AVG Anti-Virus Free Review Discussion

By: Charles P. Jefferies

INTRODUCTION

Up until this point we have reviewed only paid computer security solutions, but today we are trying something new: AVG Anti-Virus Free, which is as the name implies, free. AVG Anti-Virus Free has 80 million users worldwide and promises protection from viruses and spyware. How does it stack up against popular paid solutions like Norton and McAfee? Read on to find out.

Read the full content of this Article: AVG Anti-Virus Free Review

Related Articles:

• Norton AntiVirus 2009 Review
• Symantec Norton Internet Security 2008 Review

 

It would be nice to mention the fact that it is the least intrusive of the three free AV products (Avast is too flashy and Avira nags you to upgrade). That's the main reason I go with AVG, even though the other two have better detection rates.

 

avast is too flashy?.... kinda but I would say its near identical in usage and low resource hog like AVG

 

I formerly used AVG Free, but the recent version (8.x) is too resource intensive. I've tried Avast! and it's good, but still a bit too resource intensive compared to Avira Free. Avira has the best detection rate, and is the least resource intensive AV product in my experience. So what if it launches a "nag window" on the desktop - it's very easy to close. Updates come several times a day. A very nice product for free.

 

This review is already here http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=383517

 

Heck, you should have been here earlier today--the review was everywhere! (or at least, the topic was showing up all over the RECENT DISCUSSION box with links to other posts).

Anyway, I used to recommend AVGFree for its simplicty, email integration and relatively low system resource use. I agree with the review for the most part, but I keep running into this issue where for seemingly no reason, AVG just wonks out and starts dragging the system down.

I have never been able to determine what exactly causes it, but I have seen perfectly fine systems with AVG just crawl to a halt for no reason. System monitoring tools don't specifically point to AVG, but removing AVG clears it up.

You can even then reinstall AVG and it works fine again.

 

I agree with your obsevrations on Avira.

You can disable the popup window: http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-the-Popup-Ads-in-Avira-Antivir

 

They must have wanted it in 2 spots. Or Chaz didn't get the memo.

 

I use AVG in conjunction with Windows Defender (built in to Vista, available for free download for XP users), and I've been pretty satisfied. Symantec Corporate (which I had on a few school laptops) worked OK, but AVG detected something Symantec Corp did not. I was surprised. Maybe AVG was being over-sensitive, but I appreciate error in the sensitive direction vs not. AVG didn't delete the infected file automatically, which was nice. It prompted me. It can be buggy sometimes, i.e. believe it requires a reboot over and over--solved by an uninstall/reinstall. Haven't had any issues since I've started using it though in terms of protection. Can't ask for more from a free AV and anti-malware solution.

 

No ... we were having server problems earlier this week that messed up the process of posting discussion threads for articles published on the main site.

Those problems "should" be fixed now.

 

Thanks Chaz,

Really good review!

In my experience I have found AVG Free to be at least as good as the so-called "paid for" solutions and without being resource intensive.

I'm utterly amazed that anyone would pay for software that doesn't work any better than a free version, and in fact continue to pay annually!

 

My thoughts exactly.

Freeware FTW... and more bang for the buck.. FREE.

 

Colloquor if you think the new version of AVG free is too much of a resource hog in 8.x you really desperately need a new machine. I have it running on an old 2.6 ghz P4 pre HT with 512 MB of ram with no noticable performance impact. There are some more effective programs out there this is true.....but 8.x a hog? Less your computer is using a monochrome screen and floppy disks i think not.

 

How do you define "flashy"?
Avast works fine even on my EEE, so if there's memory usage differences, it must be pretty insignificant?
To each his own I guess, I like to be more protected, even if it means minor decrease in free memory.

 

True. But after disabling the popup in Avira and setting it to update in the background, it's even less intrusive than AVG.

 

I've used AVG Anti-Virus Free for a while and I think it works good. My problem is with the security toolbar. It's not up to date and it gives a false sense of security.

I searched bath towels in Google. Turkishtowels.com was on the first page. The site was green ticked with AVG toolbar, but there was a warning by Google "This site may harm your computer." I also have the McAfee toolbar and it was also green ticked.

According to AVG and McAfee Turkishtowels.com was safebut the site was not safe for Google. I've copied the information from Google:
http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://www.turkishtowels.com/&hl=en

What happened when Google visited Turkishtowels.com site?

Of the 11 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 6 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2009-07-03, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2009-07-03.

Malicious software includes 10 trojan(s), 9 scripting exploit(s), 7 exploit(s). Successful infection resulted in an average of 1 new process(es) on the target machine.

 

I tried 3 AV Antivirus programs but I like Red Umbrella, Avira, more than others. Avira has catch more infected files than other AVs. The performance is very good, little CPU load on my laptop. However, only drawback is some networks program that's not infected has been caught too.

 

To avoid serious mishaps in such an occassion, make sure to use the setting to quarantine suspected files and not to have them deleted automatically.
Malware and such will still be taken care off, you will only have to delete quarantined files yourself occasionally.
False positives/legitimate files can be restored from quarantine and be excluded from future scans.
Cheers.

 

Thank you for your suggestion Baserk.