Grisoft Rolls Out 2008 Version of Free AVG Anti-Virus

I only use Gmail for my mail, so I’ve been using AntiVir as it gets great reviews and its only flaw is lack of email scanning, which I don’t need. But this newest AVG version does seem tempting. Is it really that much better than AntiVir for what I need it for?

I use Avast (also free) and love it. It does not hog up resources and just flat out works.

Is it true that avg 8 installs the yahoo toolbar automatically and even if you uninstall avg the toolbar is bit hard to remove. I read it somewhere in the comments. I hate yahoo toolbar. Could you plz confirm this for me.

I find Avira to be a good lightweight alternative, although it doesn’t have as many features. I like my lightweight apps, mainly because I only have a gig of ram.

Isn’t this version trialware ? After sixty days it stops checking emails ? I believe if you read the small print it states what will stop at the end of the trial.

Currently running Symantec Corporate AV 10.1.5.

Any real reason to switch or should I just stick with my SCAV?

Thanks

“If you don’t have AVG, I strongly recommend you uninstall whatever it is that you’re using and you start using AVG instead because this little beauty is the King of the Anti-Virus Jungle.”

How can you recommend to uninstall one’s antivirus while you only reviewed UI and pretty minor features? It’s like buying a car for its furry steering wheel.

Another question for you Mark: I used free AVG for years, then they had update problems for the free customers. It became such a hassle that I went through all the trusted recommendation sites/newsletters and switched to Avast. Avast is ‘ok’, but it’s not as easy to use as AVG was. How long have you been running AVG before upgrading, and are the update issues for non-professional clients resolved?

Thanks

I am a pretty staunch AVG Free fan so I was excited when AVG Free v8 final was released. Was great but as a sysadmin who cleans toolbars off our systems, I was a bit put off with seeing the AVG toolbar. To each their own.

I also (personally) don’t have much value for the SafeSearch/SafeScan component and wanted it off my system, as well as out all my browsers (in IE 8 it shows up as an Add-on feature, as it does for Firefox as well). Disabling it (the Linkscanner component) left my AVG system tray icon in an permanent error-warning state. Yuck!

Fortunately, a tipster pointed me to the way to do a “clean” install of AVG Free (from the command-line) which seems to totally leave off the toolbar and these other “features” like the Linkscanner from the get-go. It’s very easy for folks who want to nuke those components.

Taming AVG Free version 8

Basically, just run the setup exe file with the following parameters from the command-line

/REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSurf /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSearch.

Example: (if setup file was saved directly to disk C:\)

c:\avg_free_stf_*.exe /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSurf /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSearch

That tip came directly out of one of AVG Free FAQ’s #1338, but it was a bit hard to find.

A commenter to this post of mine then left an additional pile of command-line install parameters.

AVG Free version 8 is really great and I am impressed. Sure it has its “quirks” but it is a major step up from version 7.5.

–Cheers!

I have used AVG Free since the Windows98 days — How long is that in Internet Years, anyway? — and have always been a big fan of it. I’ve recommended it to my clients and installed it for many of them.

Version 8.0 is a disappointment. It is prettier. I don’t find it to be any faster. It found stuff, all right — all of it false positives.

The anti-spyware component is difficult for the average user to turn off. OK, granted we might not want it to be easy for the average user to turn off. However, I already run — and pay for — CounterSpy for anti-spyware/malware/whathaveyou, and I like it very much. Of course, if you don’t figure out how the heck to turn off the AVG anti-spyware, and it decides to run when your CounterSpy is also running, it’s going to be difficult to get work done. I am not the average user. I’m good at this stuff. And I had a heck of a time finding all the places where it had to be turned off.

I absolutely hate the Link Check thing that puts icons all over my search results. I hate it. And if you turn off that — or any — component, the systray icon warns you all the time that your computer may be at risk.

Maybe there’s a way to turn that damn warning off, too, but I hated this product so much that I uninstalled it and reinstalled ugly old version 7.5, which works good and lasts a long time.

In fairness, if someone doesn’t have anti-virus and anti-spyware already installed, and they don’t mind notifications popping up out of the systray all the time, and they don’t mind someone holding their hands when they search, then this is a pretty good choice. Especially if all they care about is the user interface, because that IS nice. It’s kind of…blue.

So, now that 8.0 is out, I guess 7.5 will soon stop being updated, and I’ll have to move along to something else.

“For a start, I don’t believe that the features that I covered are minor. Not in the slightest.”

Well, the prime objective of an antivirus is to protect your PC from viruses. You start with the redisgned UI, then you talk about cookies (fairly innocuous threat - would be last on my list), and you go on with that google seach checking and the setting of the scan speed. That’s what I call minor features when it comes to security.

I don’t mean to disparage your article or bother you, and I actually read your pages regularly - but you should acknowledge somewhere in your text that you reviewed AVG from the “user experience” perspective, and that you did not cover how the product can cope with threats “in real life”. In other words, this is not a technical review, and that’s why I shook my head when you talked about uninstalling our antivirus for AVG. I mean, if I told you to change lawyer for mine, wouldn’t you expect some kind of facts and track record, beyond my mere enthusiasm on how professional she looks to me?

You really don’t know the worth of a Antivirus program until you get a virus. I used AVG 7.0 for a long time until if failed me and let a virus into a clients network. AVG could not clean the virus. NOD32 killed it and two others that AVG missed.

I pay for NOD32 and would never go back to AVG. Sometimes you really do get what you pay for. NOD32 has never let a virus through in the wild and they’re the only product that can make that claim. NOD32 also has the smallest memory footprint and the fastest scan times.

You can read more about my experience here.

AVG may be good, I’ve used it for years now, but this thing with the Yahoo toolbar is unexcusable. I’ve installed AVG8, and IT HAS NOT asked if I wanted the booldy toolbar, it installed it right away.
Even after I uninstalled and reinstalled AVG8, the toolbar was still there, both in IE7 AND Firefox.
To get rid of it, I had to use ToolbarCop, and in Firefox I had to deactivate it through “add-ons” interface (just deactivate, as the ‘unistall’ option is greyed out).
I may be too radical, but I consider ANY unwanted software spyware. Toolbar like this one tend to be extremely intrusive, and usually lack of a unistall option.
Guess it’s time to give AVAST a real test.

“I can only go over the features and nothing else!”

Fair enough, but the main feature is how well you are protected, and you need to be willing to “torture test” the antivirus to find out how it scores. This takes time, and it requires a pretty good understanding of how the security programs work. Needless to say, it’s better done by security experts, whose job is partly to deal with these things.

It does not mean you cannot review other “features”, but you should let the reader know that your testing is nowhere near complete, and that they should not base their choice on it only. Now, I’m off the soapbox.

It would be so much better without the antispyware! I like to use separate security tools (Win. Defender for anti-spy) and I just can’t find a way of turning off the AVG anti-spy. Can it be done, or does it stick permanently to the virus engine? :’(

Mark, I liked the article and am once again considering using AVG. Good job!

I’ve had AVG for over 6 months and just downloaded their new version. A few days later I was on my MSN Verizon DSL (not Internet Explorer) and clicked on my Mail to open up my inbox. All of a sudden Internet Explorer opened up and I was bombarded with over 17 Windows/Screens on Internet Explorer - they just kept popping up until I did a hard shutdown. I figured someone broke through AVG with a virus to do this to my email. Anyone have any thoughts on this.

Jo Ann Kurtz
Lakewood, CA

I had BOUGHT the full 7.5 suite and wasn’t crazy about the slow scanning and other problems, but they allowed me to upgrade to 8.0, which does run faster and much less obtrusively than 7.5… which I was on the verge of dumping, paid-for or not.

(I was NOT offered an option of getting rid of that Yahoo toolbar and had to kill it manually. The AVG icon constantly nags that I’m less than fully protected, but I’m used to this particular nanny yelling at me.)

My problem is that I can’t shut the AV component off! I need to, in order to download a font that got corrupted, which (I’ve had to re-DL it before) simply cannot come through an AV program. I go to Advanced > Resident Shield and untick the box and hit Apply and OK, and AVG goes back to its main interface, which informs me that my AV is up and running, though when I go back to the Resident Shield box to check, it remains unticked. I find this enormously frustrating, and have lost the use of a program until I can get the correct font back.

There needs to be simple access to a temporary shutdown, or even an advanced option that, y’know, actually works. I can’t even shut down any AVG processes through Task Manager — well, I can, and they immediately relaunch, like zombies. It’s like having the world’s meanest babysitter. Would it KILL them to allow me to take an utterly reasonable risk?

[...] Windows only: Popular freeware anti-virus application AVG Free recently updated to AVG Free 2008. Aside from a general interface overhaul and faster performance, the updated anti-virus scanner has added several new features with a focus on web security. AVG is always at the forefront of the freeware anti-virus category, so unless you don’t run anti-virus software, it’s a great alternative to crappy Windows software. AVG Free Anti-Virus 2008 [via MakeUseOf] [...]

[...] Windows only: Popular freeware anti-virus application AVG Free recently updated to AVG Free 2008. Aside from a general interface overhaul and faster performance, the updated anti-virus scanner has added several new features with a focus on web security. AVG is always at the forefront of the freeware anti-virus category, so unless you don’t run anti-virus software, it’s a great alternative to crappy Windows software. AVG Free Anti-Virus 2008 [via MakeUseOf] [...]

[...] “Windows only: Popular freeware anti-virus application AVG Free recently updated to AVG Free 2008. Aside from a general interface overhaul and faster performance, the updated anti-virus scanner has added several new features with a focus on web security. AVG is always at the forefront of the freeware anti-virus category, so unless you don’t run anti-virus software, it’s a great alternative to crappy Windows software.” AVG Free Anti-Virus 2008 [via MakeUseOf] [...]

[...] Image:Makeusof [...]

[...] Free Anti-Virus 2008 [via MakeUseOf] May 4th, [...]

AVG 8.0 SUCKS. It takes far too long to scan, even in thefast scan mode. I don’t care about spyware dectors, I have my own. The program, old and new but new is worse,uses up resources and has perfotrmance hits ups to 100% off and on. I have been a loyal AVG user for a LONG time and am quite familiar with the program but in this case a more polished interface is snynonymous with Windows Vista-looks good and runs bad. Its all about speed-PERIOD. Do the job fast so we can get on with our lives. True I have a lot of files, but many do. I am very disappointed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!