AVG was one of the first to make antivirus free and one of the most widely used. A few years ago, AVG made the headlines a few times with updates that rendered Windows useless, but lately, the company seems to have got things back on track. Now they want to sell your data.
AVG AntiVirus Free
Language
Dutch
OS
Windows XP/Vista/7/8.1/10 (32 and 64 bit)
Website
www.avg.com
7 Score 70- Pros
- Good performance security
- AVG Web Tuneup
- AVG Zen
- Negatives
- Data Collection
- Mandatory registration
- License for one year
If you don't pay attention during the installation, your PC will just have a trial version of AVG Pro instead of AVG Free. With the paid version you are better protected because it also protects against malicious downloads, spam and phishing, can encrypt files and has its own firewall. AVG Free is limited to blocking malware, scanning links on web pages including Twitter and Facebook, and scanning malicious email attachments. Also read: File Antivirus.
Windows
AVG protects against viruses, rootkits and spyware. You can also start scans manually or have them run on a scheduled basis. Downloads are only checked when you open or start them, scanning during the download is only in the paid version with AVG. AVG keeps your Inbox free from viruses but not from spam. Secure Search and AVG Web TuneUp are two browser plug-ins that monitor website security and provide privacy options such as automatic browser cache clearing.
The addons are available for Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome but in the latter only the Secure Search works, in Edge nothing at all. Attempts to entice you to buy the paid version are generous in AVG as well as for other AVG products. From this year, AVG no longer has annual versions, once installed and registered it will protect your PC endlessly and it will automatically receive all program updates.
Privacy Policy
As of October 2015, AVG changes its privacy policy so that the company can now also sell surfing behavior that it also collected in previous versions to third parties. AVG promises to protect your privacy, but it doesn't feel right for a security company to do this, even if you can disable the sharing of privacy-sensitive data.
Conclusion
The great strength of AVG is its excellent performance in virus detection and cleaning. The interface is modern but not always handy. It is also annoying that there is relatively much advertising for the paid versions. How the new privacy policy will work out remains to be seen, but suspicion is warranted. AVG is fully Dutch and the translation is of good quality.
