Pros & Cons
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- Very good at keeping spyware out of a clean system.
- Spam filter didn't misfile any valid messages.
- Antivirus rates well with independent labs.
- Plug-in architecture is easily extended.
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- Firewall is rudimentary and vulnerable to attack.
- Product failed to remove most already installed spyware in testing.
- User interface is clunky and awkward.
AVG Internet Security 7.5 Specs
| Type: | Business |
| Type: | Personal |
| Type: | Professional |
The AVG antivirus has great name recognition—it's one of just a few effective antivirus solutions available in a free edition. AVG Internet Security (which isn't free) starts with the professional edition of that same antivirus and adds spyware protection, spam filtering, and a basic firewall. It doesn't offer parental control or private data protection features, but if Grisoft wanted to add these or other features, the suite's plug-in architecture would make it easy.
The product's main Control Center lists all the suite's plug-ins and shows their status. You even get a choice between a compact list of plug-ins and a larger thumbnail-type display. On the other hand, the product's functionality is separated into too many disparate modules. I frequently had the Control Center, Test Center, and Virus Vault windows all open at once. And on an infested system, every popup warning brings the Control Center window to the top, covering up the other two. Each plug-in has its own separate configuration dialog, which makes checking the overall configuration a bit awkward. Yet there's a certain amount of overlap between all those separate dialogs. This suite could really use a make-over—not for beauty, but rather for ease of use.
Keeping Out the Bad Guys
West Coast Labs gives the AVG antivirus Checkmark certification for virus detection and removal and for detection of Trojans. Virus Bulletin recognizes it with the VB100% award. And ICSA Labs certifies it for virus detection, though not for removal, so the AV receives good but not perfect marks. AVG scans for viruses on demand, on access, and on schedule. With most products, on-access scanning occurs when a file is opened or viewed; AVG's Resident Shield can optionally scan again when the file is closed. It scans incoming and outgoing POP3 e-mail, and you can configure it to automatically strip specific types of attachments from mail messages. Where
On my standard clean test system a combined virus and spyware scan took about 25 minutes, roughly the same as
As always, I installed the product on systems infested with known malware and challenged it to clean them up. On several systems, AVG repeatedly popped up message boxes announcing that it found an unwanted program. I opted to move the program to the Virus Vault, clicked Yes to confirm, and (in some cases) clicked Yes to let AVG finish removal by rebooting. Some popped up during a full scan and during installation—I didn't reboot at those times. Even when I did allow it to reboot, more often than not it found the same threat again and again. Each pop-up warning forced the Control Center to the foreground, on top of other AVG windows. Yet the Control Center's own buttons were disabled until I closed the pop-up … at which point another pop-up often took its place. What a nightmare.
I hoped that a full scan would clear out all the unwanted programs and put an end to those maddening pop-ups, but that was a pipe dream. Out of sixteen spyware samples, it only succeeded in removing five. It completely missed three, and tried but failed to remove the other eight—so the pop-ups just kept rolling in. It did detect six of the eight commercial keyloggers I use for testing, and succeeded in removing four of those. But there's no way I'd rely on AVG to clean up an entrenched spyware infestation.
On the other hand, with AVG installed and guarding the system, any new spyware will have a tough time getting established. Out of sixteen spyware samples, it blocked installation of all but two—the same as Spy Sweeper 5.2. It wiped out nine of the spyware installers the moment I opened their containing folder; the rest were eliminated at some point during the install process. Of course, the bad guys can easily modify installers to get past a very simple signature-recognition system. I tried my own version of this chicanery, using a hex editor to modify renamed copies of the installers. Even with my changes, it still quarantined them on sight, which is impressive. When I ran a similar test with Spy Sweeper, it didn't catch the changed files directly, but other layers of protection prevented almost all of them from installing. —
Simple Spam Filtering
AVG's antispam installation takes a minimalist approach. It filters the incoming POP3 e-mail stream using an engine licensed from Mailshell and inserts "[SPAM]" into the subject of spam messages. But it doesn't create a spam folder or integrate with e-mail clients to put spam into that folder. Whether you use Outlook, Outlook Express, or some other e-mail client, you'll have to write a message rule yourself. While it includes whitelist and blacklist functionality, it doesn't populate the whitelist from your contacts the way
A slider lets you choose better filtering performance or less memory use—I left that one at the default. You can click the Edit button to change advanced settings, but you need an advanced degree in Mailshellology to understand these settings; I say leave 'em alone.
Using the default configuration I let the product filter about 2,000 messages from a real-world e-mail account. I also timed it downloading all 2,000 at once, with and without spam filtering. Without filtering, the download took about 5 minutes; with filtering it took four times as long. Fortunately most of us don't have to download thousands of messages each session. I then analyzed the contents of the Inbox and the Spam folder, counting only messages that were undeniably spam or unquestionably valid mail from individuals. The filter let about 10 percent of undeniable spam into the Inbox, but it didn't block even one single valid message. That's way better than the spam filtering in most suites! A few of my bulk non-spam messages (newsletters and such) got filtered out, but it wasn't too hard to whitelist them. —
Retro Firewall
AVG's firewall stealths your computer's ports so hackers can't even see that a computer exists, and it controls which programs are allowed access to the Internet. It has the ability to assign different profile settings automatically when you connect to different networks. But that's about as far as it goes. It reminds me of firewalls from four or five years ago—eons, in Internet time. For example, when a program requests Internet access for the first time, the firewall pops up a plain old Windows message box, rather than the less obtrusive pop-ups in the lower right corner used by most modern firewalls.
The firewall doesn't include protection against malware that uses sneaky tricks to evade normal program control. It didn't block any of a dozen leak-test programs that demonstrate these tricks. And it isn't hardened against malware attack in any way that I could discern. While I didn't find a way to turn off firewall protection by manipulating the Registry, killing the firewall process through Task Manager was a snap. It was equally easy to end the firewall's protection by turning off an essential service. If malware targets this firewall, it will roll over and cry "Uncle!"
The AVG suite has many good points—the antivirus and spam filter are fine, and it does a good job keeping spyware out of a clean system. But its spyware removal scanner and firewall are just so-so, and the clunky user interface needs work.
Sub-Ratings:
Antivirus: 
Antispam: 
Antispyware: 
Firewall:
Privacy/Parental: N/A
More Security Suite reviews:
Final Thoughts
AVG Internet Security 7.5
The very good virus and spam protection in this suite are offset by a weak firewall and spyware removal scanner. And the clunky user interface just about drove me nuts during testing. Overall it's a decent product, but it's begging for a makeover.