Pros & Cons
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- Powerful protection against viruses, spyware.
- Free.
- Especially effective at keeping malware out of clean systems.
- Protects against exploits and drive-by downloads.
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- No tech support.
- Cleanup leaves behind tons of nonactive file and Registry traces.
AVG Anti-Virus Free 8.0 Specs
| Free: | Yes |
| OS Compatibility: | Windows Vista |
| OS Compatibility: | Windows XP |
| Tech Support: | No support from AVG; forum-based support from other users |
| Type: | Personal |
Grisoft recently changed its company name to AVG Technologies in recognition of the popularity enjoyed by its free AVG antivirus. AVG Anti-Virus Free 8.0 is an especially significant new release because it integrates full-powered spyware protection and adds AVG's new LinkScanner Web-protection technology. This version is free for noncommercial home use only. It doesn't include any support from AVG, but if you run into trouble, you can get help from other users in AVG's discussion forums.
The antivirus technology is the same as that in the full
The fully integrated antivirus and antispyware scanner checks files on demand, on schedule, and on access. It also scans incoming e-mail messages for threats and can optionally scan outgoing messages as well. Some reviewers have reported—incorrectly—that e-mail scanning works only for the first 30 days. According to AVG's CEO, Karel Obluk: "With the free version, what you see from the very beginning is what you get and will be getting always. There are definitely no expiring functions." The free version updates definitions automatically once per day; more frequent automatic update checks (as often as every 15 minutes) are available in the paid version.
Spotting Spyware
I've put a whole new set of malware samples into play since I torture-tested the full AVG suite last month. My samples contain a wide variety of malicious programs, including adware, spyware, Trojans, rootkits, polymorphic threats, worms, and rogue antispyware programs. I installed AVG Free on infested virtual machines and challenged it to clean them up.
Installation went smoothly, for the most part. One system blue-screened before I could run a scan, but after a reboot it worked fine. Malware kept the program from scanning on another system, but I tried rebooting into Safe mode, and that fixed the problem. In Safe mode it runs as a stripped-down command-line scanner. On the remaining systems, AVG Free installed and ran trouble-free, with one big exception.
Something about the malware on the very last system I tested just wouldn't let AVG's installation finish. AVG would get almost to the end and then report an error, asking that I reboot and try again. I did, several times, and even tried to install the program in Safe mode (which, it turns out, is not supported). Nothing I did could make it work.
In a case like this, I'd normally consult tech support and follow whatever advice they'd give to an average user having installation problems. But AVG doesn't offer tech support for the free edition, so instead I posted a plea for help on a forum devoted to installation problems. In less than an hour I got a response pointing to a boilerplate message with advice for cleaning a system on which AVG Free won't install. I ignored the advice to use programs from other companies for initial cleanup, since this is a test of AVG software, not products from other companies. But the posts did remind me about Ewido, a spyware removal tool acquired by AVG in 2006. And indeed, the online scan at www.ewido.net cleaned up the system quite well, allowing the installation of AVG Free to finish. So, although it wasn't the hand-holding I'd expect if I were using a paid app, AVG's help was satisfactory.—
Security Scanning with AVG Free
A full scan on my standard clean test system took 30 minutes when set to Fast priority and closer to 45 at Automatic. The fast mode runs at about the same speed as
Like avast! antivirus 4.8 Home Edition and
The free edition doesn't include rootkit scanning—that option is unchecked and disabled on the settings page—so I was surprised to find that the scanner successfully removed some of my rootkit-based samples. It turns out that the free version is completely capable of removing known rootkits using standard signature-based scanning. The paid version can additionally scan the entire system for rootkit-type behavior that's not associated with a known threat.
On a number of the test systems, AVG Free's Resident Shield detected active malware in real time, before the full system scan. When I told it to quarantine the found threats, it succeeded every time, even against tough driver-based malware. That's refreshing after my recent experience with the Avira suite. Avira's real-time scanner has no power to quarantine files that are in use, which is to say most active malware. So Avira reported the same threats over and over ad nauseam.
That same Resident Shield was quite effective at keeping malware from installing on my clean test system. As soon as I opened a folder containing the samples, the shield started wiping them out. Like avast!, it eliminated just over half the samples on sight. And when I tried AVG Free with hand-modified versions of those shoot-on-sight samples, it still wiped out all but one. I launched each of the samples that survived this initial massacre and noted whether the utility completely prevented installation of any executable files (full credit), tried unsuccessfully to block installation of executable files (half credit), or just plain missed the threat.
The product scored really well in the malware blocking test: 9.6 points out of a possible 10, the same as avast!. Spyware Doctor and WAVASF didn't score as high, though of course they'd catch many of the threats on their next full scan. On a separate test using commercial keyloggers, AVG Free got only 5.5 of 10 points, but let's face it: If somebody is installing a commercial keylogger on your system, you've got problems software can't solve. I don't give a lot of weight to this test.—
Flagging Dangerous Links
AVG's LinkScanner technology analyzes the code on a given Web page looking for drive-by downloads, code to exploit browser vulnerabilities, and other threats. Its analysis happens in real time, so if a normally safe site gets hacked, the utility catches the problem immediately. The converse is also true: If a hacked site gets repaired, LinkScanner gives it a green light. LinkScanner's toolbar installs in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Its Search-Shield feature checks all search results from Google, MSN, and Yahoo! and inserts an icon identifying the site as safe, questionable, risky, or dangerous. The full AVG suite also includes Surf-Shield, which extends this analysis to every site you visit.
As AVG's exploit expert Roger Thompson pointed out, sites from search results are potentially the most dangerous you visit. They're often sites you've never accessed before, and you never know where clicking a search link will send you. So by specifically scanning links in search results, AVG can offer truly useful protection against malicious Web sites.
Searching for certain terms, like warez, will always turn up dangerous sites—hosting illegal downloads is itself enough to merit the red flag. But I had to do a lot of searching to come across sites the utility would flag for some other reason—for example, hosting a Trojan disguised as a video codec. I was surprised to find that Search-Shield stopped me from visiting some of the red-flagged sites—according to the help, that feature is turned off. Thompson explained that AVG Free maintains a local database of known bad sites and will block those even though it doesn't run a full analysis of every page you visit.
AVG Free offers very good (and very free) protection against viruses and spyware—just a tad better than free competitor avast!. As a bonus, its real-time LinkScanner technology keeps you from clicking search links to dangerous sites. It's an excellent choice if you need free protection against both viruses and spyware.
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Final Thoughts
AVG Anti-Virus Free 8.0
AVG Anti-Virus Free 8.0's protection is nearly as good as that of the top for-pay antivirus and antispyware products. Scanning of search links for dangerous pages is an added bonus. And as long as it's for your personal home use, it's free!