AVG Antivirus is very popular among home users. It was developed by AVG Technologies for Microsoft Windows. With its compelling features, simple user interface and light weight it offers right technology to home users for protection and security.
The latest version of AVG has some really innovative and efficient features like link scanner, social networking protection, proactive web protection, cloud antivirus, and security network.
It protects you from viruses and spyware, hackers, phishing scams, malware, keyloggers, worms, Trojans, rootkits and spam.
The 2011 version of AVG antivirus proved to be even more innovative, user friendly and light weight. The installation process was compact and quick, it took approximately 2 minutes and a few seconds on a Core i3 processor with 3GB RAM.
It was completed without any interruptions and required no rebooting of the computer. Installation processor was much quicker and easier than its contenders like Bit defender and Norton antivirus. After completing the installation process it asks for permission to install the AVG antivirus toolbar which is compatible with all the leading web browsers like Microsoft Internet explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera Web browser and Google Chrome.
You can also create an account on AVG.com for additional support features.
Once installed, the user interface was very friendly with a dashboard that has better features and a clean interface. All of the AVG antivirus configurations and scanning options are available on the dashboard from where they can be easily accessed. On the left hand side there are short cut commands that let you update the AVG antivirus with latest virus definitions and also let you run a full scan of your computer's hard drive as well as operating system memory.
On the top of the dashboard there is a sign which tells you about your current security status, the green sign with a "you are protected" means that there are no threats detected inside your operating system memory or the hard drive, the AVG antivirus is updated and running and you are fully protected from all the threats that you face on the internet.
The yellow light shows that there are possibly some threats in your hard drive or operating system memory or the antivirus is not updated and its better for you to run a full scan of your computer or update your antivirus software for improved protection and security, once these tasks are accomplished the light turns to green again showing that you are protected by the AVG antivirus and can continue your routine activities.
The red light shows that a malware or virus is detected in the operating system memory area or your hard disk and you must run a full scan of your computer, once the scan is complete and an appropriate actions is taken the light turns to green again.
As discussed earlier the AVG antivirus version 2011 has got some of the most innovative and compelling features you can dream of getting in an antivirus program. Some of the most striking features of the antivirus are:
- Resident shield
- Online Scan
- Anti spyware
- Anti rootkit
- Email Scanning
- Link Scanner
- Worm Protection
- Trojan Protection
- Anti phishing
- PC Analyzer
- AVG Social Networking Protection
Now let us discuss these features briefly and see what benefit you can have by using these features. The Resident shield is responsible for scanning new files on your computer for potential threats, the online scanner works in the same why but scans the files that you are accessing through internet on a website.
Anti-spyware protects you from spywares and keyloggers which are designed to steal valuable information. Anti rootkit detects, blocks and removes rootkits, one of the hardcore elements in malware family. Email scanning features is so far available in very few antivirus programs and it surely makes AVG Antivirus special and effective, it scans the emails that you are getting through various software programs such as Microsoft Outlook.
Link-scanner features scans websites and the results from a search engine for harmful content and lets you know in advance if a website is safe for you to visit or not, the results of this feature are however controversial. Worm and Trojan protection features are responsible for protection your against malicious programs called worms and Trojans.
Anti-phishing features protects your from phishing. The PC analyzer scans the windows registry files for unwanted and unnecessary entries, fragmentation and broken links. Here it is worth mentioning that PC analyzer do not fixes all these issues but rather only notifies you about these problems, to fix them you have to run AVG PC Tune up software which costs you an addition 30 USD.
Last but not the least in list of features is the AVG Social Networking and Protection feature. This feature checks the links that you exchange on social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter and lets you know if any of the exchanged links are harmful for your computer.
The scanning speed of AVG antivirus was 18 MB per second. It is not as fast as the Norton Antivirus or Bit defender but still is good enough. It means you can scan a 100 GB hard disk in approximately 2 hours. The results of the scan were also not that impressive. It detected 95 percent of the half a million known spywares, Trojans and viruses. The detection rate for spywares was poor! 88.5 percent, way too lower than Norton or Bit defender.
Proactive detection and scanning speed was also average. While running it consumes almost 28 MB of system memory. The reboot time was 17 seconds, higher than all of the top antivirus programs available in market. Upon installation it takes 236 MB of space on your hard disk with an average launch time of 0.145 seconds. AVG Antivirus received 2 out of 3 stars in AV Comparatives tests and 2 stars again in its proactive scan test.
The results are good but it was behind its leading contenders such as Kaspersky Antivirus, Bit defender, Norton and Avira Antivirus. AVG antivirus is ICSA Labs certified and is also VB 100% certified. AVG Antivirus is also certified by West Coast Labs.
The AVG Antivirus costs you 34.99 USD. In conclusion we can say that the free version of AVG Antivirus is very popular and effective, but the commercial version do not stand a chance against the best antivirus softwares like Bit defender (Get a BitDefender Antivirus Review here) and Kaspersky Antivirus. (Get a Kaspersky Internet Security Review here.)
The 2011 version was a lot better than its predecessor but there are still a lot of issues that are hampering its way forward to become the top antivirus solution in the commercial market.