Is AVG Pro Trial meant to be this trying?

Having not used AVG myself since 8.5, I was asked by an AVG-using client to put AVG Pro 9 trial on a new PC.

The online-only installer worked smoothly enough but took a l o n g time, and even after being told once that I didn't want the "Security Toolbar", it had ask me again near the end - just in case I wasn't really, really sure I'd made the right decision.

Monday morning, a whole 5 days into a 30-day trial, and a splash screen prompts him to "Buy Now".

10 minutes later, a browser pane which can't easily be closed (see attached pic, the 'x' is greyed-out) urging him to increase the protection he hasn't even bought yet, appears.

Is this typical?

 

Maybe no-one here is using AVG Pro!

 

Yes, AVG has been mediocre both from detection and performance perspectives. And on top of that, to actually pay for AVG Pro is unimaginable. Free solutions like avast! do a much better job. Even if you want to spend some money, better alternatives like Kaspersky exist. So, IMHO, I see no good reason for someone to be using AVG in its present state.

 

agreed with the above statement totally. avg is 100% not worth paying for at all and even for free there are MUCH better out there imo

 

Still 23 days top go and the uncloseable browser popups keep coming!
I was indifferent toward AVG, my client remains (apparently) enthusiatic. I'm becoming more convinced I'm not missing anything by not using it.

 

back in the day! i think everyone had avg free and zone alarm free as alternatives to the pre installed bloaty security packages that came with their dells and compaqs, as a free, effective and lightweight solution.
like a lot of previous av 'stars' i think they have totally lost their way and i wouldnt recommend them to anyone. tell him to download MSE.

 

you are not missing ANYTHING... seriously.. a few years back i maybe.... maybe would have said different but even then it was not a top dog imo. and now today it just keeps falling behind

 

AVG has done pretty well in the last couple of tests at Av-Comparatives that I just checked. The Retrospective and On Demand.

 

Yeah, even at that time people were just going along the AVG ride, without knowing its effectiveness, as it was a big relief from bloatware like McAfee, Norton, CA. Even at that point, Avira and avast! were much better, but Avira suffered from non-existent marketing and avast! was not taken seriously due to its interface. It's like Java : The Complete Reference. It became popular when no other good alternatives were available but its effectiveness is very questionable. Today, AVG would require to do something very drastic to win back loyalty.

 

Thanks for the suggestion but he already has a number of options from me.
MSE would be worthwhile but this is for a non-home-office commercial user who is leaving McAfee when the license expires and just happens to have AVG Free at home (which makes him an expert ).

 

i have been using AVG pro since 2008 and with the exception of the 8 version it was not too bad having it as a primary AV in my laptop.Their support is a little sluggish but not the worst.In fact if i could i would upgrade for another two years but since i do not have a credit card and there is no where you can buy it here in Albania so i will just wait for another time to renew.By the way it never failed me as far as i remember.So stop bashing the program for nothing.

Now i am using my signature

 

I've been using AVG since 2006 (I started with Anti-Malware, upgraded later to Internet Security) and have had no troubles whatsoever. The detection rates haven't been "dropping off" - if you noticed, AVG always stays mostly consistent within the 92-96% range in AV-comparatives' on-demand tests.

Combined with LinkScanner and Identity Protection, it actually provides pretty good protection. Also, there is much more to an anti-virus than just the product itself. Back in 2006, when I first bought a license, Grisoft was a small(er) company and had excellent customer support. Today, it is still excellent despite some significant expansion from the company in the years since. That speaks something about the quality of support, as I have never, ever been disappointed by them in this regard. There were times when showstopper bugs took months to fix due to problems in pinpointing the issues (due to the bugs being somewhat hardware/software combination-specific), and even then the AVG team, after 3 or 4 months, still responded to my months-old ticket (which I had personally forgotten about) to inform me that my bug had been fixed (It's another thing that I'd already noticed). If that's not support than I don't know what is!

So yes, I can say a lot of good things about AVG, but I haven't been silent about some of the worse things they did either. For example, the discontinuation of the AVG Anti-Spyware product was something I wasn't all that thrilled about. However, 4 years on, AVG still protects me from many exploits and pen-drive trojans on a weekly basis. I can't say it's bad at all.

As for the AVG Pro trial displaying these messages, that's just the new and improved P) marketing team having a go at you. It's certainly new and wasn't there with the 8.x versions.

 

I agree

... but there are better free AV available at the moment

 

"Is AVG Pro Trial meant to be this trying?"
Only for you, Vladimyr.

While suffering somewhat in 2009 tests, AVG paid attention and updated. For AVC's May 2010 "proactive/retro" they garnered a 34% vs Avast's 29% and Symantec's 43%. Panda Security and Trustport topped out at 63%. For VB100's June 2010 comparative review, AVG's results were within ±2% points of all apps that rated in the top 98-100%. RAP was 92.16% vs Trustport's 94.16%, Avast's 82.87% and Avira's 84.33%. For PCSL's May 2010 tests, AVG pulled a final score of 98.20 vs Avira's 97.11 and Symantec's 95.72. Top score was 98.80 by Panda Security and 98.6 for GData. And all of that is without the influence of LinkScanner.

And no, I don't know how your fav app scored. Go look it up yourself. I nit-picked those scores above as reference points.

Bottom line is AVG is right up there with the top entries on any Leader Board. Considering the multitudes of choices out there, most are clearly mediocre, AVG's light and minimally intrusive core protection in Free is Pretty Darned Good. Backed up (as any free AV should be) by the likes of, for example, free PCAV, Threatfire or insert your fav free layered app here, excellent traditional protection can be attained.

 

Please cite your references.

 

I guess there are no references

 

Does your expert object to the ad or is it just you? I didn't object to the adverts in Avira Personal when I had it.

 

I don't think he objects to the ads in the free version (at least he hasn't mentioned them, I assume they still have them at the bottom of the UI). He's kind of embarassed in front of his staff about the almost-daily upselling browser windows that can't be closed. Like when a software product nags the user to renew subscription every day for 30 days, when the machine's owner has every intention of paying when the time comes.

 

better? not really i think they all have their pros and cons so lets not discuss it this way

 

To be honest i never really liked AVG. Not when it was in version 6.0 and not any later. That's free version. Not sure why would anyone want to pay for it...
Especially when you have other much better alternatives like avast! 5 and MSE. Which are free and aren't annoying like hell (at all).

 

As a user of AVG Internet Security, I find it is doing a fairly good job. There are the occasional annoyances, but so far it has been fairly robust.

The most annoying nag-screen I had was during my 30 day trial of Avira. Before each scheduled scan it would pop up with a messages informing me I was using a trial version and needed a click to start the scan. As the scans were scheduled to start while I was asleep, it meant none of them were ever completed!

 

MSE would not be a competitor to AVG in the present state for me and Avast is so-so

 

I think it's time to close this thread