AVG Free Antivirus

AVG Free Antivirus has developed a new version of its antivirus software that has earned some impressive reviews. With even more features and tools, AVG Free Antivirus will protect your computer from even the most malicious and difficult-to-detect malware. Even though a few antivirus software applications surpass it, consumers and reviewers alike have still declared it one of the best in protection and performance.

Multi-Layered Protection

AVG Free Antivirus offers a few strategies to enhance your computer’s defenses against harmful files. The software includes not only antivirus protection, but also spyware protection. AVG even protects your computer while you're browsing the internet. This special feature provides real-time barriers to keep malware from infiltrating your computer.

The effectiveness of AVG Free Antivirus rates well among other antivirus programs. The multi-layered defense system described above has proven to be well above average. The scanning engine, which powers the hunt for suspicious files, is further strengthened with a couple other useful components.

Heuristic detection, for instance, basically analyzes files on your computer that look suspicious, testing for malware-type behavior. Creators of new and more malicious malware can find ways to bypass the detection tools of your antivirus program. But AVG Free Antivirus software uses heuristics to isolate files and analyze their behavior when you start up your computer. When it observes any virus-like behavior, it intercepts the file, confirms that it is in fact a virus, and eliminates the malicious file.

The AVG Protection Network is a second method that the software uses to keep malware from your computer. AVG utilizes the community network to research new virus information anonymously from a broad base of consumers. So, if a new kind of malware is out there, AVG Free Antivirus will likely pick it up and inform your software, proactively defending your computer.

Installation

AVG Free Antivirus is relatively painless to both download and install. It does not require the user to restart the computer after installation. Although it is not the fastest on the market, it has still performed well against the competition, and it is very low maintenance. Upon installation, the software gives you an option to include the AVG toolbar, which allows users to conveniently check on scanning diagnostics, including any notifications, and security status and shortcuts for scanning options, among other things.

Features

A number of effective features make AVG Free Antivirus powerful for users. Gamer mode, a popular feature, allows you to play full screen games or watch movies without disturbance from pop-up ads.

Another feature is the PC system optimizer utility, which scans hardware and identifies numerous computing errors that slow down performance. Only one optimizer scan is allowed, however, before AVG requires you to purchase the full version.

Perhaps the most impressive feature is the internet link scanning utility. After a Google, Bing, or Yahoo search, this device codes each website result with a small icon – green for safe and red for unsafe – to give you an idea of each site’s riskiness before you click on it.

Summary

AVG Free Antivirus provides a broad spectrum for security, protecting the computer with a substantially multi-layered system. Convenient new features allow a smooth, trouble-free scan, without too much CPU usage. Despite its ranking below a few other applications, AVG still performs at a superior level.

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