Both Avira Free and Avast Free are most often rated in the top 5 in independent testing and generally go back and forth as to which one is rated slightly higher than the other. I prefer Avira Free over Avast but now I cannot recall exactly why I didn't like Avast it has been so many years ago since I used it. Like I said, I have probably used Avira Free for five years and it is the one I recommend if somebody has no preference or is using some junk av program, mainly because I know it well. If this version of Avast is different than the one you had then the one you had was out of date.