AVG Software

[Re_Cycle_Me]

does anyone use the free AVG anti-virus software ?

your thoughts ?


cheers

[geeksRus]

i've used it for over a year now and think it is great. low overhead and it has saved me from the klez virus numerous times.

[Todo]

I second that! I've used it on several systems and it works great, never had a virus slip through and best of all its FREE!

AVG (http://www.grisoft.com)

[shamus]

me three...works great, I have had no problems and I've been using it about a year also.
I really like the auto update feature.
:cool:

[-Senectus-]

Yupp, I can't fault it..

[Andy Roberts]

Me either. Quality package!

[clarinathan]

Yes,
Easy to use and update
And FREE!

[compu_techman]

I too have to agree, works great and the price is right.



Just nukes them virii:flame:

[Garak]

just started installing it on machines latley, no problems as of yet. Works well, updates easily, and is free, no compliants here.

G.

[Rkring1]

Have used it in a couple of our computers and a bunch of customers for 6 months plus. Only one virus........user didn't update .....imagine that ! Good software and a great price.

[GeekMom]

I love this software! It has found virii (?) that Norton and MacAffee haven't. Just keep it updated!

I have recommended to my school district's admins, but they stll follow their own course. :sad:

Geek Mom

[Akuma]

Look and see. (http://forums.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/wd/showthread.php?s=&threadid=42914)

[Re_Cycle_Me]

as I suspected ... not a single argument about AVG. I've been using it myself for many months and it works just great.

one thing though ... it is free, but can you actually use it to protect your workstations at work ? (small business LAN of 25 PCs)

did anyone read their license agreement ?

[joelen]

Im going to stand out as one AGAINST AVG.

We have a lot of users who install it, update it, and while there system is here for service, are still infected. I have removed 3 viruses of 3 computers just this week along with norton, when AVG missed it.

I would never trust my system to AVG.

Just my 2 cents.

[sethfp]

Originally posted by Re_Cycle_Me
does anyone use the free AVG anti-virus software ?

your thoughts ?


cheers
Can a cold boot scan be done using AVG? Have been using the free trial of Norton Antivirus--the program is huge, and it slows my computer even more. Doing a cold boot scan with Norton(have 10GB of harddrive full) would take days, and my computer might end up in even worse condition then it is.

[Garak]

as far as i remember, there is a dos feature in AVG and boot disks can be created, good luck

[shamus]

Garak is right. Right click the AVG icon in your taskbar and choose- Run AVG Anti-Virus>Service>Create Rescue Disk.

[DSTech]

Well, ok. I've been hearing (or reading rather) that so many of you love AVG so I think I'm gonna add it to my system. I used to use PC-Cillin up until about 3 or 4 years ago, and have since been mainly using NAV. Right now I've got 14 files in Quaranteen since this install (December) so it seems to have been protecting my system. For the most part I'm pretty good about scanning anything questionable before running it and I keep definitions pretty up to date, twice a month or more on updating. I do know that last year I had my hardrive wiped out by unknown source like 2 days after I ran a scan with a fresh definition update and not having downloaded anything new and I always thought that was fishy, like NAV mebbe missed one. I was working on something, dont remember what, when suddenly my hardrive light started going nuts and the explorer window I had open started losing folders from view at which time I hit reset button. System rebooted but I had lost pretty much everything but the Windows directory itself (it was about 85% intact). System was stable enough for me to backup what little personal I had left (almost nothing). Any case, never found out what caused it, and after reformat/reinstall, I had to go with backup data about 3 months old. Needless to say I was pretty upset.

Now I make a visit to Housecall every once in a while in addition to NAV, but if AVG is that good, mebbe I can get rid of NAV's bloat. Will give it a try as I like the price and you all seem to rate it quite well. Never really like McAfee personally, though I haven't really used it in about 3 years now (except on customers' system it was already installed on).

[The Computer Valet]

There's no secret payload (ad/spyware) with AVG? I'm always leery of free stuff these days...

[Quiet Thunder]

Originally posted by The Computer Valet
There's no secret payload (ad/spyware) with AVG? I'm always leery of free stuff these days...

Well, I decided to try it out last night, (I figured at the price, what the heck.) And I ran a refupdate and ad-aware following the AVG sweep, and turned up nothing. Not a single ad-aware reference.

As far as the program goes, it's not too bad, I'll keep it as a backup to Norton, but I won't allow both of them to run at the same time. After the install, I let AVG run it's sweep, and forgot to turn off Norton's auto protect. The result was of course a full lockup of my XP system. The first one I've ever had actually. It's not too bad of a program, but I still prefer Norton for the time being. But still good as a backup none the less.

[The Computer Valet]

Two AV Apps scanning files...

Locking up computers since 1982.

[Whiteknight]

I have heard that AVG is a great program, but do they update their own defs often enough? As far as I can tell, they are not as on top of the ball as Norton. Wouldn't make a great Antivirus Software in my book unless the def team was keeping up with the new Viruses.

[Radical Dreamer]

They are updated quite frequently, very close to the amount of times that norton updates

[Whiteknight]

not really, from what I have seen.

[DSTech]

Installed AVG early this morning and did a full scan of my home network with the only thing found being my virus game joke file that I forgot to backup somewhere (keep losing that fun little program to AV software and having to search the web or p2p to get it again). AVG seems like a kewl small AV package though I do wish it had more advanced settings (mebbe if I come to like it I'll buy the Pro version). Will use it to scan my system regularly and only use NAV for redundancy and see how things go.

For the record, I NEVER use NAV autoprotect. I've seen it cause way too many problems. I have as little as possible running on my system at any given time. Heck, my taskbar shows my network activity, speaker, and clock and nothing else and that's how I like it.

[geeksRus]

DSTech, isn't Black Oak Arkansas from up your way?

[DSTech]

Originally posted by geeksRus
DSTech, isn't Black Oak Arkansas from up your way?

After having just looked at a map to check (never heard of the place) I see that Black Oak isn't very close to me. It's on the other side of Jonesboro and right by the AR/TN border. Yahoo Maps says it's about 150 miles away. I'm basically in the dead center very topmost part of AR, right snug in between to great fishing lakes and some of the worlds best trout fishing rivers. Too bad there isn't much money to be made here or it would be perfect ('cept for the seemingly constant 90%+ humidity).

[flyboy747]

I've been using AVG for a while now. It seems to do everything that I need it to do. Plus it's free. :D

[Gollo]

I'm an AVG user or 4+ years with no infects.

[Computer Tech NE]

AVG is alright on a home PC. At work we tried it(non-profits need to save money--nonprofits got the pro version free), but we got burned too many times. The last straw was when a virus was in the wild and AVG's update was late and the virus was company wide within a few hours. Later that night AVG issued the update. It didn't work, the update didn't detect the virus. After many calls and e-mails, they got back to me 2 days later with excuses and 'proof' the update worked. I argued with someone via email at AVG until I talked him into letting me send them the virus(zipped). He said, no problem his AVG would take care of it--guess what, he got the virus. I thought it was funny, he didn't. A week after the initial virus release they release an update that worked. Tossed AVG and went with OfficeScan(15 per computer on 200 computers). No problems since. The server updates every hour and the server pushes the updates to all the client machines right away(full program updates as well as virus updates). AVG updates are consistantly after Norton, Trend, ect... That was my experience with AVG. The e-smith email server I recently built has RAV antivirus that scans all incoming and outgoing mail at the server--around 320 bucks for as many email account that you want. But like I said before, on a home PC AVG is alright. If you don't mind ripping off norton, NAV 2003 is on Kazaa.

[buksida]

I have just started using AVG about a month ago, and i'm pretty pleased with it so far. NAV i must say is pretty reliable at catching viruses (as long as its updated regular) but it does cause a lot of problems when auto protect is on (eating resources, hanging systems etc). grief to change versions (2001 to 2002 just wouldnt go .... on several systems). Mcafee just isnt worth the disk it comes on IMHO. I'll stick with AVG for now, just need a bit of a test .... Have also found that not using outlook/outlook express is a great virus protection/prevention trick too :D

[Computer Tech NE]

Yep, getting rid of outlook/outlook express helps alot in the virus fight. We recently started switching over to a totally web-based email system. Even if a virus does somehow infect a computer, since the addressbook is on the server(not the PC), the virus can't spread via a mass email using the addressbook. Very helpful in containment.

[rtucker]

I love AVG. It has saved my computer from various things but I recently learned of a new virus called BUGBEAR that disables virus scan programs. and my AVG has been acting up which leads me to think i may have it. Is anyone familliar with the virus and how i can stop it from killing my computer?

[geeksRus]

go here (http://www.bitdefender.com/html/free_tools.php) for a free BugBear and other virus removal tools.

[meatwad]

Just remember, with a free anti-virus program you get what you pay for. After working in a repair shop for almost three years I can definitely say that I would never use Norton's or McAfee's again (They do make us a lot of money in O/S repairs and re-installs though :) ). As a shop, we've been using NOD32 for most of our home users and Fsecure for most of our business client's. They're not free but they've worked pretty good for us.

We have a tech that does AV tests a couple of times a year. If I remember righ, AVG did pretty lousy last time around. I'll be interested how it does now.