How would you rate AVG 7.0 free

While Avira and Avast free editions have been noted to be one of the best AV on the market, how would you rate the new free version of AVG in terms of detection rate and would you say its up there with Avira and Avast.

 

the 'free' version is not as good as avast home.

avast home is basically PRO, and in my opinion is by FAR the best free option,

however, if you choose to pay, avg anti-malware or the suite are an extremely good purchase with great detection rates, but if your happy with avast home, you get all this for free.

 

AVG free is definitely not something I would consider.

 

some might call avg free a false sence of secuirty.
the funny thing is i have seen quite a few high risk surfers at college downloading illegal stuff from torrents using avg free thinking its protecting them. but thats a different story.
avast classic and avast home are better options for free IMO.
as stated above avast is bascally avast pro without the script blocker
lodore

 

avg free is definatly good enough to protect, the paid versions just more so.

 

true but nothing will protect people who download god knows what from torrents with only avg free as protection not even a router or a two way firewall. i mean someone is stupid enough to download .exe files from torrents and excute it
lodore

 

Hello,

If you download download.exe and execute it, it's stupid regardless of what anti-virus you use.

AVG is a reasonable and fair product that will serve a home user as well as any other alternative, especially the free ones.

Mrk

 

AVG free is just fine but it should be supplmented with something else. BOClean is now free. I would add that and you will be fine.

 

So what you're saying is that AVG is as good as Avira free, AOL AVS, or paid AV's such as Avira Premium, Kaspersky, NOD32, etc? AVG's detection rate is inferior to all aforementioned products; I think everyone on this forum will agree with that assessment. The point of an AV is to not only protect you in real-time, it also needs to disinfect garbage that lurks in the background during manual scans. I have no idea why people use AVG (free) when there are better free/paid solutions out there. Head on over to Myspace and download some of those fake codecs to test how effective AVG truly is. Zlobs, rustocks, spambots, etc. will crater AVG in a heartbeat.

IMHO AVG (free) is the Ad-Aware of malware tools. Even if you add AVG AntiSpyware as a combo it's still laggin' behind.

 

If you mean the Zlobs, I find AVG (without Ewido engine) to be as good as BitDefender in detecting those....

But yeah, since AVG Free does not include spyware protection, its slightly less nice compared to other free AVs. AVG should be backed up by a good AntiSpyware scanner.

 

Wrong. AVG AntiSpyware+AVG Free will get maybe 1 or 2% less than AVG Anti-Malware. But thats still quite good, and I use AVG IS, and I find its detection rates to be better than BitDefender. So will you say BitDefender sucks?

I mean, its true that AVG is not as good as Avira or AOL AVS. But that doesn't mean it sucks outright. The main problem with AVG is that it usually updates only once a day and hence this can cause situations where detection is added too late, especially considering those pesky Zlobs.

 

I edited my post before you replied. AVG doesn't choke on all zlobs, but some of the others that I mentioned go undetected on a regular basis. Heck even Kaspersky has trouble removing all infections. So many pieces of malware go undetected which is proof in the AV-Comparities report. Then again I services a plethora of pc's each and every week that are plagued with some of the nastiest infections out there. It's not uncommon for KAV to find over 10K infections, Spy Sweeper with over 20K, SAS with thousands upon thousands. Sometimes I can spend a couple of days cleaning up garbage......running a multitude of cleaners and removing things manually as well.

In the end we all have our opinion on what works best. However some people base their opinions on one or two computers, and if they use common sense they might think AVG is doing it's job since they aren't getting infected. AVG is better than nothing, but IMHO not much better, and it's definitely not as good as other freeware AV's.

 

I guess you are right. One thing I'll agree about AVG is spambots, because I when I encountered spambots, it was the ewido engine that saved my behind much more than AVG.

One thing great about Kaspersky is that whenever I find undetected malware, they add it very quickly. You are right in saying that not even KAV finds everything, because I did encounter a lot of situations where KAV also did not detect all. In the end it all boils down to common sense, and those who are wary and intelligent survive.

 

IMO Bitdefender sucks on compatibility with other malware apps. The only thing I find good about Bitdefender is the free online scan.

As I said before, most people on this forum do not clean compromised systems on a regular basis and tend to base their opinions on not just hearsay, but it's what they put on their own pc so it must be good. It's no different than people using a blanket statement saying Antec mfg's crappy psu's with fuhjyyu caps. While that may be true for most of the TruePower and SmartPower line, Seasonic mfg's the Earthwatts/Trio/NeoHE's for Antec and they are some of the most efficient psu's on the market with a 3-5 yr. warranty.

 

When I said about BitDefender, I was talking about detection rates, not compatibility

But yes, I find BitDefender to be somewhat bad in that perspective, and I've been less impressed than I expected with their version 10 lineup.

As for cleaning infected systems, I'll take your word for it because I recently asked Grisoft some things on this matter and well, the reply I got suggested that they do not clean malware well just yet. But their detection rates are still good though, and I think their cleaning method will improve with version 8.0

 

although AVG free is improving, it still lags behind avast and avira. i generally dont recommend it.

 

Hello,

You strengthen my point.

Yes, AVG is as good as other AVs for the normal user. And NO AV is good for people who try to find the latest and the greatest trojan. Detection rates mean very little.

Now, no reason to have any gargabe in the background. Why should you have any garbage on your HD?

Why would I ever go to MySpace ever ever for whatever reason?

Why should I download fake codecs? Why? I have perfectly working codecs... But if you're trying to say that AVG can be killed, then nothing is simpler than randonly deleting files from the hard disk... See how your OS copes with that.

Mrk

 

Mrk, it's quite obvious that you're basing your posts on your own experience and surfing habits. Please think outside of the box and realize that not everyone is as knowledgeable as you might be. AVG free, or no AV may be good enough for you, but for the rest of the population it's not going to provide adequate protection. My comment about MySpace and fake codecs is only one way I see systems compromised on a daily basis. It was an example, nothing more. Even though you may not go there, millions of others do on a regular basis and get duped by malware. For you to say "AVG is as good as other AVs for the normal user" is a very obtuse statement, and I assure you that you're in the minority. Then again, what is your definition of normal?

 

Hello,

I am trying to give you a perspective that is out of the box, but like everyone else, I'm limited by my own experiences, opinions and pride.

You need to understand that User > AV not AV > User. So if the user is a newb, he'll be a newb no matter what you give him - and vice versa.

You are telling me that AVG is not good because some idiot will download fake codecs from some stupid site and get infected? Then you can site that Ferarri is a stupid car because most idiots won't be able to drive it and control it properly, right?

AVG is a fair, reasonable product. But when a person is determined to get infected, he will do, regardless of the little logo saying what company made his product.

Within the boundaries of normal usage - someone who does not go around hunting Zlobs and Gargamels and such - the margin of quality is so thin, he'll never know the difference.

For someone hunting - AV is a completely useless tool.

Mrk

 

First read this and judge yourself:
http://www.av-comparatives.org/

It is a very credible website about antivirus comparatives site. It is unmatchable. Worth reading!
It is hard to find another site which is independent, unbaised, and provide long-hours of test work for free.

Personal experiences are not reliable since there is too much luck factor. Also they tend to misjudge the cases or overgeneralise (eg Antivirus A flags it as malware but Antivirus B can't; so Antivirus A is better; he even forgets to check whether it is false positive or not)

So the best way to answer this type of question is to read a reliable antivirus comparatives test which does the test with a very large testbed.

Info extracted from http://www.av-comparatives.org/
Read the notice and the full report when you interpret the result.

On-demand detection test in February 2007 (extracted):
Avira -- 98.85%
Avast -- 93.86%
AVG -- 96.37%
Note that it is the first time AVG defeats Avast. AVG was always the last among three in the past.
Note that the above is AVG antimalware which includes both AVG and Ewido engine. The detection of AVG alone would be slightly lower (eg maybe 1-3%).

Retrospective / ProActive test in November 2006 (extracted):
Avira -- 53%
Avast -- 18%
AVG -- 3%


PS: Personally I recommend Avira due to its exceptionally good capabilties in detecting malware, very good heuristics (something Kaspersky can't match), good response rates (add new malware into database fast). Last but not least, it's free.

 

Regarding compatibility or stability issue, the best way is to try it out yourself.

Different people have different computers and systems. Even Norton and McAfee generally have more compatibility problems (reported by users), it doesn't mean they would not be fine on your computer.

Thus my opinion about this is:
If that product is running happily in your system, go for it.
Otherwise just forget it and search for another alternative.

 

That is AVG AntiMalware. If AVG pro was tested it would be lower than Avast.

 

Lower is right, but how much lower?

http://www.pcworld.com/product/test...29899&prodid=29900&prodid=29901&prodid=29902#

According to above link, AVG scores 1% less than Avast (Test performed by AV-test.org). And that is the Pro edition without the Ewido engine. But since Avast still has the edge (over AVG Free) due to Adware and Spyware detection, I'll give the preference to Avast!

But honestly, if you exempt the one case of Adware/Spyware, AVG offers the same level of protection as Avast!. Avast with Ewido would not score a lot better than AVG Anti-Malware. It depends on the combination of engines as well, so its not quite black and white here.

 

Hmm...

It can make differences. At least there is a better chance an antivirus(AV) will stop you if you pick one with better detection rate. Even if you get infected unfortunately, a good antivirus may be able to disinfect your system successfully and save your trouble.

The risks are not equal. You are exposed to more risks if you use a bad AV.

Overgeneralised statement.

That would be a dangeorus advice if someone is taken literally.
The 3 popular free antivirus are AVG, Avast, and Antivir, but they are not all of them. If someone picks a less common free antivirus (not necessarily rogue antivirus), it could be a very different story.

Even among AVG & Avast & Antivir, there are performance differences in terms of detection rates, heuristics, response time, false positives etc. It can mean different.

Hmm...

Different antivirus companies have different response time. The tests shown in the AV-Comparatives reports can tell you about that. AV-test has similar tests regarding how fast vendors respond to new malware and add them into database. Generally, Antivir has much faster response time than Avast and AVG. That implies you will get protected against new malware sooner if you use Antivir than Avast/AVG, not to mention Antivir has a far superior heuristics detection system. If antivirus A updates (ie to include the new malware) within a few days; antivirus B updates within two weeks. The lag may make a difference -- saving your computer's life or fortune.

If you are unfortunate and encounter a new malware, you have a much higher chance that Antivir (53%) can stop a new malware than other 2 antivirus (Avast: 18%; AVG: 3% only), statistically speaking.
[Note: the above figures are taken from the Retrospective / ProActive Test in November 2006]

The % of not getting infected if you encounter a new malware is:
- 53% on average if you use Antivir.
- 3% on average if you use AVG.

Does it make a difference?

Sure we shouldn't take figures absolutely. They are just references. It doesn't represent all real-world cases happened every day. You can also more things to further reduce your exposure to new malware.

Antivirus is like a doorlock of your home. If nothing happens, the lock is useless (it just wastes your time to open a door!). If something happens, that's the value. A good lock has a better chance to save your properties than a bad one (eg a simple lock vs a lock with a burglary alarm).

Unless you have non-performance reasons, I see no point not to pick a good one especially when it is free (no cost). Freebie is hard to beat by the way.

 

This number is for AVG Antimalware (AVG blended with Ewido). AVG Pro/Free have lower detection ratings (Standard checkmark according to IBK)