The IT Nerd

For a long time, I’ve recommended AVG Free Antivirus as one of the options for my clients to use in a home environment. But the downside to the AVG free is that it won’t protect you from stuff that comes across instant messaging, e-mail and the like. Nor does it have a firewall. Thus users who need those options need to pony up for something more. In this case AVG Internet Security 2013.

First, let me talk about the install. It’s painless. You download a small installer and once you run it will download the files it needs to install onto your computer. That’s a good strategy as you always get the latest version that way. One reboot and an update of the virus definitions and you’re in business. The user interface is very simple and clear. It has icons like “Computer”, “Web Browsing”, “Identity”, “Emails”, and “Firewall.” If you’ve seen Windows 8, this will look very familiar. Even if you haven’t seen Windows 8, it makes finding the settings that you need an easy process. Needless to say, it gives you complete protection from viruses regardless of the source.

To test the speed, I set it up on my wife’s Windows XP computer. Frequent readers will note that my wife is sensitive to the speed of the computer. After a few days of using this, she noted that at worst, it ran about the same speed. At best, it was a touch faster. Speaking of fast, it is quick to scan files. It took almost 20 minutes to scan my wife’s computer which has over 60,000 files on it. I’ll also note that it has a reduced memory footprint likely helps with the speed.

Now for what I wasn’t thrilled about. You have buttons for “Fix Performance”, “Family Safety” and “LiveKive” (for online backup). These are all paid services and it isn’t clear until after you click on them that this is the case. In the case of “Fix Performance”, it will scan the computer for problems. But it makes you buy the product to actually fix them. I must admit that I’m not a fan of that. I’m all for companies trying to sell their stuff. But please, don’t make it seem like a bait and switch.

The bottom line? AVG Internet Security 2013 offers powerful protection. The thing is that AVG also offers AVG free antivirus which while not having the same features of the paid product, will protect you just fine. If your needs are simple, then you don’t need to spend $60 to get decent protection. But if you want complete protection, then take a look at AVG Internet Security 2013. You’ll be glad you did.

This entry was posted on October 16, 2012 at 9:33 am and is filed under Products with tags Antivirus, AVG, Security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.