Avg Antivirus 2011

AVG antivirus is a software product designed to protect your computer from ample of threats. It contains antivirus, antispyware and malware protection, plus online protection from harmful sites and downloads. The 2011 release is better than the 2010 version with new social networking protection and LinkScanner.

AVG antivirus is designed to protect your computer from phishing scams, hackers, adware and malware that come through email or IM including Trojans, worms, keyloggers and rootkits. It also scans your outbound mail. On the whole AVG protects your computer from malicious files no matter how they are sent, accessed or downloaded.

AVG Antivirus has one of the most effective antivirus scanners. Its scanning procedure is enhanced by proactive heuristic detection, cloud security and the AVG Protection Network.

AVG Antivirus 2011 has a unique Social Networking Protection that gives a real-time scan of links shared through Facebook or MySpace. Plus LinkScanner which shows colour-coded icons next to all search engine results. It provides a new level of security by letting you decide at a glance whether a website is safe (green), bad (red) or must be viewed with caution (orange).

TopTenReviews compared 25 different antivirus software products and ranked AVG Antivirus as 6^th out of 25. AVG antivirus was rated behind BitDefender Antivirus, Kaspersky Anti-Virus, Webroot AntiVirus, Norton AntiVirus and ESET NOD32 Antivirus at Top Ten Reviews, because they all provide more help and support. AVG rated at the top 5 for effectiveness, ease of installation, ease of use, features and updates.

AVG occupies 236 MB, Norton Antivirus requires 383 MB and Kaspersky uses 405 MB. They all are good at protecting your computer.

• Kaspersky
• Norton Antivirus
• Defender Pro
• Webroot
• ESET

AVG Antivirus costs $34.99 for single year protection. There is also a free download version available with fewer features. With the free version you have to check for updates manually, rather than having updates automatically. The paid version has a risk free 30 days money back guarantee and with updates throughout the subscription period. AVG is cheaper than its main competitors, as Norton Antivrus and Kaspersky AntiVirus both cost $39.99 for one year protection.

AVG Antivirus does not thoroughly remove detected threats. Link Scanner misses many phishing sites. Rootkit and scareware blocking are below average.

I was happy with AVG Antivirus until last year. It has gradually become more and more inefficient and instead of progressing, seems to have gone backwards. The downloadable installation file has been cut down to the minimum and it requires an internet connection at initial setup to get the rest files. This could be acceptable to single user, but it is absolutely no good for repeated installations.

Their tech support is also horrible. Their tech support does not give answers properly and you are at your own.