AVG Internet Security 2012

Greetings everyone,

AVG one of the most notable antivirus solution developing company released their latest version of it software for home user, the 2012 version. In addition to paid version of their product AVG also provides a FREE version which is basically a stripped down version of its paid counterpart.

Free version can be downloaded over here

while for paid version there are three :

1. AVG Antivirus pro
2. AVG Internet Security
3. AVG Premium Security

Comparison chart

I'll be focusing on the Internet Security version as it more than enough for providing protection to users without including some non security modules like PC tuneup.

The 2011 version had received a mixed rating while the detection being excellent it also provided anti-rootkit technology and also Identity protection which can be said as file monitoring(HIPS) module for detection of unknown malware programs. But it did had some issues with memory usage and also received criticism of having an amateurish GUI. But 2012 version been just released has already getting good reviews, regarding the same. It lowered its memory usage and also has better detection. The 2012 GUI and that of v2011 is as below :

AVG Internet Security 2011

AVG Internet Security 2012

Whats new in AVG 2012(or VS v2011)

1. Revamped GUI, to say the least this one look much better than that of v2011
2. LinkScanner has become more intelligent and is able to detect more malicious web pages
3. A new behavior monitoring layer that detects even the most complex and new rogue programs just by their actions
4. AVG performance advisor
5. AVG accelerator which AVG claims it gives better online video experiences
6. Less impact on resources than v2011 and also they have reduced the number of processes running in taskmanager

It provides straightforward installation, and it requires a reboot. The user interface is much simpler than v2011 with just core modules in view. Other optional stuffs like PC Analyzer, AVG's LiveKive(online backup feature) are shifted to addons which can be bought separately. The scan times by AVG are really fast, my 45GB of clean windows XP image which had all basic software installed(Office, JavaRE...etc) took about 8 mins while the next subsequent scan took a little more than 3 mins.

Antivirus

The AV component of AVG is really good v2011 had excellent detection rates and the new version(v2012) excelled its predecessor. In corporation to detection it also had faster scans. One demerit of this is that it doesn't detect rootkits which AVG do provide separately. Antirootkit scan also provides two option viz full scan and quick scan.

Web Protection

Another powerful tool by AVG is the LinkScanner which has become even much better in 2012 version. LinkScanner has 3 more components

1. Search Shield : scans all links generated by most popular internet search engines
2. Surf Shield : protects user whilst browsing online, it detects complex threats such as Exploited websites, phishing websites and hacked sites
3. Online Shield : recognizes common viruses and spyware and prevents user from downloading the same

Even addition of all these features doesn't lead to slow down in internet activities.

Antispam and Firewall

AVG also provides anti-spam module that integrates easily with your email application like MS Outlook. Its quite easy to configure according to user needs. It also has highly configurable firewall, it comes by default configured for most of the common users but it can be configured easily according to user demand. Firewall was never the strong point of AVG so it can't be compared to the likes of comodo firewall or PC tools firewall. But it does its job for normal users who do not want to mess with computer and just want for daily normal usage. But for more demanding power users this is a definitely a let down for them though AVG application are always targeted to normal users only.

Other Features

It also includes Identity Protection module which is similar to behavior monitoring of a running process and based on the actions performed by the process it decides whether it is malicious or not. I tested many malware programs which bypassed the AV module but many of them did got caught by its Identity Protection module.

System Tools are set of other tools that provides user more information regarding target program(malicious or non malicious). It has its own task manager that provides list of all the process running in your computer, this can be used when target malware process bypass AVG AV and stops execution of task manager. It also has other tabs like autostart(info regarding application that boot with computer), network connection(inbound and outbound activities done by process), browser extension and LSP viewer.

System Tools tab

and it also has AVG advisior that notifies the user using a popup regarding if a particular application is being using more resources than expected. And also AVG accelerator that provides better online video streaming experiences.

Bottom Line : The latest installment of AVG the 2012 version is really good, I tested on medium spec machine which had Core2Duo processor and 512MB of DDR2 Ram but I hardly noticed any slowdown. It installed swiftly and also the scan times even on a medium tier machine was respectable. If you don't want to spend money on AV product then I would recommend to install AVG Free version that doesn't include firewall and also no live support (that is included in pro versions). If you are using Win7 than its default firewall is good to go with if you don't want to mess with the firewall settings. As AVG's firewall is kinda old fashioned type but if you are using WinXP then I do recommend using some free firewall of buy the internet security version.

regards,

Ishan ;)