AVG 9.0 Anti-Virus Free Review

Charles P. Jefferies · 11-05-2009, 07:01 AM

By: Charles P. Jefferies

Introduction

AVG 9.0 promises protection and performance improvements as well as a better user experience over the previous version. Does it work as advertised? See how it fared in our testing.

Product Overview

AVG promises hassle-free protection from their 9.0 Anti-Virus Free suite. The software protects from viruses, spyware, and malware. AVG claims its newest 9.0 version has numerous improvements over 8.5, including significantly increased scan performance, protection, and ease of use. AVG claims scan times are reduced up to 50 percent. 9.0 also includes some new technologies. One of them is LinkScanner, which provides anti-phishing protection on the Internet by scanning Internet search engine results.

Also new in 9.0 is integration between the Resident Shield and identity protection modules (and the firewall module, however the Free does not include a firewall). This increases protection by allowing the modules to share information with each other and resolve unknown threats.

AVG also offers something that other security vendors do not -- free identity protection. The AVG Identity Theft Recovery Unit provides protection through Intersections, Inc. The Identity Theft Recovery Unit will provide AVG customers compromised by identity theft with a support team to help them get back on their feet free of charge.

Customer support for AVG Anti-Virus Free customers is handled through a community forum; registration is required to participate but anyone can read it.

Download & Installation

The AVG Anti-Virus Free installation begins with downloading a download manager from the company's website. The download manager handles the download of the actual program files and initiates the installer. It takes about five clicks and just a few minutes to get through the install. The steps involved include accepting the license agreement, choosing the installation type (we chose standard since that is what most users will choose), and activating the software license.

Users are given the option to install the AVG Security Toolbar, which provides the above-described LinkScanner functionality and the option to provide AVG with anonymous information about discovered threats. Although AVG claims the installation process was shortened by 50 percent, we cannot say it was any different versus 8.5. That is hardly a complaint since the install is relatively painless and is easy to click through.

Program Interface

AVG 9.0's interface is more or less identical to 8.5's. The color scheme is easy on the eyes and navigation is simple. Basic navigation is handled by tabs on the left; more detailed navigation is handled through menu options along the top. The Overview tab shows an overview of all components and their status. Double-clicking on any component in the center shows more information about it:

The scanner tab allows users to start a system scan and schedule scans. Lastly, clicking on the Update tab initiates an update. The software updates itself automatically so there is little point to visiting this tab.

Advanced program settings can be accessed through the Tools menu:

Most users will not have to touch anything in here; we did not have to.

In Use & Effectiveness

AVG Anti-Virus Free stayed out of the way during everyday tasks. The LinkScanner feature was helpful while picking through search engine results because it helped determine the safety of links displayed. Over 100 different potential threat indicators are applied to each page to determine a link's safety. A small indicator icon is displayed next to each search engine result:

To test the effectiveness of AVG I used several virus files from Eicar.org, an IT security website. The four files provided for download, which have different extensions including .com, .zip, and .txt, contain viruses. Please see the test description for extensive information on the tests. Good anti-virus software should detect these files as threats.

AVG detected all four threats; one during download and three afterwards. It did not detect them immediately upon download but a minute or two later came up with a warning and automatically removed and neutralized them. A history of detected threats can be viewed:

Overall AVG performs as expected; it protects though is not particularly pro-active. More pro-active solutions detect viruses during or even before download.

Performance Impact

We evaluate the performance impact and system resource usage of using anti-virus software in three ways:

1. Overall system performance measured before and after installation using PCMark, a system benchmark suite

2. Memory footprint

3. Time it took to perform a full system scan

Our test system is an HP Pavilion dv5t:

Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz/3MB L2/1066MHz FSB)
4GB RAM
500GB 5400RPM hard drive
Windows Vista Home Premium x86

Overall System Performance Impact Measured with PCMark Vantage

Prior to installing AVG the notebook had the following numbers:

After installing AVG I ran the benchmark again:

The difference -- well, it essentially does not exist! AVG has a near-zero impact on system performance -- most impressive.

Memory Footprint

AVG uses about 35MB of system memory according to the Task Manager, which is basically nothing. Some antivirus suites use less (15-20MB), however the difference is so trivial considering how much memory modern computers have that it does not matter.

Time it took to perform a full system scan

A full scan of our test system's hard drive containing 122GB of data took 23 minutes, which is about twice as fast as competitors Norton 2010 and ESET NOD32. AVG 8.5 lagged behind so there were clearly performance gains made in 9.0. AVG did an optimization scan after it installed, which probably helped reduce the scan times:

Conclusion

It is difficult to complain about a free product -- even so, we have very little to complain about AVG Anti-Virus Free. While not as proactive as paid competitors' software it still gets the job done and includes nifty utilities such as the LinkScanner Internet toolbar. The free identity theft protection is an added bonus. Even though AVG Free is free, it can still compare to paid solutions. We recommend AVG Anti-Virus Free to users looking for basic protection.

PROS

It's FREE
Virtually no performance impact
Identity theft protection

CONS

Could be more proactive
Feature-light
LinkScanner requires toolbar

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kurod · 11-05-2009, 10:34 AM

"Even though AVG Free is free, it can still compare to paid solutions."

My thoughts exactly. Hey it's no kaspersky but at least I'm not paying for it.

Serg · 11-05-2009, 10:37 AM

I like Avira better. I had AVG and it was a disaster for my single cored laptop. Made everything painfully slow when running a scan on the background, and it took when not doing anything else, over 4 hours to do a full scan, and considering I only have 80GB of info in my laptop, that is slow.

kurod · 11-05-2009, 11:02 AM

Never heard of Avira, but I'll check it out.

jpzsports · 11-05-2009, 12:53 PM

Good review Chaz. So now that you've tested both AVG 9 and MSE, what's your top pick?

Numer0bis · 11-05-2009, 01:38 PM

really good review. If you use firefox you don't need to install the toolbar. AVG installs a firefox addon which adds link scanning capabilities. I really liked it and compared to avira it does not nag you all the time to buy the pro version. The new avira version always displays a nag screen to encourage you to buy the pro version during an update.

So for free I think nothing can beat AVG

sgogeta4 · 11-05-2009, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpzsports

Good review Chaz. So now that you've tested both AVG 9 and MSE, what's your top pick?

I'm also curious as to how those two stack up to Avira...

Angelic · 11-05-2009, 06:34 PM

Well I'll stick with my "proactive" paid Avira. I don't like how AVG doesn't bother to remove the virus's until a few minutes after they were downloaded. That's too long for me. Another proactive feature, the link scanner, also kind of fails. No one wants to install a toolbar, and I sure don't. But for free, you can't complain I suppose.

Charles P. Jefferies · 11-05-2009, 06:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jpzsports

Good review Chaz. So now that you've tested both AVG 9 and MSE, what's your top pick?

I personally prefer Microsoft since it has the protection I want - just the 'essentials' as the name implies; AVG has a bit more. I like Microsoft's interface more as well but that's a minor factor . . . I can't remember the last time I actually opened up my AV software's program interface; there's no need to.

On all my systems I use ESET NOD32.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Angelic

Well I'll stick with my "proactive" paid Avira. I don't like how AVG doesn't bother to remove the virus's until a few minutes after they were downloaded. That's too long for me. Another proactive feature, the link scanner, also kind of fails. No one wants to install a toolbar, and I sure don't. But for free, you can't complain I suppose.

You can try those test virus files I linked to in the article ("test description"). See how fast Avira reacts. I'll see if I can do an official review of Avira.

Angelic · 11-05-2009, 07:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charles P. Jefferies

I personally prefer Microsoft since it has the protection I want - just the 'essentials' as the name implies; AVG has a bit more. I like Microsoft's interface more as well but that's a minor factor . . . I can't remember the last time I actually opened up my AV software's program interface; there's no need to.

On all my systems I use ESET NOD32.

You can try those test virus files I linked to in the article ("test description"). See how fast Avira reacts. I'll see if I can do an official review of Avira.

I used to use NOD32, I thought it was very good.

Um, hey Chaz, which test file did you use? I see 4 different ones (8 actually).