Do you have any idea how many devices connect to your home network? Sure, you can count the computers and smartphones, but what about the doorbell, and the smart toaster? These Internet of Things devices don't necessarily have the security they should, and an attack on one of them could compromise your network, and your privacy.
The free Avira Home Guard scans your network to find all the devices, and then it runs a security scan to identify any devices with gaps in their security.
This new product does a decent job, but it has some version 1.0 problems.
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Note that for really hardcore network security, you need a hardware solution such as Bitdefender Box($199.99 at Bitdefender) or Symantec Norton Core Router.
But that's quite an expense, and not every user has the skills needed to configure and use such a solution.
Home Guard, by contrast, is free, and quite easy to use.
One warning, for those of you who have a VPN installed.
When you're connected through the VPN, your computer is not present on the local network.
To run this or any other local network scanner, you must disconnect from the VPN.
A Product With a Posse
Home Guard is a quick download, and once you click Agree and Install, it's ready to go very quickly.
During installation, it displays a carousel of ads for other free Avira products.
When you launch the program, you'll find even more related products in its posse.
It's a lot like Avira Free Security Suite, but with just a couple components installed.
At the top of the list is Home Guard itself, followed by a link to Avira's free scan that checks your email against lists from known data breaches.
You can install any of the remaining programs with a click, and then launch it from the list.
Avira Antivirus is available, though it's not our Editors' Choice for free antivirus.
Avira Privacy Pal checks hundreds of system settings to make sure they're correctly configured for privacy.
You can install the free versions of Avira System Speedup and Avira Software Updater.
Other related utilities manage passwords, find shopping deals, and block dangerous websites.
Feel free to install any of these that interest you, or ignore them and stick with Home Guard.
Hands On With Home Guard
The list of devices dominates Home Guard's simple main window, with a link to refresh the device list and a button to run a security scan.
There's also a button to register the product, but you can use it without registering.
My initial device scan took less than five minutes.
It found quite a few devices, but the display proved a bit confusing.
As with Bitdefender Home Scanner and others, Home Guard can only report names for products that identify themselves.
I found several called "unknown" followed by 12 hexadecimal digits.
That's not much to go on.
The scan reports a type for each device, but initially I only saw devices flagged as Computers and Other.
Bitdefender, by contrast, correctly reported the type for almost every device, including computer, TV, printer, and even garage-door opener.
Clicking a Details link for an item reveals its IP address, MAC address, and (when available) manufacturer.
Again, the device must report its manufacturer name for Home Guard to display it.
If the manufacturer name clues you in to which device this is, you can rename it in the list.
Like Bitdefender, it remembers that name in subsequent scans.
While you're at it, choose the correct device type.
You can manually select from more than a dozen types, among them Smart TVs, IP cameras, and Appliances.
Once the device list is populated, you can run a security scan.
On my test system the scan took less than five minutes.
Bitdefender's scan combines finding devices and checking security, and it, too, finished in about five minutes.
By contrast, the IoT scan that's part of ESET Smart Security Premium($59.99 at ESET) took 25 minutes.
Where Did My Devices Go?
Home Guard's scan found 15 devices, which seemed low, maybe half what it should be, with all of my smart home devices figured in.
Carefully perusing its list, I couldn't find a single smartphone or tablet.
Then it hit me.
Wi-Fi from my ISP-supplied router used to be unreliable, so last year I purchased a commercial-grade hotspot and shut down Wi-Fi from the router.
All the Wi-Fi devices are effectively on a different network.
When I switched the test machine over to Wi-Fi, it found smartphones, tablets, smart TV, game consoles—all the devices that were previously missing.
I don't know how common it is to have a Wi-Fi hotspot that's not built into the ISP-supplied router.
If that matches your setup, remember to scan both networks.
You can use the Android version of Home Guard to scan the Wi-Fi network, if that's more convenient.
Is It Accurate?
To test antivirus programs, I simply confront them with real-world antivirus samples.
Testing network scanners isn't nearly so easy.
And testing Home Guard confused me just a bit.
The first time I ran the security scan, it only warned about two open ports in the main router.
Like Reason Core Security, it reported port 443 (HTTPS) open, and suggested closing it.
Since you need that port for secure HTTPS connections, closing it wouldn't be such a good idea.
Home Guard also warned about an open port 111.
A little research reveals this as a possible security vulnerability in Unix systems.
Hmm.
For a sanity check, I installed Bitdefender Home Scanner on the same system and ran a scan.
It detected the same collection of devices that Home Guard did, though it did a better job of identifying them.
The Bitdefender scan reported no problem with the router itself, but flagged a generic device from the router's maker, possibly a component.
Bitdefender identified six vulnerabilities including the possibility of memory corruption and of a denial of service attack.
I ran the Home Guard scan again, with surprising results.
This time it reported risks in nine devices, among them the router, several computers, and a Network Attached Storage device, but didn't display a name on the line representing the router.
The NAS got zinged for open ports, but since its function is to provide access to storage across the network and even outside the network, it needs those ports open.
I don't know what the average user would make of this report.
Not every open port is a problem, and some ports need to be open.
As with other free Avira products, there's no tech support, so if you want to know about a port you'll have to do some research, or ask your local friendly techie.
Perhaps fortunately, the uninformed user can't easily dive in and close those ports.
I prefer Bitdefender's reporting style, which focuses on the kinds of attacks possible, not just on open ports.
Some Odd Behavior
I initially tried testing this product on a virtual machine that connects directly to the main network, rather than going through the virtual router.
It found all the devices without trouble, but the Security Scan took more than four hours to finish.
I chalked that up to incompatibility with virtual machines, which is not uncommon.
A repeat scan ran in a reasonable time.
Another button launched an internet speed test on my Windows 8.1 virtual machine, but didn't appear on my Windows 10 physical test system.
I learned from my Avira contact that this button only appears when Chrome is installed.
On a physical test system, the initial security scan took just a few minutes.
That was with the Ethernet connection.
I switched to Wi-Fi and scanned again with both Bitdefender and with Home Guard.
Bitdefender finished in a timely fashion, but Avira hadn't finished after several hours.
Finally, I found that running yet another security scan produced odd results.
Where it previously reported nine risks, it now raised the number to 17.
A closer look revealed the additional items to be duplicates.
Yet another scan brought it up to 25, more dupes.
My Avira contact confirmed that running a repeat security scan while the scan for devices is still in progress can cause this duplication.
The security scan report has a link titled "check your router settings." However, clicking this link just opened Windows Explorer, both on the virtual machine and the physical test system. That's also strange.
During the course of this review, Avira supplied an update to the software, but the update wasn't an improvement.
Other Avenues
Glasswire includes a network device scanner, along with numerous other network insight features.
It doesn't attempt to check security, it just lists found devices with their IP and MAC addresses.
There is an option to see the full network name for devices that have one.
My smart TV appeared as viziocastdisplay.attlocal.net, for example.
Among its other security features, Reason Core Security also scans for devices and security.
However, it doesn't let you add a friendly label.
In testing, it only identified the device type for the test computer and the main router.
The home network scanner in Kaspersky Security Cloud work in Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.
However, it just reports found devices, without actively checking their security.
Avast Free Antivirus has included network security scanning for years.
It calls the feature Wi-Fi Inspector, but it works on wired networks too.
Those with enough tech knowledge may appreciate you can drill down on any device for a list of its identifiers, interfaces, and services.
Bitdefender Home Scanner goes beyond simply scanning on demand.
When it detects a new device joining the network, it pops up a notification and offers to scan the device.
Know Your Neighborhood
There's no question that Avira Home Guard can help you better understand just what is connected to your home network.
To get the most out of it, you'll have to do a little detective work, matching the often-uninformative names to actual devices and editing the names to match.
Home Guard doesn't notify you when new devices connect, the way Bitdefender Home Scanner does, but if you've labeled all your known devices, an intruder will stick out.
As for flagging problems, I'm less sanguine about that component.
The scanner seems to identify every open port as a risk, without distinguishing those that could actually serve as an access point for malware or hacking.
The average user can't really do anything with the report.
Finally, as noted, the product exhibited odd behaviors, the kind you might expect in version 1.0 software.
For now, Bitdefender Home Scanner is a better choice, though of course you can run both free scanners if you wish.
One way or another, you need to grasp just who lives in your network neighborhood.
But if you get a scary warning, don't act on it without getting an expert opinion.
