TotalAV vs PC Protect: Which is best?

TotalAV is an antivirus program that protects over 25 million people globally and is considered by many as the best antivirus software available. The company headquarters are located in Waterlooville, Hampshire, in the UK. PC Protect was founded at the beginning of 2016, making it a relatively new addition to the antivirus sector. The headquarters of PC Protect is in Hampshire, England.

In this comparison of TotalAV vs PC Protect, I performed a series of tests to gauge the effectiveness of each program’s malware protection capabilities. These tests are designed to see how well the real-time and on-demand scanners operate, and how much they influence PC speed and overall performance during day-to-day tasks.

If you’re in a hurry, I can tell you that TotalAV is the winner. Want to know why? If you’re interested in learning more about these two UK-based antivirus products, keep reading for a full comparison.

Summary: TotalAV vs PC Protect

TotalAV

• Ransomware protection
• System tune-Up
• Cloud scanning

PC Protect

• Effective on-demand scanner
• Scans do not heavily impact PC speed
• System tune-up tools

BEST DEAL FOR TOTALAV:Save up to $80 on TotalAV’s award-winning antivirus software.

BEST DEAL FOR PC PROTECT:Save up to 75% and get a 30-day money-back guarantee on all subscriptions.

Background

TotalAV

TotalAV’s CEO, Billy Thomas, and his team formed the company in 2016 and began creating internet security products. As a consequence, they’re now the creators of award-winning software and a Microsoft Virus Initiative member firm.

PC Protect

Chris Phillips founded Protected.net the company behind PCProtect in 2016.  The Protected.net team has grown to 55 people, and its product has passed over 35 independent industry tests. It is based in the UK and mainly serves the consumer antivirus market.

TotalAV vs PC Protect Pricing

Antivirus software is not something that everyone welcomes paying for, but paying for antivirus can significantly decrease certain dangers. Free versions are sometimes inadequate and may not provide sufficient protection.

TotalAV provides a free version of the program as well as a few paid editions, as shown in the table below. Paid plans provide extra protection and allow you to cover more devices. With the premium versions, you may safeguard up to six devices.

TotalAV Antivirus

The free antivirus from TotalAV can perform on-demand scans to remove malware, viruses, adware, and spyware threats. According to the TotalAV website, the free version doesn’t include the real-time scanner, which is classified as a ‘Pro’ version feature. It’s not that uncommon for real-time scanning not to be included. If you want full protection, you should consider the premium versions of TotalAV, as outlined below.

TotalAV Antivirus Pro

The first paid tier from TotalAV is TotalAV Antivirus Pro. It includes real-time scanning to protect against threats from the internet. It also protects against phishing, ransomware, and includes system tune-up tools. It costs £99.99 per year, but there is a discount of £70 that reduces the cost to £29 for the initial year of subscription. This package can cover three devices.

TotalAV Internet Security

The next product in the TotalAV lineup is TotalAV Internet Security. It includes everything in the previous tiers but it also adds in a VPN. The TotalAV VPN offers over 70 servers in more than 30 locations around the world. This makes it a useful tool, but there are VPNs out there that have many more locations, better speeds, and additional features. This bundle covers up to five devices.

TotalAV Total Security

TotalAV Total Security is the top line product from TotalAV and it includes all the features mentioned above in the previous tiers, plus an ad blocker and a password manager. This suite includes protection for up to six different devices.

PCProtect

PC Protect’s antivirus product is called PC Security. It normally costs $130 per year (£99 / year) to protect up to two devices.

As the table shows, the product lineup is as basic as it gets! There’s no free version, and there is only a single version of the paid product available.

At time of writing, PC Protect is available with an 80 percent discount on the first year. The first 12 months cost $25 (£19) after the discount is applied. If you do not wish to renew at the full fee, cancel the auto-renewal.

PC Protect does not allow for any flexibility in terms of the number of devices you wish to protect in a single subscription, nor does it offer the ability to extend coverage for additional years at a discounted rate.

Effectiveness against malware

When evaluating antivirus software, the most important element is whether it can guard against common virus and malware threats. I conducted a few tests with several sample malware files and three active apps containing malware, including adware and trojans.

My experiments will test how well the real-time scanner defends against these dangers when downloaded from the internet to the PC in real-time. Then I’ll see how effective the on-demand system scans are at detecting malicious files already installed on the machine.

Real-time scanning results

First, I put the real-time scanners of PCProtect and TotalAV up against four EICAR files (The European Institute for Computer Antivirus Research), and the three live samples.

TotalAV blocked one EICAR sample but allowed the other three. All live samples were detected, but not blocked from being downloaded. It was able to successfully stop the three live malware samples from operating on the system.

As the table shows, PC Protect failed to block all of the four EICAR samples in real-time. Its real-time scanner fared admirably against the live malware threats, though, blocking all three dangerous applications.

On-demand scans

On-demand scans go through your computer’s data looking for viruses and malware that need to be removed. To see how effective each was in detecting EICAR malware and the three live samples, I used each antivirus to run a quick system check and a more thorough scan.

PCProtect’s quick scan took 14 minutes to complete but found all of the viruses (EICAR and live samples).

The TotalAV quick scan took 29 minutes, making it the longest quick scan I’ve tested to date.TotalAV’s quick scan found all four of the EICAR files and one of the live malware samples.

Both antivirus’ quick scans were among the few I’ve tested that have had any sort of success in turning up malware. It’s debatable if TotalAV’s can really be classed as a quick scan, though, as some other antivirus software manages a full scan in the same timeframe.

During the full system scans, both providers found all the files.

I also wanted to check how long the full scans took to complete and how many files they managed to check in that time. TotalAV spent 94 minutes scanning the entire system, checking 1,200,000 items. PCProtect checked 1,000,000 files in 44 minutes during its full scan.

TotalAV goes further into the system scanning an extra 200,000 items compared to PCProtect. It does, however, take significantly longer to complete its scan.

To see if other top antivirus testing sites agreed with my findings, I looked at how well PCProtect and TotalAV were regarded by AV-Comparatives.

AV-Comparatives results

AV-Comparatives does a variety of tests on antiviral software for personal and business usage. For this analysis, I’m going to concentrate on the Real World Protection Test and the Malware Protection Test.

AV-Comparatives’ Real World Protection Test between July and October 2021 pitted a variety of antivirus products against 743 malware test scenarios. In this test, TotalAV safeguarded against 98.7 percent of threats and recorded one false alarm. PCProtect was not included in this test.

The most recent findings for the second type of test, Malware Protection, were released in September 2021. TotalAV has a 91.6 percent offline detection rate, a 94.2% online detection rate, and a 99.98 percent online protection rating in this test. It also recorded three false alarms in this test. TotalAV performed comparatively well in this test.

Again, PCProtect was not included in the results. This is somewhat unsurprising given that it is a very small vendor and one of the more recent additions to the antivirus industry.

Impact on PC performance

System slowdowns and freeze ups are not acceptable to most users. To see how big of an impact TotalAV and PCProtect had on my PC, I kept track of how much system resource usage increased throughout scans.

The table below shows the results of the quick scan on system resources.

TotalAV shows a 13 percent rise in CPU utilization. Disc utilization decreased from 332 MB/S to 75 MB/s. Memory utilization increased by 25 percent during the quick scan. PCProtect shows a jump of 46 percent in CPU utilization, a three percent increase in memory utilization, and an increase in disk utilization from 40 MB/S to 240 MB/s.

The results of full scans for both providers are shown in the table below.

The complete scan by TotalAV generated a 19 percent increase in CPU consumption, memory utilization increased by 25 percent. Disc use decreased from 332 MB/s to 101 MB/s.

PCProtect recorded a 50 percent rise in CPU utilization, a 2 percent decrease in memory use, with a small spike in disc utilization from 40 MB/s to 80 MB/s.

As I did in the malware protection section, I’d like to compare my results to those of a respected testing facility.

AV-Comparatives assesses performance by measuring the speed at which a user can perform routine operations on a PC while an antivirus scan is running in the background.

The tasks that were measured were as follows:

• Downloading files
• Browsing websites
• File Copying: first and subsequent run
• Installing and uninstalling applications
• Archiving and unarchiving
• Launching applications: first and subsequent run

The most recent test took place in October 2021.

TotalAV was scored as very fast in five of the eight test categories. It was only rated as mediocre for performance in file copying on the first run, installing apps, and launching apps on the first run.

PCProtect was not included in the test.

TotalAV vs PC Protect Features

Which package offers the most advantageous benefits to its users? Each has its unique set of features and tools, which are listed below

TotalAV Antivirus Pro

• Ransomware protection
• Protection against phishing scams
• Protection against adware and spyware
• Free up system space
• System tune-up
• Web shield extension
• Browser cleaner and manager
• Cloud scanning

PCProtect

• Real-Time Protection
• Safe Browsing VPN
• Next-gen cloud scanning protection
• Protection against Phishing Scams
• Protection Against Adware & Spyware
• Free Up System Space with Disk Cleaner
• System Tune-Up Optimization Tools
• Web Shield Extension
• Browser Cleaner & Manager

We have covered some of the main features in more detail below.

PCProtect

• Web Shield Extension: Safely redirects you away from websites that may pose a threat to your system.
• System Tune-Up Optimization Tools: Identifies any potential areas that could lead to your devices performing better and lasting longer.
• Safe Browsing VPN: Enhances and secures your online browsing sessions and unlocks restricted content.

TotalAV Total Security

• Cloud scanning: Protects against zero-day malware threats, ensuring your device is scanned and protected quickly.
• System tune-up: Identifies any potential areas that could lead to maximizing the performance and speed of your device.
• Protection against phishing scams: Blocks the latest phishing URLs to protect you against malicious scams that may target your device.

Signup and installation

Once you’ve decided on a purchase, TotalAV will lead you right to the checkout. It displays just how much money you’re saving, and it also indicates that you have a ‘free tune up’ and ‘free extra devices’ added to the package, as well as the typical costs of these.

TotalAV are fairly transparent with their renewal policy, though you have to click an information icon to get the details. It states that the company will protect your device continuously by auto-renewing your subscription at the full price each year on the renewal date unless you cancel it. TotalAV do state they will send you a reminder email 30 days before renewal is due, but be sure to cancel if you don’t want to pay the full fee.

Before you get to the checkout section of PCProtect to see pricing and what’s included, you have to sign up with your email address and set a password. This is very strange and the only antivirus provider website where I have encountered this practice. I can only assume it is designed to capture details and retarget site visitors who don’t complete a purchase. However, placing this as a barrier to even getting to the checkout seems a really strange approach and will likely put off many users from finding out more. My own feelings were that this was quite intrusive and unnecessary.

How easy is the interface to use?

It’s one thing to have software that works, but I also want to find an antivirus that’s simple to use and intuitive. 

The PC Protect interface is dark in color, with black, gray, and green tones, making it easy to browse and view the major buttons. The key utilities, such as speed optimization, password management, and monitoring whether your identity has been compromised, are easily accessible via a set of icons down the left-hand side panel.

The design of TotalAV is fairly straightforward. This can appeal to individuals who aren’t as comfortable with antivirus software. The screen notifies you that you are protected once it is opened. After that, you’ll be invited to perform a quick smart scan. You may use the left-hand icon to change your settings and then navigate to malware protection.

Customer support

There are a number of different methods to seek help on the PC Protect support website.

They include live chat with a representative of the customer service team, a FAQ, a knowledge base with help articles, and an email contact form for submitting your question.

After reviewing the service, I found the live chat assistance to be swift and attentive, which is a bonus. The level of information in the FAQ and knowledge base sections, on the other hand, was sparse. There were a number of questions that were missing, and the FAQs were extremely brief, with a lot of gaps.

TotalAV provides live chat help on their website 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which is a convenient, rapid, and popular feature among customers. You may also contact representatives by email and phone, or use the TotalAV website’s extensive FAQs and support.

TotalAV vs PC Protect Conclusion

Overall, TotalAV came out on top due to strong all-around performance and a very appealing pricing point for the first year after discounts. As a bonus, it comes with extra features that reassure users that they are safe and secure online.

PC Protect’s real-time scanner appears to be ineffective since it allowed all four EICAR samples to be downloaded in my test. Other issues include a lack of crucial information and insufficient customer assistance. PCProtect has a restricted number of subscription options and can only protect two machines with a single subscription.

See also:

• TotalAV vs Avast
• Kaspersky vs TotalAV
• TotalAV vs Panda