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Huge price increases, unclear policies and potentially law-breaking online stores. That’s what we found when we signed up to some of the most popular antivirus services around.
Given antivirus is supposed to protect you and, ultimately, your bank balance from viruses and scams, you might be surprised how much these companies look to part you from your money.
We signed up to 10 popular antivirus companies services to see what the average consumer might be letting themselves in for. We did this because we continue to receive reports from customers who have discovered they have been unknowingly overpaying for their antivirus subscription – by massive amounts.
Find out what happened when we signed up, plus we reveal our top four tips to stop you being caught out.
Make the right choice: see our pick of the best antivirus software based on our rigorous lab tests
We checked 10 popular antivirus brands in January 2023 and went through their full sign-up and cancellation processes to see how easy it is to fall into an auto-renewal trap. The results were mixed.
We found that significant price increases are almost universal among antivirus providers, with prices more than quadrupled in some cases.
Think of it as a tax for forgetting to turn off automatic renewal, or simply deciding to stay with your current provider without doing anything. Norton had by far the biggest increase at the time we checked, going from £19.99 to £84.99 for the second year. That’s a 325% rise.
All 10 providers we checked say renewal prices are ‘subject to change’. This means they could increase even further than the price you’re quoted when you first sign up.
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But even if you want to turn off automatic renewal, some companies try to keep you on their books by threatening to take away features if you do. Both McAfee and Norton have ‘Protection Promises’ that state if you get infected with a virus while their software is installed, a technician will remove it for you or you’ll get your money back. But their own terms and conditions imply you lose access to this if you don’t have automatic renewal switched on.
Should you decide to mark your calendar with the auto-renewal date, McAfee and Norton charge their users 30 and 35 days respectively before renewal; so if you opt out before you get charged, you’ll lose at least a full month of the Protection Promise.
We got in touch with both antivirus companies. McAfee didn’t respond. Norton said our interpretation of its terms was incorrect and that all users can get the promise even if they don’t have automatic renewal turned on.
We don’t think this is clear enough on its website, which said: ‘You must have an automatically renewing device security subscription with antivirus for the virus removal service.’ We think most consumers would interpret the Protection Promise in the way that we did. When we put this to Norton, it did not respond.
Several other companies label switching off automatic renewal in your account settings as disabling ‘continuous protection’. It’s all too easy to imagine someone seeing this as turning off the antivirus entirely, when all it does is stop the renewal. Don't be drawn in; you've paid for the entire length of your subscription and it will continue whether or not you have 'continuous protection'.
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We saw two examples where following the path of least resistance during the buying stage can end up with you adding an extra subscription. By default, both Avast and AVG (which are the same company) give you the option to sign up to an extra product after you’ve entered your card details. However, the ‘yes’ box is ticked by default and if you click on ‘review order’ you will end up adding this to your basket – you have to actively opt out.
The product Avast was offering when we checked was a £20 anti tracking tool that increases to £49.99 after the first year. This is a hefty amount to pay for not noticing you had to untick a ‘yes’ box and we think this is a breach of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013.
After we pointed this out, AVG/Avast removed this feature from its checkout process and told us: ‘We want to thank you for flagging this’, and went on to say: ‘Customers can always contact our customer support to get help with regards to their purchase.’
We’ve found that people often sign up to extra services, such as a VPN, because pop-ups from the antivirus software tell them they’re at risk if they don’t.
The extras could add up to hundreds of pounds a year. We’re not the only ones to notice this – see ‘A technician's view’, below. It can be tricky for antivirus companies to know whether a person has signed up to multiple subscriptions through different accounts, but CMA guidance says they should notify customers who they believe are not using the products at all, or to their full potential.
This might include, for example, paying for a VPN but never installing it, or buying 15 antivirus licences when they only need one or two. We don’t think this is being done.
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Steve Bonnici, owner of Chiswick Computers in west London, is a Which? Trusted Trader. Last year, during a routine check, he found that since late 2017 one of his customers had paid more than £730 for security software from AVG and was paying for multiple VPN and anti-track subscriptions that weren’t being used.
In 2021 alone, before Steve was on the case, the customer spent £254 on duplicated AVG subscriptions. Sadly, this sort of thing is common, says Steve. ‘It’s very rare to find someone that doesn’t have multiple subscriptions for the same products, or who hasn't been oversold something.'
And even though he has more than 40 years of computer experience and owns his own shop, even Steve finds cancelling antivirus subscriptions complicated. He said customers who try to do the same but aren’t experienced ‘probably give up’.
Having too many licences is one thing, but Steve also notes that some antivirus companies, including AVG, can make matters worse. ‘They pop up something on the screen, and it repeatedly pops up, saying “look what we found, fix me, click on fix me. You need to buy this”.’
This is how so many of Steve’s customers end up with tools like VPNs and anti-tracking software; it’s presented as a problem that needs solving immediately, even if the customer in question is already paying for the service.
AVG told us: ‘We take every issue our customers face very seriously’ and that ‘delivering a positive customer experience is a priority.’
We reveal the best free antivirus software.
There are lots of ways that antivirus companies want to get your cash. Below are some of the most common tactics and how to avoid them.
We’ve found a few examples during the checkout process where the default, highlighted option to continue (after you’ve entered your payment info) adds products to your basket that cost extra. They more than double in price the year after if you don’t turn them off. So make sure to stay alert and check whether you need to untick any boxes.
Some companies offer a ‘Protection Promise’ that guarantees you a refund if your computer catches a virus, but some of their terms and conditions imply they’ll take this away if you turn off automatic renewal. Whether this interpretation is correct or not, the best antivirus almost never lets viruses through anyway, so this promise is less useful than it sounds.
TotalAV’s ‘Free’ antivirus software lets you scan your device, but you won’t get any real-time protection unless you pay, which is not clear when you first download it. This time we didn’t spot any ‘free’ features added to a subscription, only for them to later be chargeable. But it was rampant in previous years.
We expect antivirus software to pop up warnings when it finds something dangerous, but many of them are now in the nasty habit of popping up warnings that you need to pay for more features, such as a VPN or anti-tracking. These might also appear as features promising to solve problems only to ask you to pay when you click on them. These should always be ignored; the fundamental protection provided by having an antivirus package is enough.
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