Useful free alternative (AVG AntiVirus Free Edition)

Member Name: StrongSide

Product:	AVG AntiVirus Free Edition
Date:	24/06/09 (46 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free, easy to use, does its job

Disadvantages: Quite slow, resource hungry

AVG is probably one of the best free anti-virus packages and fairly simple to use. The download includes; a Resident Shield which scans newly opened and copied files to make sure they are safe and tells you how many threats have been blocked; a Virus Vault which is where detected harmful viruses are kept to keep your PC safe; and email and link scanners which tell you if a link is safe to click on and explore.

As well as this, it performs automatic scans and updates, which you can perform manually at anytime if you wish. The scans that are performed do take a while though (hours) depending on how much data you have so you have to be patient. There have been complaints that AVG is a resource hog but if you have a fast computer you won't notice it too much, although there is no denying that it will slow your computer a little, especially when performing a scan.

Overall, AVG is a very good anti-virus program but I think there are slightly better ones such as Avast and Avira which are also free. Also, bear in mind that having AVG AntiVirus Free Edition does not mean that your computer is completely secure. You will also need to download a firewall such as Zone Alarm and anti-spyware software, such as Ad-Aware

Summary: I recommend the other two more than this, but it's still a good free package

Reliability:
Ease of use:
Installation:
Noise:
Speed:
Variety of features: