AVG AntiVirus Free Edition (AVG AntiVirus Free Edition)

Member Name: Nigel1

Product:	AVG AntiVirus Free Edition
Date:	25/01/09 (274 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: One of the better free scanners

Disadvantages: Poor overall protection and failure to detect rootkits

Let me begin by stating that out of all the FREE antivirus applications available then AVG AntiVirus Free Edition ranks up there amongst the best. This isn't to say that its a great product that will protect you from every virus and nasty out there-BECAUSE IT SIMPLY WONT!

I agree, even the more popular and paid for scanners wont protect you from every virus out there,but they will certainly stand head over shoulders above this application in their detection rates of virus.

AVG Free has a detection rate of about 85% which is low compared to better known, and paid for applications such as McAfee, Norton, Eset etc. but is on a par with any other FREE application available.

Also AVG Free does not detect rootkits, which are programmes designed to hide the fact that your system has been compromised. As these are greatly on the increase, this is definitely a huge negative as far as this application goes.

Although there are three settings for your scanning available, I found that on the "full" scan it took nearly 2 hours to complete the scan! (admittedly I have a large amount of files on my pc), which also slowed down my pc noticeably.Basically it is a resource hog.

Sure it has some other features that are fine, like the Link Scanner which will scan links in search engines such as Google, to detect any suspicious links, which is a good thing but the pages of the website take a little longer to open as the scanner does its job.

It has other features also like an email scanner and automatic updates, but when the server is busy it can be difficult for the download process to start the update, and often doesn't.

If you are not prepared, or do not want to pay for an antivirus application that will certainly do better than this, then as free applications go, then this is one of the better ones but you certainly wont be protected to the maximum that is available.

Summary: If you're not prepared to purchase a better version, then this is one of the better free ones.

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