AVG Anti-Virus Review's and Comments

[Admin]

[b]AVG Anti-Virus Review's and Comments[/b]


AVG Antivirus has been an up and coming virus
scanner for many years. Its free version is one of the most downloaded
files on the Internet in the Computer Security sector. The new
interface is clean and intuitive while still remaining useful.AVG
went through a rewrite of their virus scanning engine and included two
of their stand alone products with AVG Antivirus as well. AVG
Antispyware and AVG Antirootkit were both integrated with the virus
scanner. Also revamped was the way AVG Antivirus uses the hardware
within your computer. It was changed to make better use of the multiple
cores which are common in todays computers. This should speed up
scanning as well as reduce slowdowns.
Ease of Use:



Though
AVG Antivirus is mostly a hands off program, there may be some
instances when you may need to configure some advanced options. For 99%
of the population though, the default options will be more than
sufficient.The menu's within AVG Antivirus are very simple and
offer all the options and information needed to keep your system safe
from Internet threats.

Effectiveness:


AVG
Antivirus is one of the most complete programs we have found to date.
It includes many new options to make it one of the most effective virus
scanners on the market. It is still plagued by horrible slowdowns at
times. Even things so simple as just typing an IM can be stopped for
several seconds for some reason. If you can get past the occasional
slowdowns of your computer, the scanning functionality of AVG Antivirus
8 is top of the line. With the rewrite of the scanning engine, AVG
included multi processor support. That dual core processor you bought
is actually going to start getting a workout now. AVG also included
support for Windows Vista and the 64 bit versions of Windows XP and
Vista.

Updates:

AVG
Checks for updates every 4 hours by default. You can change this to any
interval you wish. The updates section of AVG Antivirus also shows you
which virus database version you have as well as when the last update
was. It also tells you when the next update is scheduled. All of this
information is also displayed on the main menu screen so that you
always have the information at your fingertips.

Feature Set:

AVG
Technologies, formerly Grisoft, has gone above and beyond with the new
release of AVG Antivirus. Included with the virus scanner are a rootkit
scanner, spyware scanner, an on-access scanner called Resident Shield,
email scanner and a link scanning browser plugin. There is also a
portion of AVG Antivirus called Web Shield. Web Shield is a chopped
down firewall application that scans standard web ports for any threats
encountered while browsing the web. It also includes protection for MSN
Messenger and ICQ.

Ease of Installation:

Installing
AVG Antivirus 8 was easy and only took about 10 minutes including
downloading the additional updates required after installation
finished. We had no issues or errors during the install.

Help/Support:

With
the name change from Grisoft to AVG Technologies, the support site was
updated and saw many improvements over the old design. Support
offerings included with AVG Antivirus 8 are a FAQ, email support, phone
based technical support as well as including a support section within
the program itself.

Summary:

Version
8 of AVG Antivirus is a definite improvement over version 7.5. The
scanning features have been sped up and the new interface is a clean
and modern take on a time tested product.Including a link
scanner and integrating AVG Antispyware and AVG AntiRootkit provides an
even more effective product. An unfortunate problem that has plagued
AVG products for quite some time has not been eliminated even though
AVG did a complete rewrite of the virus scanning engine. The on access
scanner still tends to slow down computers to the point where they are
not usable at times. This isn't a constant factor and has been improved
significantly, but you will notice it when it happens. Beyond the
slowdown issue, AVG Antivirus 8 is a complete product that will help
keep your computer clean and safe.

[b]AVG Anti-Virus Product Details[/b]


[b]Features[/b]

• Easy to use protection – install and forget
  
• New program versions and updates, for free, throughout the license duration
  
• Quality proven by all major antivirus certifications (VB100%, ICSA, West Coast Labs Checkmark)
  
• 24/7 technical support provided at no extra cost
  
• Improved virus detection based on better heuristics and NTFS data streams scanning
  
• Smaller installation and update files
  
• Improved user interface
  
• [b]100% virus detection
  [/b]— AVG’s scanning engine has received numerous awards for its excellent
  detection of in the wild viruses, including the VB100% award. Its
  unique combination of detection methods provides full protection
  against viruses, worms and trojans.
  
• [b]Full on-access protection
  [/b]— The powerful AVG Resident Shield provides maximum protection by
  scanning every file opened, executed, or saved. It also prevents the
  opening or executing of infected files.
  
• [b]Flexible intelligent scanning[/b]
  — The AVG Resident Shield can include/exclude files from being scanned
  based on individual file extensions and can handle exceptions for
  potentially unwanted programs such as adware.
  
• [b]Full e-mail protection[/b]
  — AVG checks every e-mail sent or received, providing full protection
  from e-mail-borne threats. AVG supports all leading e-mail clients,
  including MS Outlook, The bat!, Eudora, and all other SMTP/POP3-based
  e-mail clients, such as Outlook Express. Encrypted connections using
  SSL are also supported.
  
• [b]Automatic threat handling[/b] — AVG can automatically heal or remove infected files and other threats such as trojans and worms.
  
• [b]Powerful scheduling[/b]
  — AVG automatically provides recommended daily schedules for scanning
  and updating, and also allows you to create custom-scheduled events.
  
• [b]Multiple language support [/b]— No need to buy a special language version.
  

[b]Recommended System Requirements[/b]

• CPU Intel Pentium, 300 MHz
  
• 30 MB free hard drive space
  
• 256 MB RAM
  

[b]Supported platforms[/b]

• MS Windows 2000
  
• MS Windows XP
  
• MS Windows XP Pro x64 Edition
  
• MS Windows Vista
  
• MS Windows Vista x64 Editio