AVG Anti-virus versus Other Premium Brands
AVG Free Edition is a well-known antivirus protection tool, which scores over many other popular brands such as MacAfee, Norton, Avira, and likes of them.
This antivirus program offers rock-solid protection. AVG Free provides all the essential necessities, including a real-time shield to prevent infections, anti-virus and anti-malware wrapped up in one engine and a link scanner for web-surfing with extra protection and care.
AVG is the most popular free antivirus program, which does fairly well in many tests. Although it offers little user control and no free tech support, it is more effective than the other premium brands like Norton Symantec 360 and MacAfee.
The latest Version 8.0.169 is a maintenance release, and the software is decently efficient and detects loads of spyware that usually go unnoticed by others, but it is a freeware as well.
Many reviewers say that Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0 is the best all-round antivirus program, however I disagree on that. Although it excels at its primary task of preventing viruses, but according to users, Kaspersky has more software conflicts and issues than the average antivirus program.
Considering the best antivirus software for expert users, according to the polls and reviews loads of them agree that NOD32 is as good as or better than Kaspersky Anti-Virus in all but one area; version 2.7 of NOD32 has an unintuitive and confusing user interface!
The new version 3.0 is considerably improved, though still not very elegant, and some say that expert users might be happiest with the software as it still needs some tweaking for best results.
On the other hand, when we have a look at AVG, rapid virus database updates are available for the lifetime of the product, thereby providing the high level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers.
Half of all users complain that Norton Anti-Virus slows their computer to such an extent that the machine literally starts crawling rather than running, and that it conflicts with other software as well. Only a quarter of users give the program a high rating. Users also dislike the high level of control Norton exercises over a system!
Same is the case with MacAfee, which eats up lot of system resources and slows down the overall speed of the system.
This piece of Anti-virus application is pretty efficient as far as detecting malwares and countering Trojans and other malicious attacks is concerned, but I don’t really like to sacrifice my overall system performance for an anti-virus, doesn’t matter how efficient it might be…
Looking at AVG, it is free; easy to use and will not slow your system down as it has really low system resource requirements. Highlights include automatic update functionality, the AVG Resident Shield, which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programs are run, free Virus Database Updates for the lifetime of the product, and AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files.
Attractive Features:
- AntiVir protection from viruses, worms and Trojans
- AntiDialer protection against expensive dialers
- AntiRootkit protection from hidden rootkits
- Faster Scanning up to 20% faster
- New User Interface
- AntiPhishing protection from phishing
- AntiSpyware protection from spyware and adware
- WebGuard protection from malicious websites
- Enhanced email protection for POP3 and SMTP
- Fast Premium update server
- AntiSpam filters out unwanted and phishing emails
- FireWall protection from hackers
- GameMode uninterrupted game play
- Backup-System saves your important data
- AntiDrive-by stops surfing malware downloads
By default, the application is set to search for new virus definitions daily, but you can always use the scheduling tool to change this, incase a virus creates serious system problems.
AVG creates a rescue disk to scan your computer in MS-DOS mode. The program doesn’t tax your system when scanning or when running in the background and always proved effective in our tests. The new interface is much easier to navigate than in previous version, with tabbed navigation on the left assisting users in drilling down to the tools they need.
Though the free version of this program will suffice for average folks, those who demand more control should certainly consider AVG Anti-Virus Professional.
Free antivirus software. Professional reviewers conclude that AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is the best of the free antivirus programs, and it is handily the most popular as well. No substantial reviews compare free and commercial programs, but reviews of the commercial version of AVG provide one yardstick.
Despite the fact that AVG offers comparatively lesser user control than commercial programs, but users swear they work. If you’re diligent and careful about your personal security practices, free antivirus software might be enough and in that case the best bet would be AVG free undoubtedly!
However personally I don’t really like the user interface of latest version and would suggest going ahead with the AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.5. But the bad news is that you can’t downgrade from 8.0 version.
To free download visit: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1
If you need more than just antivirus software, you may also consider a security suite, which even includes a software firewall, a spam filter, spyware protection, parental filters, popup blockers and anti-phishing features!
September 8th, 2008at 5:36 pm
Im glad to see AVG doing well. I know its commonly used out there, with its only competition being Avast.
Great article! Thanks.
September 10th, 2008at 4:09 am
I install avg on my desktop and it’s a good antivirus. Most of my friends using avg as their antivirus software.