Systweak Antivirus Review 2024: Is It Any Good?

Systweak antivirus for Windows is decent in some ways, but there’s plenty to critique. To start off with the positives, the malware scanner is powered by Avira (a top cybersecurity company), and it’s pretty good. When I tested it out, it consistently found and removed roughly 98%-99% of the malware samples buried on my computer.

But its extra features are all seriously lacking. The real-time protection failed to catch threats that Windows Defender caught and performed far worse than Norton, Bitdefender, or any other top-rated antivirus.

The anti-phishing protection is some of the worst I’ve ever used. When I visited a series of sample phishing websites, Chrome blocked more than double the websites Systweak did. Compare this to Norton or Bitdefender, which both caught significantly more phishing sites than Chrome.

The rest of Systweak’s features performed about the same. The firewall had fewer customization options or features than Windows, the ad blocker performed worse than free ad blockers like uBlock Origin, and the startup manager doesn’t offer anything you can’t already do on Windows.

It’s also expensive. The entry-level plan costs more than most antiviruses on the market, including Avira (the same company that powers its malware scanner). It doesn’t come with many of the advanced features you’d expect, like a VPN, dark web monitoring, identity theft insurance, performance optimization tools, a password manager, and more. The company does sell many of these services, but you have to purchase them separately.

Systweak isn’t all bad, though. It really is effective against malware that’s already buried on your computer — but even then, other antiviruses like Norton have a higher detection rating and more cost-effective plans. It also offers a 30-day free trial and a 60-day money-back guarantee, so at least you’ll have plenty of time to make sure you want to commit to the annual subscription.

Systweak Full Review — Great Malware Scanner + Intuitive Interface (But That’s About It)

Systweak has some positives, but they’re outweighed by the negatives. The malware scanner is really good at detecting viruses, exploits, and other threats. The UI is also super intuitive.

Unfortunately, those are the only two positives. Not only is Systweak buggy, but the real-time protection, web protection, and firewall all tested extremely poorly (as in, worse than Windows’s built-in security features). It’s also not a very cost-effective antivirus.

Still, the malware scanner is reliable, and it comes with both a 30-day free trial and a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you can check if it works for you before committing.

Systweak Plans & Pricing — Not the Best Value (But the Family Plan Covers up to 10 Devices)

Systweak offers 3 plans: Individual (1 license), Multi-Device (5 licenses), and Family (10 licenses). There are a few minor differences between the plans, but for the most part, they offer the exact same features.

Systweak’s plans all come with an ad blocker, firewall, web protection, real-time protection, and of course, the malware scanner.The biggest difference is that the Multi-Device and Family plans offer “home network protection.” However, all this means is that you can protect multiple devices at once. (Note that Systweak’s Android antivirus is a completely different product and one you don’t need a subscription to use.)

The biggest drawback of Systweak’s plans is that they’re pretty expensive for what you actually get. Norton, Bitdefender, and TotalAV all have more cost-effective plans (that come with a lot more features, too.) There’s also no monthly plan; instead, all of Systweak’s plans are annual subscriptions.

Here’s a quick overview of all of Systweak’s plans:

Systweak Security Features — Good Malware Scanner (99% Detection Rates), but the Other Features Fall Short

Systweak’s malware scanner is pretty good, but most of its extra features fall flat. The scanner is powered by Avira’s malware scanner and performs just as well as you’d expect, averaging a 99% malware detection rating in my tests. It also performs exceptionally well at detecting exploits.

It comes with 3 scan options: Deep (scans every file on your system), Quick (a faster and less intensive scan), and Custom (choose individual folders or files to scan). The Deep scan only took about an hour on my system,f and the Quick scans took less than 5 minutes, which is about average for a good malware scanner.

Unfortunately, my praise ends as we start discussing real-time protection. I tested Systweak by downloading various malware samples and comparing it with Windows Defender. Defender consistently blocked more samples from downloading than Systweak did. On top of missing threats, it also falsely flagged and blocked legitimate programs like video game anti-cheat software. And there isn’t even an option to create exceptions for programs in the Settings menu.

Systweak’s web protection wasn’t great either. I tested it out by visiting a variety of phishing websites on Chrome. Of the 10 websites I visited, Systweak only blocked 2. This is worse than Norton, Bitdefender, or even Chrome’s built-in web protections (which caught over half of them). At least it’s fairly customizable — the app lists categories of potentially dangerous websites you can toggle on or off, as well as whitelists and blacklists for various domains.

The firewall protection is also worse than Windows’s built-in firewall. All it gives you is a list of applications you can allow or block, with minimal rules or customization. It’s included in the real-time protection features and doesn’t have anywhere near as much functionality as Norton’s smart firewall (or any of the firewalls our top antiviruses come with, really).

Systweak also comes with a few other security tools, namely a startup manager and an ad blocker. The startup manager functions well enough, but you can’t do anything you couldn’t already do with Windows. The ad blocker isn’t very good either. It did block ads, but not as many as any of my top ad blockers. Also, even though it says it’s available for Chrome, Opera, and Firefox, it only provides links to the Chrome and Opera downloads.

Overall, Systweak comes with a decent amount of core security features, but only a few of them work well. The malware scanner is great at detecting viruses, PUPs, exploits, and ransomware, but the real-time protection, web protection, and firewall all tested worse than Windows Defender.

Systweak Ease of Use & Setup — Simple Interface (Though It’s Buggy & Crashes a Lot)

Systweak is really simple to set up and use… on paper. In theory, all you have to do is go to the website, visit the download link, and follow the basic installation/setup prompts you get from the application. After that, Systweak will monitor threats in the background for you and be ready to scan your computer on demand.

However, I started experiencing problems almost right away. I had frequent crashes while trying to run scans, despite having no other security products installed. When I did get it to work, the real-time protection interrupted my legitimate apps, including preventing online anti-cheat programs, until I turned it off. By comparison, I didn’t experience any of these issues with programs like Norton or Bitdefender.

To be fair, the UI is pretty intuitive. From the homepage, you can see most of the security features and toggle them on or off (which is about all you can do for a lot of them). You can find links to customer support and access the ad blocker and the startup manager using the menu button on the top right. The settings page is a bit convoluted, but there’s nothing you can’t learn within a few minutes.

Overall, Systweak has a simple-to-understand UI and you can pick it up without any technical experience. That said, in my experience it was buggy, caused crashes, and was too lax on real threats while blocking legitimate programs.

Systweak Customer Support — Basic FAQs + Decent Email Support (But Lacking Overall)

Systweak’s customer support is pretty lackluster. It only offers two forms of support, and neither is particularly impressive.

The FAQ section only has 16 questions, and 2 of them are dedicated to explaining what makes Systweak good (so I count that as 14, personally.)

Most of the answers weren’t detailed and wouldn’t be helpful for addressing any issues you might encounter — and some of them just felt like advertisements for the product.

The email support is fine. I sent a few questions and got fairly informative and polite responses within a day. That said, top antiviruses like Norton and Bitdefender include live chat and phone support, meaning they’re much more helpful during emergencies. However, the email support is knowledgeable (which is more than I can say for some antivirus companies.)

Overall, the customer support misses the mark for me. It has decent email support, but the FAQ section is pretty small. Plus, most of the answers are geared more towards advertising the product to new customers than helping existing customers with problems.

Is Systweak Good Enough to Keep You Safe?

Systweak has some good points, but its drawbacks stop me from recommending it. Starting with the positives, it comes with an excellent on-demand malware scanner that consistently scores as high at detecting malware and exploits as top antiviruses (unsurprising as it uses Avira’s scanner.)

However, there aren’t many more positives. The firewall is less useful than the Windows built-in firewall, the ad blocker detects fewer ads than any of my favorite ad blockers, and the web protections actively make it easier to visit dangerous sites than having nothing at all. There’s also little in the way of customer support options, and I experienced frequent bugs, crashes, and issues while using it.

On top of all of that, it’s pretty expensive. Most of the features you’d expect bundled with an antivirus aren’t included in any plans and are sold separately (for example, the VPN, system optimization tools, and cloud storage.)

Overall, I’m not a big fan of Systweak. The negatives vastly outweigh the positives. At the end of the day, it’s expensive, buggy, and has significantly fewer features than any of our top antiviruses. Still, it comes with a 30-day free trial and a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you’ll have plenty of time to test it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Systweak antivirus have a free trial?

Yes, Systweak comes with a 30-day free trial that you can use to test it out for yourself. After the trial runs out, you’ll have to pick up a Systweak plan to keep using it. Fortunately, each of these plans comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee, so you have plenty of time to make sure it works for you.

Is Systweak only for Windows?

Systweak Antivirus is only available for Windows. Systweak has a mobile antivirus for Android, but this is a completely different free app that doesn’t offer any advanced features. If you’re looking for a good antivirus for your computer and phone, I’d highly encourage you to check out Norton or Bitdefender instead.

Is Systweak a good antivirus?

Systweak is a mixed bag. The malware scanner and exploit protection are both reliable. It uses Avira’s scanner, which ranks as one of our top antiviruses. Other than that, it’s not very good. The firewall, ad blocker, and web protection all performed worse in my tests than my computer’s built-in security features. If you’re looking for a simple malware scanner, Systweak is a decent option, but even in that case, I hesitate to recommend it. You can pick up Norton’s or even Avira’s entry-level plan for less money if you only need a good scanner.

Is Systweak’s real-time protection good?

No. Unfortunately, Systweak’s real-time protection is among the worst I’ve tested. The first time I turned it on, my computer crashed. It failed to detect the majority of my malware samples, including ones that Windows Defender caught.

It also frequently disrupted other programs on my computer, especially anti-cheat engines in online games. While Systweak’s on-demand malware scanner is great, the real-time protection simply doesn’t offer anywhere near the protection that any of our top antiviruses do.