TotalAV Antivirus Review 2024: A Simple, Effective Antivirus Software

TotalAV is an award-winning antivirus that has been vigorously tested by us and various third-party testers.

If you're looking for an all-in-one option for all your security needs, TotalAV's range of plans could work for you. Best of all, it's super easy to use and doesn't take forever to scan your system.

But what exactly makes it one of the best antivirus software available? Let's dig into the details so you can see if it's right for you.

TotalAV antivirus overview

Price	$29.00–$49.00/yr (first year only)
Free plan	Yes
# of devices protected	4 - 8
Malware scans	Manual and scheduled
Real-time protection	Yes
EICAR test results	2/3
Firewall	No
Phishing protection	Yes
Compatibility	Windows, Mac, Chrome, Edge, Opera, Amazon Fire, Safari
Extras	Password manager, ad blocker, VPN
24/7 customer support	Yes
Learn more	Get TotalAV

Our experience

Our experience testing TotalAV was overall incredibly smooth. The user interface is easy to use, there were no false positives to scare us, and we were pleasantly surprised with the additional recommendations the program made to clean up our disk space.

When you open up the program for the first time, TotalAV automatically turns on its real-time protection, which is nice to see. If we wanted to run a scan, the button was easy to access right on the homepage of the app:

While running the smart scan, TotalAV showed a progress bar which was interesting to watch as the files it reviewed ticked up.

Then, once complete, we got a detailed list of all the different areas to check and what the recommended next steps were.

Finding the full scan was a bit more difficult, as you had to go into the sidebar menu in order to reach it. But we were happy that it only took us about 18 minutes for the full scan. The results were more focused on malware and didn't have as much interesting recommendations as the Smart Scan.

When we were testing the software using fake virus files, we were always notified with a desktop notification that something was found. From there, it was easy to choose to either quarantine or delete the file, making it a smooth procedure.

Overall, we think TotalAV is one of the easiest to use antivirus software out there. Its scans were fast and detected exactly what we expected it to, even going above and beyond to recommend some space optimization steps.

Who is TotalAV best for?

• Recommended for anyone concerned with online privacy and eradicating computer viruses — but with a budget in mind. It's ideal for one or two people who each have one to three devices.

TotalAV is perfect for anyone ranging from first-time antivirus users to seasoned pros. The product offers an intuitive user experience that makes accessing its features simple and pleasant.

Its useful security features, such as real-time antivirus protection, anti-phishing protection, malware scanning, and a virtual private network (VPN), put it on par with any competitive antivirus program available today. And at $29.00/yr (first year only), that’s hard to beat.

You can use TotalAV for anything, from ridding your device of malicious files to ensuring constant protection while you browse the web. Features such as Password Vault make managing passwords across every login easy, and Total Adblock allows you to turn off pesky advertisements to make your online experiences better.

If you want to go basic, you can opt for the most foundational antivirus subscription, Antivirus Pro, for $29.00/yr (first year only) and forgo some of the more advanced features, such as a VPN.

TotalAV prices and subscriptions

TotalAV ranges between $29.00–$49.00/yr (first year only), offering three different subscription plans: Antivirus Pro, Internet Security, and Total Security.

We had a subscription to Total Security for this review — the product’s most expensive and comprehensive option. With 100% complete online protection and security, Total Security comes with every premium feature available on TotalAV, including the browser cleanup tool, data breach protection, and thorough malware scans.

With Internet Security as the middle tier and Antivirus Pro as the basic tier, you’ll pay less and get fewer features on both. At the time of this writing, TotalAV is offering its three plans at the following promotional prices:

• Antivirus Pro: $29.00/yr (first year only) and renews at $99/yr
• Internet Security: $39.00/yr (first year only) and renews at $129/yr
• Total Security: $49.00/yr (first year only) and renews at $149/yr

Compared to other popular security software, TotalAV is actually on the cheaper end, and it provides significant value for its lower pricing. And, like other antivirus software, TotalAV also offers a 30-day money-back guarantee in case you aren’t happy with its product.

	Antivirus Pro	Internet Security	Total Security
Price per year	$29.00/yr (first year only)	$39.00/yr (first year only)	$49.00/yr (first year only)
# devices supported	4	6	8
Manual and auto scan
Real-time protection
Phishing protection
Ransomware protection
Disk cleaner
Browser cleaner
Performance optimization tools
VPN
Ad blocker
Password manager
Learn more	View plan	View plan	View plan

TotalAV security features

TotalAV boasts standout features, including its scans, VPN, password manager, and real-time protection offering called WebShield. All of these tools are quick to set up, intuitive to navigate, and start working right away. There is very little friction between the user and understanding what the service is delivering.

The main downside is the lack of a firewall feature.

Malware and antivirus scan

TotalAV offers two types of manual malware scans: a Quick Scan (also referred to as a Smart Scan) and a System Scan. I first opted for the Quick Scan, which took just a couple of minutes on my device, and TotalAV let me know it had detected malware even though the scan was still performing.

Once the Quick Scan is complete, TotalAV displays the threats it has detected on your device. It then gives you the option to “Take Action” which can include quarantining, removing, whitelisting, or skipping the malware. 

I opted to quarantine the offending file, and TotalAV then prompted me to walk through its System Tune-Up series of bonus features such as Junk Cleaner, Duplicate Finder, and more, which are described below.

Under Malware Scan in the left menu of the user interface is Quarantine. I navigated to that feature to see what to do about the offending piece of malware TotalAV discovered. 

The system gives you the option to select your quarantined items and clean them — warning you that this action cannot be undone before you confirm you want to delete them from your device. Once you confirm the clean, TotalAV says your quarantine is empty.

Performing a full System Scan takes significantly longer than a Quick Scan, but not it’s prohibitively long. Whereas the Quick Scan took about two minutes on my device, the System Scan took about 18 minutes, and it seemed to slow down significantly when it encountered threats. When complete, the System Scan offers the same options as the Quick Scan for the detected threats.

I chose to remove them all, which took just a second, and the system then prompted me to walk through Junk Cleaner — similarly to how it had been done after the Quick Scan.

Real-time malware protection

TotalAV offers real-time protection by default when you download it, which means it'll make sure any file you download will automatically be scanned for malicious intent and blocked if necessary. This is extremely helpful as you don't need to run a scan everyday to feel like you're protected.

During our tests, the real-time protection was able to block all "malicious" files from downloading automatically.

WebShield phishing protection

Another automatic feature that's providing real-time protection is WebShield. This blocks or warns you whenever you're opening a suspicious or low-trust website, helping stop the malware before you even go to download it.

You can whitelist websites that you believe are incorrectly blocked, or even submit suspicious websites that you think should be blocked in the future.

Ransomware protection

TotalAV's real-time protection, WebShield, helps prevent ransomware, though it's still recommended you back up your files regularly.

Additionally, TotalAV’s real-time protection secures you against spyware and adware.

TotalAV VPN

If you’re subscribed to the Internet Security or Total Security plan with TotalAV, you can turn on Total VPN to connect to a secure server when you go online.

A VPN hides your browsing activity, IP address, and personal data while you’re using a Wi-Fi network by employing an encrypted connection. While this is especially important to use if you are accessing public Wi-Fi, it’s still a good idea to use it on your home network. You’ll want to use a VPN if you are concerned with your online privacy because the VPN makes it more difficult for your web traffic to be tracked.

When you use a VPN, your traffic is routed through a specific server. In this case, when we turned on TotalAV’s VPN, it connected us to a server in Seattle, WA.

Total Adblock

The Total Security plan on TotalAV comes with Total Adblock, which is a feature you’ll want to use if you’re inundated with ads you’d prefer not to see while you browse the internet. Ad blockers integrate with your web browser and use filters to block certain content for a safe browsing experience.

How does the ad blocker decide what you see and don’t see? They typically include a set of rules to block traditional ads, but they offer a way to change the categories of ads you see, so you can activate or deactivate what you want to alter what is blocked.

Using an ad blocker provides a variety of benefits, including:

• Speeding up your browsing experience. Ads can dramatically slow down your load time on certain web pages. Pop-up ads are one of the worst offenders.
• Boosting security. Some ads are actually more harmful than they appear and might contain malware. Clicking on these ads leads you to websites that can put your devices and data at risk.

TotalAV’s ad blocker is dubbed Total Adblock. It promises to block pop-ups, banner ads, video ads, and third-party trackers that follow you across the internet.

We chose to install Total Adblock for Chrome, which prompted us to add the TotalAV Safe Site Chrome extension to my browser.

Once installed and pinned on our browser, clicking on the icon provides a clear way to turn on multiple features of Total Adblock, including Ad Block Pro, Clear Cookies, and Clear History. (WebShield was already turned on.) Clicking on the bottom right information icons provides more details about each service.

We visited a few sites to try out the ad blocker and noticed in a few places that where ads might otherwise be, there was nothing. For example, this site of Seattle ramen restaurants has a big blank space to the right — presumably where the ads would be:

Additionally, we now notice green checkmarks next to the green shield checkmarks in Google during a search. They signify that TotalAV views the website as no threat:

Password Vault

Password managers are useful to keep track of your logins and passwords for all your online accounts. You’ll want to use one if you’re invested in creating strong, long, unique passwords for all your login requirements. It’s unrealistic to expect anyone to remember truly secure passwords with multiple special characters, so a password manager stores them and enables you to easily plug them in when needed.

It’s important to use a tool like a password manager to avoid using weak passwords that put you at risk. The Guardian cited experts who say hackers need just two seconds to crack an 11-character password made up of numbers, and they cited a study revealing how millions of people use four things in their passwords: a pet’s name, football team names, the word “password,” and the series “123456.”^[1]

The Total Security plan comes with a password manager called Password Vault. It says it provides a safe location to securely store your passwords, which you can then access by setting up a master password. It also promises to “easily generate secure and unique passwords for your accounts” as well as auto-filling and saving login details using Chrome and Firefox web browsers.

Opting to set up Password Vault prompts you to begin by setting up a Master Password:

Once you’ve set your Master Password, the system tells you how many passwords it detects are stored in your browser and asks if you’d like to import them into the Password Vault. If you select to do this, you’ll need to input your device’s login password. The system then tells you that if you forget your Master Password, you will not be able to recover your stored passwords.

Once in the vault, you’ll see a list of your stored passwords in your browser. Each password has four options, indicated by four icons: an eye, a paper stack, a trash can, and a pencil. I was only able to access the trash can function — which is to delete that associated password — because TotalAV crashed every time I tried to select one of the other icons.

Additional features

The TotalAV Total Security plan comes with a set of bonus features, including:

• Junk Cleaner: This feature scans your system for junk files that are taking up disk space.
• Duplicate File Finder: Any duplicate images, videos, music, or other files can be quickly and easily deleted.
• Large & Old Files: The system locates large files that can be removed as well as seldom-used ones that might be taking up disk space unnecessarily.
• Disk Usage: You get a summary of disk usage to see where you might be wasting space. Using this feature requires you to give the system access to things like contacts, reminders, photos, documents, downloads, and more. The scan takes several minutes to complete, and offers you a summary in a clear format:

• Browser Cleaner: This feature finds the browser history of every website you have visited and helps you view and manage your cookies.
• Startup Programs: A startup program is an application that launches when you log into your device. This feature finds them and helps you control which ones start when your computer starts.
• Uninstaller: Scan your device for software installed and remove any unwanted applications safely. The user interface presents your list of applications and easily allows you to clean selected ones: 

• When you select to clean your device, Uninstaller lets you know how much disk space you’ve saved.
• There is also a feature called Identity Protection located under “Internet Security” in the user interface that offers “next level monitoring, alerts and restoration should your personal details fall into the hands of cybercriminals.” It includes theft insurance, lost wallet insurance, child monitoring, and more, and it requires you to purchase the service as an add-on to Total Security.

TotalAV test results

We put TotalAV to the test ourselves using EICAR tests, plus consolidated the results from trusted third-party testers. Overall, the program did well in its tests, with at least 90% performance on most categories.

Scan speeds

• Result: Fast

TotalAV has two types of scans available: Smart and System-wide (also referred to as a Malware scan).

Both types of scans were fast and gave us good results with no false positives. The Smart scan also functions as a junk cleanup, giving us suggestions for cleaning up our disks and saving some space.

Scan type	Time spent
Smart scan	2 minutes
System-wide scan	18 minutes

EICAR test results

• Result: 2/3

One of the best ways to test antivirus software yourself safely is available thanks to the EICAR (European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research) test. You can download specific types of files that mimic malware to test if your antivirus will catch it. The best part is the files aren't actually unsafe, so you don't have to worry.

When we tested TotalAV against the EICAR test, it passed with flying colors when it came to malware detection, but it wasn't able to block the phishing page.

Test	TotalAV score
Malware detection	Pass
Drive-by malware downloads	Pass
Phishing pages detection	Fail

Though TotalAV didn't block the EICAR phishing page, it was able to warn us of a "low-trust site" when we were using our computer normally, giving us a desktop notification:

So this feature isn't entirely bust, though we'd rather see it reliably operate consistently, of course.

AV-TEST results

AV-TEST is a popular third-party testing site that evaluates antivirus software for businesses and home users. It uses the most current, publicly available version of the products to test and focus on realistic test scenarios. Below are the test results for TotalAV in AV-TEST’s three categories: protection, performance, and usability.

Evaluation is based on a point system where all products can achieve a maximum of six points in each of the three categories, so 18 total points is the best possible test result. 

TotalAV received perfect scores on its macOS program and Android app. It got some minor dings for performance on Windows, but otherwise it worked great across platforms. 

On its Windows platform, TotalAV received a lower performance score due to causing slower installation of frequently-used devices. The industry average was 16% drops on standard PCs and TotalAV caused 26% drops on standard PCs. 

Test type	Windows 11 score	macOS Monterey score	Android 11 score
Protection	6/6	6/6	6/6
Performance	5.5/6	6/6	6/6
Usability	6/6	6/6	6/6
Date	August 2024	June 2024	September 2024
Link to test	Link	Link	Link

AV-Comparatives test results

• Result: Good protection, mild impact

Like AV-TEST, AV-Comparatives is a trusted third-party tester that provides certification for antivirus software. It puts the product through a vigorous test in mobile security, real-world protection, and malware protection, ending up with a score out of 100% based on how many malicious files the software could block.

AV-Comparatives also tests the impact the software has on your system, with higher numbers in this category indicating higher impact.

Test type	Mobile security	Real-world protection	Malware protection	Performance impact (Lower is better)
Score	N/A	98.7%	99.98%	16.2
Platform	N/A	Windows	Windows	Windows
Date	N/A	October 2024	September 2024	October 2024
Link	N/A	Link	Link	Link

TotalAV has not yet been tested for mobile security, but its two other protection tests shows promising results. It did have higher impact than the other antivirus software, however, coming in as the 6th most impactful. For comparison, McAfee won this round with an impact score of 2.6.

SE Labs test results

• Result: 97%

SE Labs is a third-party tester specializing in all things cybersecurity. Its quarterly reports dig into  the software's overall accuracy. So the higher the score, the more accurate the software was.

Test type	Home Anti-Malware Protection
Total accuracy rating	97%
Date	2021 Q1
Link	Link

TotalAV got a commendable 97%, but hasn't been tested since the first quarter of 2021. This got it the highest rating of a AAA score, but there were still 9 other antivirus with a higher accuracy rating, with Sophos, Microsoft Defender, AVG, and ESET grabbing the coveted 100% accuracy score.

TotalAV compatibility

TotalAV works with both Windows and macOS, and it offers mobile apps for Android and iOS devices. Here’s the complete list of devices and platforms that TotalAV works on:

• Windows 7
• Windows 8
• Windows 10
• Windows 11
• macOS X 10.9 Mavericks and higher
  
• Android 6+
  
• iOS 9.3+

And it offers ad-blocking browser extensions for:

• Chrome
• Edge
  
• Opera
• Safari

TotalAV customer support

TotalAV offers 24/7 technical support and customer service through phone, email, or live chat. The service also has a support help center section on its website, which includes video tutorials and FAQs. You can submit a support help ticket through the FAQ section.

We've had an okay time reaching their customer service live chat, though we have received conflicting information about whether or not it offers a firewall. For more basic questions, the service is okay, but there's room to be desired.

Top alternatives

Want to see how TotalAV stacks up to the top competition? We've tested and reviewed these three highly-rated antivirus solutions.

TotalAV FAQs

Bottom line: Is TotalAV legit?

TotalAV is award-winning antivirus software for good reason. We were delighted by how easy to use the program is. We anticipated a rather clunky, complicated, user-unfriendly experience based on possible misconceptions of modern antivirus software.

The top benefits include both its ease of use and its efficacy. we're confident it will do what it says it will do, as it's a highly rated software. The main drawbacks were the lack of a firewall.

This program was so easy to use that we would recommend it even for those who are technology-averse. Overall, anyone concerned with their online privacy and device security — while staying within budget — is a great candidate for using TotalAV.

Want to take a deep dive into how TotalAV compares against other top-rated antivirus? Check out our series of comparisons:

• TotalAV vs. AVG
• TotalAV vs. Bitdefender
• TotalAV vs. Malwarebytes
• TotalAV vs. McAfee
• TotalAV vs. Avast