AVG Anti-Virus 9

AVG Anti-virus 9 protects your computer from numerous internet security threats by providing an antivirus and antimalware engine. The first thing to understand is that AVG Antivirus comes in both the Free Edition as well as the more comprehensive complete edition.

With the AVG Anti-virus free edition 9, you already get faster scan and boot times compared to previous versions, obvious antivirus protection, a LinkScanner, e-mail scanning and the new feature of the Identity Theft Recovery Unit. Being a smaller application, the free edition does not feature such a wide range of tools or utilities as AVG Antivirus 9, however it makes up for it by offering neat, effective protection which stays silently minimized in your system tray and only activates when needed.

In contrast, the complete AVG Anti-virus 9 protects you from hackers, phishing scams, adware, and malware (worms, Trojans, and rootkits) that can come through email or instant messaging. It has a firewall and even scans outbound emails to make sure you don't accidentally pass a virus along to others. It's an adequately effective system and you shouldn't notice any major lag or slowdown from the software, especially if you schedule the intensive scans to run while the system is otherwise idle.

There are two main features that make AVG Anti-virus 9 stand out in a crowd: the LinkScanner and the Identity Theft Recovery Unit. Only a few of the current antivirus solutions include integrated internet browser link-scanning and AVG's LinkScanner is beneficial because it helps determine the safety of links displayed whilst browsing online on a search engine.

The other unique feature is AVG's cooperation with Identity Guard to offer identity theft protection; so if your personal information is compromised, Identity Guard will help you recover and restore your identity (online and off).

AVG Anti-virus 9: What we liked

• The interface is nearly unchanged from their previous version, and generally it's easy to use.
• For the most part, it is an install-and-forget security solution that won't obviously tax your system when scanning or when running in the background.
• It has unique features like the Identity theft recovery unit and LinkScanner.
• Regular definition updates are checked for automatically, and can be set to perform every hour (every 4 hours is the default).

AVG Anti-virus 9: What we didn't like

• A dynamic status bar/progress meter for regular scans would be useful.
• When compared to higher priced competition, AVG is not the fastest or the most effective. It was one of the slower security solutions tested by AV Comparatives, showing only 6.8MB/sec scanning (compared to 17MB/sec from Norton and Avast).

AVG Anti-virus 9 Support

There is no phone support, however the online help centre has the usual FAQ section and knowledgebase, and AVG also offers email support.

About AVG

AVG is a wholly owned Australian company that distributes the AVG Technologies (formerly Grisoft) range of Anti-Virus and Internet Security products to the Australian, New Zealand and South Pacific markets.

     

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AVG Anti-Virus 9.0 offers a completely new multi-threaded scanning engine that combines anti-virus and anti-spyware while retaining the product's signature small footprint and scanning efficiency. Additional protection is provided in the form of safe searching and safe surfing protection acquired through the recent purchase of Exploit Prevention Labs, rootkit detection, basic security for MSN and ICQ instant messaging, and detection of malware-infected files on websites.

With AVG Anti-Virus, you get hassle-free protection against today's most sophisticated threats, online and offline. AVG Anti-Virus includes our unique LinkScanner to prevent you from accidentally visiting harmful sites. It's faster, smarter security that won't slow you down. Enjoy consistently high speed scanning performance with our NEW enhanced virus scanner. Surf, and search with confidence, with LinkScanner checking web pages at the only time that matters - right before you click that link.

Features:

• LinkScanner Active Surf-Shield Ensures every web page you visit is safe - even before you go there
• LinkScanner Search-Shield Applies safety ratings to your Google, Bing/MSN and Yahoo search results
• Superior Phishing Protection Checks to make sure web pages really are what they appear to be
• Emailing, chatting, and downloading
• Web Shield Lets you download and exchange files without risking virus infections
• E-mail Scanner Keeps you safe from dangerous attachments and links in your e-mail
• Anti-Virus Makes sure you can't get or spread a virus, worm, or Trojan horse
• Anti-Spyware Prevents unauthorized information access by spyware and adware
• Anti-Rootkit Ensures even the toughest and most sophisticated threats are kept off your PC
• Game Mode Keeps you safe without interrupting your game-play
• Update Manager Makes sure you're always protected against the latest threats - automatically

Because AVG knows scanning time is critical to its customers, scan optimization is a top priority for AVG 9.0's combined anti-virus/anti-spyware scanner, which employs new technology. This marks files as safe or potentially unsafe during the initial scan, and skips the safe files in future scans unless the file structure changes. As a result, users experience dramatically reduced scan times - by up to 50 percent depending on system configuration - as well as improvements of 10 to 15 percent for boot times and memory usage. In addition, in order to face the increasing threats of today's online world, AVG 9.0 combines all modern technologies to optimize real time protection. Starting with the foundation of signature-based protection to deal with known threats, AVG 9.0 builds on top of that behavioral, in-the-cloud, and white listing technologies to address the tens of thousands of new threats daily.

Additionally, AVG 9.0 delivers improved anti-phishing detection through enhancements to its LinkScanner offering, which can now more quickly and accurately determine whether or not a web page is hosting a phishing attack. This is accomplished by allowing the software to apply more than 100 different potential threat indicators to a page. If the result is inconclusive, LinkScanner then makes a call to the cloud to check a multitude of phishing feeds plugged into the AVG research network to make a final determination regarding threat potential.

AVG 9.0 delivers a solution that is laser focused on user concerns and protection, and is marked by a new look and feel designed to significantly improve user experience and ease of use. Responding to customer feedback, the AVG installation process has been shortened by 50 percent and the user protection process is dramatically simplified. Finally, it is also significantly easier for users to detect and remove any third-party security product that could cause conflicts with AVG 9.0 and interfere with the user's level of protection.

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