Pros

• AVG Antivirus provides identity theft protection through Identity Guard which protects your personal information from phishing threats
• Has the best free antivirus solution which provides the same protection as most paid versions.

Cons

• It tends to overprotect at times and flags important files as threats
• It has a slower scanner than some antivirus programs like Kaspersky and Norton Antivirus

Effectiveness:
Ease of Installation:
Ease of Use:
New Features:
Updates:
Technical Support:
Overall:

AVG Antivirus 2012 is one of the best antivirus software products in the market. It has some new features which help to secure its place in the top antivirus list. It’s well known for its free antivirus product which is one of the most downloaded software packages. The free version is also the best in the market, but if you need complete protection, you’ll need the full version.

There are all kinds of threats wreaking havoc online including viruses, worms and Trojans. You can’t protect your PC without the best antivirus product, and we believe this is where AVG Anti-virus scores well. Like the other top antivirus products we’ve reviewed, it has received numerous certifications from the likes of Virus Bulletin and West Coast Labs. These certifications prove an antivirus products worth and its ability to detect and remove viruses in the wild.

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But there’s more to look at than just certifications. The most important factor is what you need personally for your antivirus product to achieve. If you’re an online gamer, your needs may be slightly different from a casual home PC user, or from one who uses the internet for business. AVG Anti-virus has its users in mind, and it has produced an antivirus product that caters for many users.

One downside of AVG anti virus is that it’s not as fast as the likes of Norton and Kaspersky at removing threats and can in some situations leave your PC vulnerable to attacks.

Scope of Protection

AVG Antivirus 2012 includes both antivirus and antispyware protection. The combination is necessary because spyware has become the biggest online threat and no PC should be without this protection. Our antivirus reviews prove that Webroot spysweeper is more effective at removing spyware, but you’ll definitely find the AVG antispyware feature effective too.

AVG Anti-virus also protects from phishing attacks. These attacks have escalated in recent years and it’s easy to get caught out when browsing the net. These threats also come through email and Instant Messaging and we are happy that AVG Antivirus has the ability to recognise and remove them. Not only does it protect you from phishing attacks in email, it ensures you don’t accidentally send out any through email to your family, friends or colleagues.

Effectiveness

AVG Antivirus is not the most effective antivirus software product. There are a few better ones at virus detection and removal like BitDefender and Kaspersky antivirus. One problem that it has is that it overprotects at times and flags files that are important, as a threat (false positives). Besides this one shortcoming, AVG anti-virus 2012 has some very good protection features. Tests carried out by AV-Comparatives prove this to be true and many antivirus reviews also prove this fact.

Some of the features that make it effective are:

• its multi-layered protection and advanced technology that are unmatched by most antivirus software products
• its community network that makes it take advantage of their user-base by collecting data to prevent new threats and protect their users
• a host of other features like proactive heuristic detection, cloud-based security and the AVG Protection Network that are some of the best in the anti-virus software market

Ease of Installation

We found no problem installing AVG Antivirus 2012. Within a few minutes, the software was fully installed, and although not the fastest download, it was quick and straightforward. A restart wasn’t required, making the process faster than most antivirus software products we’ve reviewed.

When you download the software, you’re given the option to install the AVG Internet Toolbar. It’s a handy little tool that gives easy access to features you may need to use. You can also set Yahoo as your default search engine, but if you don’t want it to be the default, then uncheck the box at installation.

Other Features

AVG Antivirus 2012 has many features surpassing many other anti-virus software products. Continuing from last year, Gamer mode allows you to play games and view movies in full screen mode without interruption from pop-ups.

AVG Linkscanner is a superb feature which protects your computer as you surf the web. When you perform a search on Google for example, you’ll receive a list of websites and linkscanner will notify you which ones are safe and which to stay away from. The safe websites will have small green colour-coded icons next to the results. The bad websites will have red icons and the unresolved websites will have green icons saying approach with caution. If you want more information about the site, you can hover over the Linkscanner icon. These icons are also available in Yahoo! and Bing search results and they are provided in real-time too.

Updates

AVG Anti-virus updates every 4 hours by default, but you can set it to update every hour. Its new cloud-based technology also helps maintain timely protection as new threats are identified and the solution delivered speedily.

Technical Support

You can contact AVG by email if you have a problem, but they don’t offer telephone support. If your problem is urgent and needs professional assistance, you can pay for premium support. This is useful in case you have a virus on your PC that you can’t remove. They also provide help through additional resources online like forums, a knowledgebase and FAQs.

Summary

AVG Antivirus 2012 is certainly one of the best antivirus software products. It maintains a high level of protection and we hope this antivirus review will prove useful in your search for anti-virus software.