AVG Antivirus, 2 User 2011, 2 Year Subscription (PC)

I have been a massive an of AVG for many years now, telling everyone that would listen to ignore the big boys and get this antivirus program for free. Of course, its understandable that the publishers would want to also advertise the paid-for version, which might very well be of benefit to many users, and I remember one year it was practically given away for free - all you had to do was subscribe to a mailing list and you got the 'paid for' version free or a year.

But I digress. At some point, AVG ballooned from a 3MB download to an 'installer package' that sucked 150MB from the internet. At the same time, what was once the tightest, gimmick free, and fastest suite on the net became bloated, and slow. Very slow.

Sadly, many other sites have given 'bargepole' status to this product. I find 2011 the worst version yet, and worse still had a nightmare trying to uninstall - were it not for my above average PC skills, I would still be stuck with a half-installed version now. Lets just say it involved regedit to totally remove. Perhaps in allegorical terms I have mellowed from 'angry activist' to 'neo-con' - but my money is now on Microsoft Security Essentials! The biggest irony is that the team behind AVG were once very much in the same camp.

My father has used AVG for ages, and I have installed the free version on numerous occasions myself. Unfortunately, despite the fact that he was fully up to date etc, my father managed to pick up a virus using this software. Persistent little bug is was too. I eventually sorted out for him by performing a low level format and reinstalling everything from scratch. I then installed a different AV product, and scanned his media and USB drives etc. The other product (in this case, NOD32) detected and cleaned the USB sticks. Basically, it was able to detect the virus, and AVG wasn't.

That's that I'm afraid. I won't be using AVG again, as when it really mattered, it failed, big time.

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EDIT - 29/04/2011

Just to clarify one point. My father was using the PAID version of this product. When I say he picked up the virus using this software, I mean the paid version of AVG. He was not using the free version.

To put the review in context, I'd describe myself as an advanced user. The review was done on a mid 2011 Apple iMac running Windows 7 Professional 64 bit via Boot camp (as in real machine) with 8Gb of RAM. Windows is a fresh install with no AV on and just the Chrome browser and COD:MW2 installed.

I've used AVG extensively in the past. For a free product it was beyond good - it had a tiny foot print and did it's job well blocking any malware and doing a good job with protection whilst being quick and free! The last version I used was AVG 9.

This version of AVG comes in a nice retail box, I popped in the CD and did a quick install, upon entering the supplied licence key though you are told that this is a sales key and you need to go online to register. Seems pointless and a waste of time but I'm sure there is a reason behind this..

Once you get past this, you have the standard install options, with something new called AVG2011 Gadgets - more on this later. You next have the option to install the AVG toolbar - I didn't do this as I prefer a minimal approach to my browser.

After installation, I got a pop up balloon telling me the virus definitions were out of date, which was fair enough but would have preferred it to autoupdate after install like Malware Bytes and most other AV products do.

Remember the temp licence number mentioned earlier? well upon updating the AV the temp sales key is replaced with a full one. you can copy to the clipboard and then click register. You then have to fill in your mail address etc to get a message that you are now fully registered. then you click okay to restart the application. This is the year 2011 so quite why we have to have such a pointless, click happy installation/registration is beyond me!

After finally getting the suite installed, the interface is neatly laid out - you have AV, anti Spyware, Linkscanner, anti root kit, Update Manager, email scanner, online shield, ID protection, resident shield, licence and PC Anaysler options from the front screen. (It also did a background update and wanted to reboot the system).

The first scan used around 50% available RAM and upto 48% CPU usage, but seemed to be quite painless without much slow down on the system. Far more worrying was the 13 processes in task manager, as well as a couple of other SVCHOST threads running - this is most likely due to the different modules but seemed very excessive.

The actual scan took 16 mins 7 seconds for 1045563 files which is pretty impressive.

I fired up IE to test how web threats were handled - the website blocker is useful. I searched for the term "warez" knowing there is some potential malware there and it blocked 4 of the 10 sites with a clear warning so stopping you from going to a potentially bad site by mistake. This would be very useful for casual or inexperienced users and certainly stop some of the malware out there.

The PC analyzer seems the usual kind of autofix utility that shows registry errors, broken shortcuts, etc and is worth it as an addition but nothing fancy that CCleaner or simliar don't do any better.

The resident and online shields block any potential baddies from copying over.

The Gadgets that I mentioned earlier seems to have no purpose other than to quickly update or launch a scan. It can also take you to the AVG twitter feed or facebook page. I turned it off.

Good points for this software
The online and resident shields are both very good
Ideal for new or casual users
Good interface
Price is good for £27
Very quick and unobtrusive scans

Bad points
Pointless registration procedure
The price for £27 is for one year subscription. I personally loath subscriptions and prefer a one off fee.
There is a free version of AVG that has most of the good bits in it - does the extra components justify paying for it?
Gadgets

AVG 2011 is a nice product, once it's up and running, it detects and prevents nasty things from harming your PC, files, and identity and I would strongly recommend the product for novice users, but anyone that knows their way around Windows may benefit more from the free version.