14 DAY TRIAL // AVG's been on user's side from the beginning, providing a free of charge solution for maintaining home PC's as infection-free as possible. It's free edition saved many home users a lot of trouble offering an anti-virus protection and asking absolutely nothing in return (you don't get to see this too often nowadays).
As present computer security landscape is dominated by suites of antivirus software combined with anti-spyware capabilities and anti-spam features as well as firewall controls, AVG did not resist the temptation either and released AVG 8.0 sending the second public beta to testing. The suite comes complete with the aforementioned tools and a little on the side. With the adoption of the new AVG version you will benefit from a complete suite of instruments designed to deflect malware coming in through various ways, from emails, system ports to web browsing.
The new and improved AVG managed to surprise me with a brand new, shiny interface which provides almost the utmost ease of access to the various utilities included in the suite. All components are available in the Overview section of the main application window and you can access them with a double click or from Components menu. Although the wrapping is marvelous, I wish Overview button contained children with each of the available components, this way the user would no longer have to click back and forth to navigate from one component to another or use Components menu.
The first three components in the list (Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware and Anti-Spam) support absolutely no modification when accessed from the main application window. The only thing you will get is a brief description of how they work and the number of current definitions as well as the date of the last database update and its version. With Firewall component on the other hand things are a bit different as you get to enable the component, disable it or tell it to block all traffic (emergency mode). The use of different profiles (Standalone computer, Allow All and Block All) assure flexible firewall protection for your computer as the effect should be immediate.
But, being a beta, there is a pretty large number of mishaps available. During our testing setting the profile to Block All and saving the changes automatically pushed it into emergency mode but all my connections were alive and no change was registered. But I am sure these glitches will all be fixed by the time the final is released.
The firewall behaved properly and gave me no hard time at all, at the beginning. After a brief scan of the system and a few pop-ups (which allow you to create rules) it became almost invisible bothering me only for the applications I had not made a rule for or new connections. However, a computer restart later and my web browsers faced a denial of connection. Truth is I had not created a rule beforehand for them, but I was never asked for granting the permission to connect, instead the connection was denied by default.
More than this, it seems that the changes are not taking place exactly as soon as you make them. During our testing setting Ask rule to several applications did not take effect immediately and they would still load and connect without AVG firewall to act according to the set rule.
Testing it for leakage revealed it to be conveniently reliable as it managed to block some surreptitious connections. It secured the ports of the system closing them down thus making an attack a bit more difficult (but not impossible as most of the ports were not stealth).
The firewall permits the user some pre-configuration the moment AVG is installed on your computer. For the best configuration, AVG needs to know how your computer connects to the Internet, keeping in mind the mobility factor. Thus your computer can be standalone, part of a domain or if it is mobile you can choose "Computer on the move".
AVG firewall supports working with profiles that can be enabled according to user's will. A profile supposes the definition of safe networks (according to detected network adapters), configuring service rules (setting up ports and connection types for different protocols), as well as adding applications and defining connection rules for each of them (allow, block - on certain ports and protocols - or ask for permission at each connection).
The firewall included in the suite is no easy thing for most of the users and I suggest you handle it with the utmost care or go through heavy documentation first, unless you are armed with heavy experience. Although everything works great by default, it can do more for you, but this supposes familiarity with all settings available.
In the case of anti-virus and anti-spyware, things are as simple as can be because all you need is run the scan engine and wait for the app to root out the nasties. We proceeded to testing out these components as well and here's what we found out: AVG manages to do a pretty good job at this chapter. We stacked up our baddies on different levels going from basic to tough with two intermediate levels in between.
The worst score registered by AVG's anti-malware engine was of 50% in detection and elimination while the best was a percentage of 69. At intermediate levels it scored 60% and 61% in detection and elimination. With a 60% average in our testing AVG should constitute for a good protection against the viruses and spyware that may penetrate your system. It is not the best on the market but the results are not at all disappointing considering that the best anti-virus we tested on these databases raised a little over 90%.
Due to the myriad of components available in the suite, AVG 8.0 also provides great configuration possibilities in order to tweak it according to your needs and likes.
Anti-rootkit component is tailored to look inside applications, DLL libraries or drivers for dangerous items. You get to choose what the component should scan. More than this, there are two types of scans available: quick and full. According to your needs the process supports three different speeds: slow, automatic and fast - mind that the use of computer resources is allocated accordingly.
For keep good tabs on what runs on your computer AVG brings a number of system tools to monitor the processes currently running in the system, the network connections (all of them), start up elements or browser extensions. Any connection or process can be stopped from its activity with a simple click of a mouse. Additional information will be provided, according to the type of the listed element. Thus, in the case of processes AVG informs you whether an item requires Internet connection or not, if it is a service of the system, gives its PID and complete path to the correspondent file on disk.
Network connections provide Intel on the protocol used, local address and remote address as well as the state of the connection. The lists refreshes automatically so you will always benefit from the present state for all connections.
In the case of startup elements all you can do is remove the selected item. There are no other options and this renders the tool a bit incomplete as it would have been nice to allow adding your own elements to load with Windows.
AVG's capabilities extend to email scanning activities which make sure that incoming/outgoing messages are not infected with malware. The component is equipped with different plugins designed to work with the most frequently used email clients (The Bat!, MS Outlook, Eudora, etc.). Setting up the component so that it fits your needs is available in Advanced AVG Settings under Tools menu. All email (both incoming and outgoing) can be scanned and in case an infection is detected AVG can mark its subject with a user defined text. Its preemptive detection rates are based on heuristics as well as built in engines.
Spam problem is also an objective in AVG 8.0 as the application comes strong from behind with a set of options truly worthy of your attention. The process relies on the famous Bayesian filter as well as on many other options that ensure your inbox to be bombarded with as little spam as possible and make the filtering work with high accuracy standards.
Just like in the case of malware infected email, junk mail is marked by a user defined text for a better spotting. You can also set the app to automatically send spam to junk folder but in our case this feature did not work, just like Anti-Spam training button which did not permit any configuration as it was de-activated.
The performance of the anti-spam engine can be adjusted from low memory usage (but spam detection is not too accurate as it makes a nasty compromise dropping advanced filters in favor of speed and low resource footprint) to high performance which employs all anti-spam weaponry available in AVG (it will use advanced rules and train itself for greater accuracy). There are also two intermediate levels that may turn as a good compromise between speed and spam detection accuracy.
A very solid feature in spam control is the use of RBL (Realtime Blackhole Lists) which contain IPs known for spam spewing activity. Defining these lists results in blocking any traffic coming from those addresses, saving a lot of trouble for you. AVG's spam engine can check these lists and adjust spam score accordingly. However, make sure the offset value is not set to 0 or 100 as these are restricted for whitelisted and blacklisted senders lists.
The lists can be added from Advanced Settings menu of Anti-Spam section of Advanced AVG Settings panel. Unfortunately the application does not provide any lists by default and all you can do for now is search the Internet for RBL and add them manually.
Additional spam fighting options include caching of domain reputation, fingerprint and LegitRepute (reduces the number of false positives mainly for newsletters); self-training based on words (Bayesian Word Token analysis) or score history, filtering options (based on country lists, language lists, approved and blocked IPs or spoofed sender lists) contribute to raising spam detection accuracy and leaving a clean inbox folder.
The only thing that nags me a bit is that the user has little to zero input in the training process. You cannot create a database for spam words and score them according to your criteria but instead you have to completely trust the application and its decisions. Hopefully this is just a beta glitch that'll be fixed before final version is released.
Web Shield component is tailored to secure your downloads as well as web browsing to more or less shady areas of the Internet. Its job is to check all traffic through HTTP port (80) and prevent dangerous elements (scripts or all sort of malware) from slipping into your system. Setting it up is no strain even for the average user as it all consists into defining the ports to be monitored, adjusting the maximum size of files to be scanned (keeping it to a low limit will have little impact on browsing speed) and defining the hosts, IPs or domains to be excluded from checking (create a whitelists of web locations).
Unlike other security applications, AVG's Web Shield component sheds its protection over ICQ and MSN instant messaging services. The settings available simply let you create a blacklist and a whitelist for the two IM options. Although these are the most used services for instant messaging supporting only these constitutes a bit of a drawback for the application.
AVG 8.0 comes with nifty features to offer the best security no matter what your actions are, and among these you must notice the Link Scanner. Its job is to protect you when surfing, starting with the search query in Google, Yahoo or MSN search engines and continuing with blocking all sorts of exploits from executing as well as providing protection against phishing attacks.
Link Scanner protection when searching with Google, Yahoo or MSN engines translates into displaying an explanatory icon at the end of each returned result. The different types of icons provide the user with information about the security of the link in question. Links are classified into Dangerous (the page contains active threats), Risky (the page contains the potential for active delivery; two exclamation marks), Safe (the page contains no active threats) and another warning with only one exclamation mark which we did not have any result to fit its criteria. There may be cases when for one reason or another AVG could not scan. In this case the icon will turn into a grey question mark.
Resident shield is the last on the list of components included in AVG 8.0 suite and it completes the security of your PC by constantly scanning all files you work with. It can be configured to scan only certain types of files as well those that have absolutely no extension. Also, you can set it to skip certain folder locations that you are sure do not contain no form of malware.
AVG 8.0 is definitely aiming to take an important place in the computer offering protection around the clock and on more then one level. At this stage the application still needs attention from the developer not just for fixing superficial glitches but even more in depth ones that prevent its working as it should. The application combines all types of protection into one single suite that starts with Windows and shuts down with your computer striving to keep it as safe from nasties as possible.
Scans can be scheduled as well as virus database, program or anti-spam updates according to a user specified plan. Grisoft's latest release comes complete with anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-rootkit, anti-spam, email scanner, safe web surfing, safe search features as well as firewall protection which basically cover everything a user needs.
Unfortunately handling its advanced settings is not for everybody and having some experience with this type of software constitutes a huge advantage, especially when there is no help besides the brief explanation scattered here and there in both main application window as well as in Advanced Settings area.
The Good
AVG 8.0 brings a rich arsenal of instruments designed to protect your computer no matter the form of malware and the way it attempts to insinuate into your system. It provides web search security by marking safe results returned by Google, Yahoo or MSN engines (in Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox).
The interface is a huge step forward making available all main components of the application at a single glance at a well organized screen filled with nifty looking icons.
Each component comes with a help snippet which explains its purpose and how it works.
The Bad
There is still work to be done in order to tie all loose ends and provide a suite consisting of stable, fully functional and flexible components ready to mold on any user's security needs.
The impressive number of AVG processes available at all time in Task Manager should not be a cause of fretting about computer resources as in resident state these should not take more than 20MB. However, once the scan process is started, prepare to lose a huge chunk of CPU power and RAM usage to jump to slightly higher values.
As it is a beta it is understandable that there are areas still in need of attention and care and that not all details have been straightened out. The antivirus seems to be doing a pretty good job both detecting and eliminating the malware from the computer, while anti-spam brings great options for keeping invalid messages away from inbox (although it does take a bit longer to the email client to retrieve the messages).
The Truth
AVG 8.0 is in public beta 2 so glitches and mishaps are expected to happen and it has some way to go in order to achieve its final stage of development. However, with all the glitches and mishaps the beta manages to convey a message from Grisoft that alerts that new competition is available on the market and user's choices have multiplied.
The suite brings all components necessary for keeping your computer protected from all angles, and all it needs right now is a bit of polishing of the rough edges. As always we'll leave the default rating for the beta releases as they do not deserve any criticism, yet.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
