AVG Free Version and salesman misinformation?

Hello

I was helping a little old lady (in fact, tiny) to choose and buy a notebook today at a well-known UK high street store, C.D.

When it came to the actual purchase, and the salesman sprang to life as he tried to flog a 50 year 'support' deal to an 80 year old, he asked if the lady would like to buy one of the Norton Suites. I happened to mention that Win FW and, for example, AVG free would cover her very basic needs (I'm doing a baseline image for her etc. etc.).

The salesman then became very over-excited over the 'fact' that AVG free would not clean up any infection.

Was he as wrong as he was remorselessly adamant?

I've never used it and just wondered...

I've checked the (slightly ambiguous) version comparison chart over at the AVG site and it appears this guy was indeed probably wrong.

Thanks in advance

philby

 

He was a greedy as he was wrong Where's a little old lady going to go on the internet anyway. Norton is very good, don't get me wrong. But the guy thought he had an extra sales commission. You sir are to be commended for saving that woman some money. For her needs AVG and Windows firewall is enough.

 

Thanks for confirming!

That kind of sales pressure drives me nuts!

Just wanted to check I was on firm ground though...

philby

 

Some time ago some stores were rumoured to get up to 80% of the sale price on a certain AV

 

Typically such retail sales people are bullied by company management to achieve certain targets.

 

You don't have to visit the dark corners of the web to get infected. In fact legitimate websites infect people around the world on a daily basis. The website itself could be compromised and injecting malware, or the rotating ads could be exploiting your old version of Java, Flash, Quicktime, etc.

AVG free is decent, but IMO there are more robust alternatives out there.

 

As a computer tech I get to see a large number of infected computers - from the very early days before the internet existed to the present day. So I guess I have a reasonable perspective on this.

Sticking to the present day I would say I have seen all the major security suites breached at one time or another - so nothing is bullet proof. The current versions of Norton seem a little more secure than most of the big names - and McAfee Security is installed on far too many of the infected systems for me too recommend them.

I myself use and recommend AVG Free Antivirus but always add Malwarebytes (MBAM) and SpywareBlaster for extra spyware blocking. I am now also recommending my customers to register MBAM to enable the realtime protection module (onetime fee for home users) - as this seems to block many attacks with almost no conflicts with browser or other security software.

I used to recommend Spybot S&D but there are now too many issues with its realtime protection modules conflicting with the latest browser versions - but I still use it's scanner (as an extra check) when cleaning an infected system.

I tend to use the firewall protection provided by the Router combined with the Windows Firewall - not as secure as a dedicated software or hardware firewall but I find it seems adequate for most home users.

 

AVG indeed will not clean many virus attacks, but neither will Norton & either will slow the computer performance appreciably.

 

I'm a PC Tech too and it's all I do for a living, fix and repair computers.

AVIRA is a much better app at detections and cleaning then AVG has ever been, that's just a fact and it amazes me how people still tend to use AVG thinking it's better and it's not, the AVG scanning engine is really slow also.

Hey philby, go flog that guy in the name of PC Geekdom! LOL

Put Avira on that old ladies PC, it's better then any of the other freebies out there I know I've used them all and do this for a living!

PEACE