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AVG INTERNET SECURITY SUITE 8.0 FYI If you have not heard of AVG let me give you a little background. The company was started in the Czech Republic in 1991. They now have 69 million users around the world. My first knowledge of the product was when a frugal friend who runs the box office at a not-for-profit theater in town decided to save a few bucks by installing the free version of AVG on the computer. It worked well and we never had a problem. I then started hearing AVG’s name and reputation in many other places. The free version is of course limited to some basic functions. The newest has Antivirus, Anti-Spyware, and Safe Search. Of course this is a great marketing program for AVG. Those who do use the free version often like it enough to purchase one of the paid ones. Interested in taking advantage of this free offer? CLICK HERE. Keep reading and you can make your own decision between the free or the paid version. My installation was a download from the web rather than a CD. I had no problems with the install. There is a new and very easy to understand user interface. AVG Internet Security Version 8.0 is a full one stop service security system.
Since my Dell is on 24/7 I set the AVG antivirus scan to run everyday at about 2:00 AM and scan the whole system. After installing a Western Digital My Book Raid1 drive I found the time to complete a check of approximately 1,100,000 files became too long. I reset the start time to midnight. That allowed enough time to complete the job before I woke up in the early AM. The Configuration Wizard for the firewall is helpful but needs some work as far as initial setup. Continuing requests for decisions on the part of the end user make for difficult choices. I found it hard to distinguish between allowing ALL or SAFE access to the Internet for programs with names that gave me no idea why they needed ANY access. I was told AVG is working on a scan that looks at your system and makes choices for you based on experience and your usage. I hope that is added soon.Most other configurations are self explanatory. E-mails take a while to download and become available for reading due to the checking process. If you click on an arriving message too soon it will not open and leaves a white spot where the message was. It does become available after 10 seconds or so. I did speak to Karel Obluk,their CTO. He called from the Czeck Republic and answered many questions. As with any new version of a product there are often issues after release to the public that do not show up until after wide distribution. This is due to so many variations in computer setup, internet browsers, and operating systems. One way for users to avoid product problems is to wait for a period of time. Maybe six months or more before you buy it. All security products attempt to update not only the list of viruses and other mal-ware as soon as possible but all of the quirks that are reported by users of their operating software. During the early part of my review I reported a number of issues with the software. 1: “unspecified error occurred in AVG." When an error occurred a box opened that mentioned sending a report to AVG and Microsoft. That message to AVG support bounced twice. When I looked at it there were many files and folders attached. I finally forwarded the files and the message to my contact at AVG. I then spoke to a support person. He was very helpful. Over time the most of the issues have been resolved by automatic updates to the software after reports from many users were provided to the support group at AVG. Those that continue are: 1: When the Dell is restarted I receive a message “Firewall changed to a stand alone computer.” That is followed shortly by another “Firewall changed to unassigned computer.” What does that mean? I have no idea. 2: I had to reduce coverage in the Web Shield settings as it was causing problems with Windows Live Messenger. I think AVG 8.0 Security is a version in progress. It is a big jump in the overall range of security products. I have seen improvements during this period of testing. Issues have been removed. I have no idea why AVG 8.0 Suite worked well on the Lenovo ThinkPad but showed issues when installed on the Dell. I will continue to use AVG version 8.0. They are really trying to get it right. I do feel most of us are in a pickle with security and what we need or don’t need. I think there are many processes/programs running in the background that duplicate portions of all current Security Suites. Outlook Express has a list of security items to check or uncheck as needed as well as several antivirus boxes that seem to duplicate portions of AVG or other antivirus programs. Internet Explorer has security tools in the Internet Options tool area that are checked. Should I uncheck them? Should the install of a security suite uncheck them for me? What about the Phishing filter under the advanced Internet Options tab? I have the Google Toolbar and the AVG ToolBar. Both of them provide some Popup blocking and/or phishing security. I am sure there are many instances of multiple coverage in all systems. All I am asking for is a simple solution that helps me without slowing down my new Dell. I think we all are very far from such a solution but AVG is making an effort.
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