AVG Antivirus

Will AVG Antivirus Protect Your Computer?

Background

AVG Antivirus, a line of software that is compatible with all major operating systems and platforms, is used by more than twenty-five million users around the world. Developed by Grisoft in 1991, AVG Antivirus sports a slogan that reads, “tough on viruses, easy on users.”

Is it free?

There are two different versions of AVG Antivirus: AVG Free and AVG Professional. AVG Free and its updates are available to download on the internet while AVG Professional costs $38.95 for two years of protection. Both can be found, purchased, or downloaded on the Grisoft website. AVG Free is for non-commercial, single personal computers that are used in privacy. Downloading AVG Free on business computers and/or a network of computers is prohibited, and it is required that organizations and businesses purchase AVG Professional if they choose to use a Grisoft product. Personal computer users are more than welcome to purchase AVG Professional if they want more protection on their computer.

What characteristics does each version have?

Being that AVG Professional costs money while AVG Free does not, AVG Professional possesses more features such as 24/7 technical support, high-speed and high-capacity download servers, OEM (original equipment manufacturer) installations, advanced scheduling of scanning and updates, user defined tests and schedules, Resident Shield Exclusions, Support for Alternate Update Servers, Advanced User Interface Settings, Advanced Test Properties, Advanced Test Center Interface, and Detailed Test Result History. The only features that AVG Professional has that AVG Free also contains include reliable anti-virus scanning engine, virus updates via internet, and automatic internet detection.

Pros and cons

For AVG Antivirus, the pros outnumber the cons. For instance, AVG Antivirus hardly takes up any disk space and doesn’t slow down the computer. Norton, another well-known antivirus program, takes up a lot of disk space while searching for viruses on a daily or weekly basis. A full system scan takes only twenty-five minutes and does not use much RAM, so the user can surf the web or do other computer tasks without being hassled. Avast!, another antivirus software, takes an hour and causes extreme lags while doing a full system scan. Though AVG Free does not have technical support, there is an online forum where users can communicate with each other and provide free support. Updates are frequent and super fast, which assures the user that Grisoft is up-to-date with the most recent viruses. AVG has a feature called Rescue Disk Wizard, which allows the user to monitor, scan and clean files while in MS-DOS mode (which can be handy if the operating system is infected).

As glorified as AVG Antivirus seems, it does have its disadvantages. For example, AVG does not protect instant messaging, so viruses obtained through instant messaging will have to settle into the computer before AVG hunts them down and destroys them. AVG Free does not come with a firewall, and if the user wants one, he/she would have to pay for it or hunt for a free firewall on the internet.