AVG - Anyone Using It - Does It Work?

Florida Cracker

Florida Cracker

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Florida Cracker
One of my helpers says AVG is just as good as McAfee and that I should delete it, stop paying for renewals and use the free version of AVG.

It's hard for me to believe a free product will serve as well as McAfee but things change so fast. I thought I'd see if any of you are using it.
 
I use AVG and it seems to work OK. But it's kind of like taking vitamins - hard to know if it's really doing anything or not. But when I run Spybot, Malware Bytes, etc., I don't see any bad stuff. Whether that's because of AVG, or Windows 7 or NoScript with Firefox or the combination of all, I don't know.
 
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AVG is excellent! Especially for the price (FREE) I've been using it for 3 years and has never let me down...
 
AVG is fine, but I stopped installing it because the free version "expires" once a year and required a reinstall. That just didn't cut it with my parents. I uninstalled all of them and installed Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes. Both free, and MSE gets updated through Microsoft Update with the rest of your Windows install.
 
I use the free version of AVG and it works well. (Used Norton for years and had all sorts of trouble...and it didn't seem as effective as AVG.)

AVG has stopped cyber attacks and captured spyware.

Since it's free, it's a bargain at twice the price! ;^)
 
When I ran Windows at home, I used AVG exclusively. I loved it, and it worked really well. Is a bit of a resource hog at times though, but most AV programs are.
 
Works for me. :)
 

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I also have changed over to Microsoft Security Essentials - love it. Just works.
 
Used Norton and McAfee for years but changed over to AVG as AVG found a virus that both paid products did not detect. Love it.

Never had a problem with it 'expiring' every year.
 
As other posters have said, AVG is fine, but I think the free Microsoft Security Essentials is a better choice. You'll never notice it's running (I gave up on AVG after getting annoyed with noticeable slowdowns), and updates are automatic and painless. Their protection engine that has consistently scored at or very near the top in threat detection and eradication in tests.

Anecdotal words about MSE performance: How free antivirus outperformed paid
 
I've used it for multiple years on multiple computers. It's really great. The only caveat is that they make it really easy to install the pay version for a "free" trial instead. You have to dig through multiple pages of small, at the bottom of the page, links to get the actual free one.

But it works!
John
 
I've had a two license plus firewall for over three years. Only problem was firewall conflict with an HP scanner. AVG sent a solution is a couple day via email. Suppose I could have tried to call but I really hate being on hold.
 
AVG = resource hog. Not quite as bad as McAfee, but still enough that it was using more RAM and CPU than anything else, sometimes, everything else combined. I dumped it years ago.
 
Wow. Thanks for all the good input. I've used Mcafee for so long I started to think of it as part of the machine.
 
Florida Cracker said:
One of my helpers says AVG is just as good as McAfee and that I should delete it, stop paying for renewals and use the free version of AVG.

It's hard for me to believe a free product will serve as well as McAfee but things change so fast. I thought I'd see if any of you are using it.
Click to expand...

I've been using some form of it for over 5 years. Free.. rarely a problem with it. It doesn't keep everything out though (but neither does McAfee.. when it comes to spyware), and I use Spyware doctor in concert with AVG to keep it completely clean. The two together cover all the threats I've ever had. Spyware Doctor is not free but very low cost in my mind.

I was turned on to AVG Free by a police buddy of mine who was over his department's network and digital records (mobile computers, dispatch, etc)

It IS a resource hog.

If you want to use it.. google AVG FREE... the website will have AVG FREE in the the address line.
 
SCCutler said:
I also have changed over to Microsoft Security Essentials - love it. Just works.
Click to expand...

Same here for the few times I'm on a non-Corporate Winderz machine, or a Virtual Machine.

Might be the fox guarding the henhouse, but MS realized they needed a solution for their buggy OS and also kept it relatively quiet that you can download it for any modern version of Windows. Probably because they know how much money their "partners" make on the same products.

AVG got too "pushy" asking constantly if you wanted to upgrade to the pay version (nagware) on one machine and I could never shut it up. Decided to move to MSE and it "just worked", so kept using it.

McAfee has to be by far the worst CPU/RAM resource hog I've ever seen in the PC world. We have to use it at work because one of their execs sits on our BoD... all that in-bred BoD stuff in the "Valley" out there in the Land of Fruits and Nuts, ya know?
 
denverpilot said:
...McAfee has to be by far the worst CPU/RAM resource hog I've ever seen in the PC world. We have to use it at work because one of their execs sits on our BoD... all that in-bred BoD stuff in the "Valley" out there in the Land of Fruits and Nuts, ya know?
Click to expand...

I just caught McAfee in the act in my work PC. I've had occasional problems with EXPLORER (not IE) hanging forever with an hourglass when I really pushed things and tried to open a folder or rename a file. I was blaming the disk encryption software but I caught that it was McAfee pegging the CPU. Ya gotta admit that it's very effective - 100%. You can't get infected by malware in a file if you can't open a file.
 
Used to use AVG. Seemed to work fine for me. Then again, I don't travel to the "bad" parts of the web or use "questionable" software sources enough so I probably don't expose myself to enough threats to properly judge it.

I now use BitDefender. Supposed to use less CPU and has a "game mode" to keep some protection without sapping too much performance.
 
Jim_R said:
As other posters have said, AVG is fine, but I think the free Microsoft Security Essentials is a better choice. You'll never notice it's running (I gave up on AVG after getting annoyed with noticeable slowdowns), and updates are automatic and painless. Their protection engine that has consistently scored at or very near the top in threat detection and eradication in tests.

Anecdotal words about MSE performance: How free antivirus outperformed paid
Click to expand...

Same experience here.

I also use Malwarebytes.

I don't notice a performance hit with either or both.
 
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