how we mentioned TotalAV can help improve the performance of your computer? Well, it starts by getting rid of any junk or duplicate files. That clears up space on your hard drive, which can make your computer run smoother if it’s low on space. It also turns off any startup programs you don’t need to get your computer booting up faster. And we must say, these features worked. TotalAV cleared a few gigabytes of files and turned off three startup programs when we tested it.

2. Surfshark Antivirus

SecurityScore:

8.9 /10

View Plans Links to Surfshark Antivirus

How We Review

Product Specs

Virus Detection	Yes
Malware Detection	Yes
Firewall	No
On-demand Scanning	Yes
On-access Scanning	Yes
Behavior-based monitoring	Yes

View Plans Links to Surfshark Antivirus

An Overview of Surfshark

We all know Surfshark for its VPN. That used to be all they offered. But a few years ago, Surfshark introduced its brand new antivirus software. Since then, Surfshark created a few other personal security tools that we also find useful. To our surprise, the new tools get pretty close to the quality of Surfshark’s VPN, which is one of our favorite VPNs on the market. So that’s saying a lot.

Bundling Options

If you’re like us, you switch providers every time you finish the first year’s introductory pricing. We have a hard time justifying a 300 percent increase in price to renew. Well, Surfshark solves that problem. Their prices are a bit more than Norton when comparing it to the introductory pricing for Norton, but Surfshark doesn’t have separate introductory and renewal pricing. Here’s an overview of Surfshark’s plans:

Note that there’s also Surfshark Starter, but that plan doesn’t include any antivirus software. It only gives you access to Surfshark VPN.

App Experience

While the user experience isn’t quite as nice as TotalAV, Surfshark keeps their antivirus more lightweight than TotalAV and Norton. And that really comes in handy for device protection. Antivirus software is only effective when it’s running. So, if you always turn your antivirus software off when it slows down your computer, it won’t be able to do its job. This usually happens to us when we try to play games on our computer while our antivirus is working. Surfshark never runs into this issue.

Another nice feature of the Surfshark app is the option to run targeted scans. Some antivirus software only lets you run quick scans or full system scans, which can take hours. We run targeted scans on every attachment we download from an email before we open it.

3. Avast Antivirus

SecurityScore:

8.5 /10

View Plans Links to Avast Antivirus

How We Review

Product Specs

Virus Detection	Yes
Malware Detection	Yes
Firewall	Yes
On-demand Scanning	Yes
On-access Scanning	Yes
Behavior-based monitoring	Yes

View Plans Links to Avast Antivirus

An Overview of Avast

Do you need an antivirus solution for your entire family on a budget? If so, Avast delivers. They might not have the absolute lowest prices, but their plans cover a lot of devices for the price. The software is also built to be easy to use, meaning anyone in your family, no matter how many times they ask you to fix the printer, can put it to good use.

Bundling Options

Once you get an Avast subscription, using the software is easy. But they don’t make it easy to choose the right plan for you. Some of their antivirus plans are even on different pages so we had to use both of our monitors to figure out which plan we wanted. We don’t want you to have those same issues, so here are all of Avast’s plans that include antivirus software:

One thing to note on the pricing is the Avast One family plans support up to 30 devices, while the family plans for Avast Premium Security and Avast Ultimate support up to 10 devices. The individual plans for Avast One support up to three devices and the individual plans for Avast Premium Security and Avast Ultimate support one device. Hey, we warned you that the pricing is confusing. Hopefully that clears things up a bit though.

App Experience

When we tested Avast, we felt like we had to dig a bit to get to their more advanced features. But, once we thought about it, we realized this was probably intentional. Avast is aimed at beginners, so its interface is made to be as simple as possible. That means tucking advanced features behind the curtain to better highlight the features used most.

The home screen has five main buttons. One to run a Smart Scan immediately and one for each of Avast’s functions. This makes it easy for anyone to use the full function of the app without getting overwhelmed by customizable options. It also translated over into the mobile app, so when we taught our parents how to use the desktop app, they could then easily figure out the mobile app.