Comparison of free antivirus for Windows XP, Vista and 7

Like the competing Avast!, AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition comes with numerous modules to effectively fight against possible viral threats. The graphical interface has been well put together, especially on Windows 7! The antivirus component calls on an internal database helping to detect viruses, Trojan Horses, worms and dangerous executable and DLL files. The user can also manually start a full scan of the system or on selected folders if they want, with all internal hard drives and removable devices like flash drives (an option that should be checked during installation or available from the Tools menu, Advances settings, Resident Shield) being available.

Nothing has been left to chance, with detected viruses either being cleaned or the files are deleted, while spyware will be flagged along with cookies, compressed files and scanned system environments… Depending on your machines  power you can even define the priority of the analysis process (slow, automatic, quick). The antispyware element protects you from spy programs and malicious adware, while LinkScanner blocks all dangerous web sites and is compatible with the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers. A module called AVG Save Search, which calls on the Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Baidu search engines, is integrated into these two browsers so as to assure that the web pages you visit are secure. You should be careful though, as this isn’t a web shield which protects you from downloading at risk files. For this option, you will have to purchase the commercial version, as the component isn’t provided with AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition

The resident shield analyses the files every time you copy, open or save them (BAT, EXE, PNG, JPG, GIF, PHP, ASP, XML, SWF, SCR…). Depending on your settings, it will either automatically delete all threats or ask you what action to take, with exceptions also being managed by the program (excluded files or folders). The email scanner, as you will have guessed, scans incoming emails, attachments and outgoing messages if you have selected the corresponding option. With its Outlook plug-in, it is compatible with the Microsoft Outlook 2000/XP/2003/2007 versions, although if you use a different email program then this won’t pose any problems either. With the beta version of Outlook 2010 and Thunderbird 3, thumbnails will show the analysis activity of the POP and SMTP ports.

We should finally point out that the free version of AVG antivirus supports scheduled scanning, and as always, free updates are provided.

Creator: AVG Technologies
Compatibility : Windows XP, Vista, 7, Support for 32 and 64 bit versions of Windows
Version: 9.0.707a1765
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