Avast Free Antivirus vs Kaspersky Premium Comparison

• Free Antivirus: Free; the mobile apps show third-party ads
• Premium Security for 1 computer and 1 phone, renewal: $77.99 a year, the price the store calls the renewal price
• Premium Security for 1 computer and 1 phone, first year: Intro: $49.08 for the first year
• Premium Security for 10 devices, renewal: $99.99 a year, the price the store calls the renewal price
• Premium Security for 10 devices, first year: Intro: $69.48 for the first year
• Ultimate for 10 devices, renewal: $139.99 a year, the price the store calls the renewal price; $69.48 for the first year

• Standard for 3 devices, renewal: $34.99 a year, the renewal price the store states
• Standard for 3 devices, first year: Intro: $30.99 for the first year
• Plus for 3 devices, renewal: $46.99 a year, the renewal price the store states
• Plus for 3 devices, first year: Intro: $40.99 for the first year
• Premium for 3 devices, renewal: $54.99 a year, the renewal price the store states
• Premium for 3 devices, first year: Intro: $42.99 for the first year

The product privacy notice says the desktop app sends samples of suspicious files and detection metadata to Avast's servers through CommunityIQ, and that it may 'directly analyze and maintain these artifacts in our safe environment'. It also lists the URLs of websites visited, 'malicious and non-malicious', and referrers, kept for 36 months for service provision. The support article says file-sample sharing (CommunityIQ) can be unticked in Settings ▸ General ▸ Personal Privacy. On phones, SMS Guard keeps texts that contain links or come from senders not in your contacts, with personal identifiers removed, for up to five years.

The products and services privacy policy lists what the software can send to Kaspersky: threats detected, information on installed applications, the addresses of websites visited (logins and passwords removed up to the host name), operating system events, Wi-Fi connection data and, in its words, suspicious files that 'can be automatically sent for a more thorough analysis by machine learning-based technologies and, in rare cases, by a malware analyst'. The files are mainly executables; harmless files or parts of them may be sent too, to reduce false positives. The policy says the Kaspersky Security Network Statement and the Marketing Statement list data that users decide to provide by ticking a box in the product settings. Kaspersky says files shared by users in Europe, North and Latin America, the Middle East and several Asia-Pacific countries are processed in two data centres in Zurich, Switzerland.

The Gen Digital privacy notice says 'We do not sell your personal data to third parties', but also that 'Where permitted by applicable law, we may share personal data with third parties for advertising purposes' and that data is used 'to serve you with relevant advertising and content, both on our properties and on third-party properties'. The consent policy says free mobile apps show third-party ads from partners such as AdMob, Amazon, Facebook Audience Network and InMobi, with consent asked at installation and a paid ad-free version. The desktop app uses Google Analytics; the phone apps use Google Firebase, AppsFlyer and Singular. In the free desktop version, sharing app-usage data for Avast's own offers is on by default and cannot be switched off.

The privacy policy says data is used to protect users, to update the antivirus databases, to analyse threats, and to improve products through 'statistical research and analyses' on de-identified data. It also lists 'personalized information and offers from Kaspersky, including ... Kaspersky and third-party products and services, marketing offers, discounts'. Kaspersky may share data within its group and with service providers that supply 'web analytics, data processing, advertising, e-mail distribution, payment processing, order fulfillment'. On Android it processes a hash of a device identifier. The policy version opened is dated 28 February 2022. It states that data can be processed in Russia, China and Belarus among other countries, and that data from users in the EU is processed 'on servers located in the EU and Russia'.

Controls over how Kaspersky develops, tests and releases the antivirus databases for Windows and Unix systems, August 2025 to July 2026

For users in the European Economic Area the controller of personal data is Avast Software s.r.o., Pikrtova 1737/1A, Prague 4, Czech Republic, so EU data protection law applies to it. Avast's parent, Gen Digital Inc., has its privacy team in Tempe, Arizona, and the group's general privacy notice says it may disclose data to public authorities and in legal proceedings. In the US case of 2024 the FTC named Avast Limited, a UK company, and its Czech subsidiary.

Kaspersky calls itself a private international company with its holding company, Kaspersky Labs Limited, in the United Kingdom, and its operating company, AO Kaspersky Lab, in Russia. The privacy policy is issued by AO Kaspersky Lab, Moscow, and names Kaspersky Labs GmbH in Ingolstadt, Germany, as the group's representative for EU data protection law. The US Commerce Department's 2024 entity listing names AO Kaspersky Lab and OOO Kaspersky Group in Russia and Kaspersky Labs Limited in the United Kingdom. Kaspersky says it has no ties to the Russian government and is not obliged to hand over user information under Russian surveillance laws; the Commerce Department found that it 'is subject to the jurisdiction of the Russian Government and must comply with requests for information'.

Avast was founded in Prague in 1988 as Alwil Software. On 12 September 2022 the US company now called Gen Digital, listed on NASDAQ, completed its acquisition of Avast; the Avast website and policies now carry Gen Digital's name.

Kaspersky was founded in 1997 and has its headquarters in Moscow. It describes itself as privately held; neither its privacy policy nor its FAQ names the owners of the UK holding company. The US Treasury sanctioned twelve board members and senior executives of AO Kaspersky Lab in June 2024; Kaspersky states that neither the company, its subsidiaries nor its chief executive was designated.