Total AV Antivirus Pro Review: The Entry Tier, Now TotalAV Plus

Fix it now

The tier sold as Antivirus Pro appears in TotalAV’s own plan comparison as TotalAV Plus, at four devices. It is a complete antivirus rather than a stub: nothing in the protection core is held back for the higher tiers, which add Total Adblock and Total VPN at Internet Security and Total Password at Total Security.

1. Look for TotalAV Plus on the order page. Antivirus Pro is the older name and the product URL still uses it, but the comparison does not.
2. Buy it if you want paid real-time protection on up to four devices and nothing else bundled.
3. Buy it if you will genuinely use the tune-up tools. Some people do, and the startup manager and disk cleaner do real work.
4. Skip it if you want the ad blocker or the VPN, because both arrive at Internet Security on six devices.
5. Skip it if you have more than four devices to cover, and count phones as devices when you check.
6. Ask about buying Total VPN or Total Password alongside this plan, which TotalAV publishes as an option, before assuming you must move tier.

Every tier carries the same antivirus rows in TotalAV’s comparison, so the entry tier is not detecting less than the top one. What you are missing is the bundle, not the protection.

If that settles it you can stop here. If you want to know what living with the entry tier is like, read on.

Why it happens

The fair question about any entry tier is whether it is a real product or a doorway into an upsell. This one is a real product. TotalAV Plus carries real-time antivirus protection, virus and malware removal, zero-day cloud scanning, PUA protection, phishing scam protection, ransomware protection, system tune-up tools, a disk cleaner, a browser manager and cleaner, and iOS and Android protection, on four devices across Windows, Mac, Android and iOS.

Compare that against the rows for the two tiers above in TotalAV’s own comparison and the antivirus lines are identical. The entry tier is not detecting less. What separates the tiers is three named components and the device count: Total Adblock and Total VPN at Internet Security on six devices, and Total Password at Total Security on eight.

That is a narrower gap than the tier names imply, and the difference matters in one specific way. Descriptions of this range routinely put the ad blocker at the top tier. It is not there; it arrives at the middle one. A reader who wants ad blocking and follows the old advice buys two tiers up instead of one, which is exactly the kind of error a review should not cause.

There is a second route the old advice ignored. TotalAV states that Total VPN and Total Password can be bought separately alongside the entry plan. So the standard counsel – decide now, because a mid-term upgrade is the expensive path – is only half right. If you want protection and one extra component, price the add-on against the tier that bundles it before assuming the tier is the only way to get there.

What is deliberately absent at this tier is everything else, and the interface makes that visible. Features you have not bought appear in the product with an invitation to buy them. Whether that is acceptable is a matter of temperament: some people ignore it entirely, others find it grating in software they have already paid for. If you are the second sort, this is the tier where you will feel it most, and it will not stop for the length of the term.

On the maintenance side, be clear about what is real. The startup manager and the disk cleanup do genuine work, and if you have never looked at what launches with Windows you will probably find something worth disabling. The overselling is in the presentation: a scan that reports a large number of issues on a healthy machine is usually counting cache files and cookies, which are not problems and which return the moment you use a browser. Windows already includes Storage Sense for cleanup and a startup manager in Task Manager. Treat these as a convenience rather than a reason to buy.

No laboratory score appears in this review, and no price. Results move by test round and by which tests a vendor entered, and prices in this market are set as introductory and renewal terms separately. Nor does it say who supplies the detection engine: that claim circulates widely, and nothing on TotalAV’s own pages supports it.

Full reference

What the entry tier includes

The ladder above it

Two seats per step, and one or two named components. That is the whole range, and it is worth having in front of you when a sales page describes the top tier as complete protection: the protection is the same at the bottom.

Device counting, done properly

• Four seats covers a household with a laptop, a desktop and two phones, and nothing else.
• Phones count. This is the most common reason a household finds itself one seat short.
• A machine that somebody uses occasionally still needs a seat if you want it protected, and the uncovered machine is usually the one that causes the problem.
• If the count comes to five or six, price Internet Security rather than leaving a device uncovered, because you get the ad blocker and VPN with those seats anyway.

The terms to read before you pay

1. Find the renewal price, not the introductory price. Plans renew automatically at the applicable rate until you cancel.
2. Find the cancellation route in the account portal before you need it.
3. Note the money-back window: TotalAV publishes 30 days on annual and biannual plans and 14 days on monthly, quarterly and add-on services.
4. Only take a multi-year term if you are confident the product suits you, because the discount is the point of it and so is the lock-in.
5. Put both dates in a calendar on the day you buy.

Who should not buy this tier

• Anyone who wants the ad blocker or the VPN as part of the purchase. Those are one tier up, on six devices.
• Anyone with more than four devices, unless they are content to leave one uncovered.
• Anyone for whom prompts about unpurchased features inside paid software would be a weekly irritation.
• Anyone whose real requirement is a free baseline. Microsoft Defender plus a browser that blocks malicious sites covers a careful user at no cost, and saying so is more useful than a feature list.

Questions people ask about this