I thought I'd write a review on this product, seeing as though I've used it for years now and have no real complaints and it has protected me on a few occasions, before, any harm could come to pc.

Keep in mind this review is just my opinion of the product, so if you would like a professional review, please search for a review site which meets that criteria, or check out the product website itself.

Ok now on to the Review

Title: AVG Anit-Virus Free Edition
Website: www.grisoft.com
Program Version: 7.5.*
Paid or Free? Free
Regular Updates available? Yes, but only once daily on Free version
Support available? Once registered you can post on the Free Version's support forums on their site. Other than this, ther eis no support for the Free version.
User Friendly? Yes
Effectiveness: Picks up roughly 95% of known viruses/worms/trojans etc
Score out of 10: 8 or 9

This is a very good Anti-Virus Program, and even better still it's available in a Free Version.

As mentioned, I've used AVG Free Edition for years. It has picked up all the main virus threats and lots of others that some of the well known AV prog's have been known to miss.

User Interface:


AVG Test Center

It has a good control center and testing center, and is well laid out so that you know just what everything is for. You can access the virus vault, scanning options etc from this window. With one click you can scan the entire computer, or selected areas.

There is limited help contents with the Free version, but it does have those help contents for the important sections and functions such as for the Resident Shield, Heuristic Analysis and more. I find that it's easy to use, and if I can use it, then it's a safe bet that most other people can lol.

It's interface has changed a lot over the years, only to get better and easier to know instantly when something is wrong, or when something needs updating.

The snapshot below shows you the Security Status Window, where you can see in an instant whether something is out of date, or is not working correctly. If it's out of date it will be highlighted in Red, or if it's all working and up-to-date it's highlighted in Green with ticks. This window is access just by double clicking on the AVG icon in your Systray near the clock.


Security Status Window

Uninstaller:

It has an Uninstaller option via the Start menu, also via the executable which you download to install the program. You can uninstall an existing version from your computer after clicking on the executable file.

Email Scanner:

It has an email scanner with it, which you can set to include text that the email has been scanned etc. This works very well.

Scheduler:

The scheduler can be easily set to check for any updates and apply them if found, and then scan system at designated times and dates. There is only one Update available per day with the Free version.

Resident Shield:

The AVG Resident Shield scans files as they are copied, opened and saved. When the AVG Resident Shield discovers a virus in a file that is accessed, it stops the operation currently being performed and does not allow the virus to activate itself. The AVG Resident Shield, loaded into the memory of your computer during system startup, also provides vital protection for the system areas of your computer.

If a virus is found, it will notify you and it will quarantine it into the Virus Vault. From there you can check on the info about the virus such as it's name etc, so you can then search the net about it to get fixes etc IF you have already been infected prior to having AVG installed. You can safely delete the viruses from the Vault as well. It will let you know if the infected file/s can be cleaned or not.

Summary

AVG stopped supporting AVG Free 7.1 as of February this year, but version AVG Free 7.5 takes its place. There has been a couple of issues whit this version I've noticed, after updating after the initial install. It has given an error that AVG is not running, though to fix this I have uninstalled it via the setup executable, rebooted, reinstalled AVG Free 7.5 and updated. I've found that if you've had problems rebooting just keep rebooting until AVG decides to load. This must be a glitch which I'm sure will be ironed out. You can check the AVG Free support forums for help on this problem, though it may already have been fixed. This is the very first time I've come across any problems with it, even upon installing and updating, though it has only happened a couple of times.

Overall, I don't think you can ask for much more from a Free Anti-Virus Program, that covers so much protection, and updates etc. If anyone is looking for a good, reliable Anti-Virus Program, then I recommend this one, as it's helped me out many times.