AVG Anti Virus Review

I am often asked which Anti Virus program I like to use. Five years ago I was a huge Symantec fan. Most AV products worked well but I always felt they were too bloated and resource intensive. Enter AVG 7.0 Pro from Grisoft. About a year ago I was looking for a replacement to my expired copy of Symantec (Norton) and I happened across AVG. So why switch? Speed, effectiveness and cost were motivating factors. However, the small form factored AVG comes with many additional features.

Simplicity - 4.5/5

The first thing you will notice with AVG is the simplistic layout of the interface. Everything is laid out in one central screen making navigation a treat. In fact for fun, I asked my nine year old son (who really does not understand what viruses are) to show me where he would check for updates, scan email and where the caught viruses were stored. He scored 100%. For the more advanced user, there is a complex feature set which allows you to tweak a little deeper with regards to scan jobs, schedules and file exceptions. The tray icon is simplistic and offers notification windows when scanning email to let you know AVG is working.

Usefulness - 4.5/5

I have put AVG through its paces over the last year and each time I am pleasantly surprised. It has yet to fail me. It would be naïve to state that it will catch all viruses all of the time, but I feel comfortable with its ability. In fact I use it in our company simply for the ease of use to use and support. AVG has numerous accolades including ICSA labs 100% detection rating and the VB100% award.

It should be noted that AVG has only received the West Coast labs Checkmark Level 1 Certification (Level 2 states that the product must detect and clean all viruses in the wild).

For further awards, check out the Grisoft site

AVG is fast. It is not a full featured all in one Anti Everything product. It doesn’t have a firewall, it doesn’t stop SPAM. In fact this is one of the things that drew me to it in the first place. It does one thing and one thing nicely – detects and cleans viruses. An average scan on an 80 GB system takes about 25 minutes as compared to over an hour for many products.

Updates - 5/5

The update scheme for AVG Pro is really a set and forget system. You schedule when you want the updates to occur and whether to use the internet to download them and that is it. On average, AVG updates daily. The updates to the definition files are fast and unnoticed by the user. You can also perform manual scans if it makes you sleep better at night, but are usually unnecessary.

Features - 4.5/5

The feature set is surprisingly rich. As with most AV products, there is a storage area for the viruses after they are detected. Instead of calling it Quarantine as most products do, Grisoft has opted for the more secure sounding - Virus Vault. The Virus Vault allows safe storing of a detected virus until the user decides to fix it or delete it.

One feature I was impressed with was the simplicity of setting up the email scanner. Upon installation, AVG asks what type of email client you are using. I chose Outlook. It then configures automatically to scan each ingoing and outgoing email for anomalies. It also stamps each email as being scanned by AVG, which I found a little annoying, but can easily be disabled if desired.

Scans of the system and individual files are simplified. The built in tests allow a quick scan of the system with no configuration. New tests can be built and scheduled as desired. The scheduler allows tests to be rescheduled if the event is missed such as shutting off a laptop.

The Update Manager is easily invoked and simple to use. There are minimal options to have to configure which is a welcome sight for a home or small business user.