avg

Microsoft has pulled a new AVG antivirus app from the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Brandon Watson, Microsoft's director of developer experience for Windows Phone, confirmed yesterday in a tweet that the app had been removed based on research done by two external experts and that the company had started its own investigation.

Launched earlier this week, AVG's new antivirus app for Windows Phone quickly triggered concerns among users, according to enthusiast site WinRumors. Digging into the app's codebase, Justin Angel, a former Microsoft employee, and Rafael Rivera, a self-proclaimed Windows hacker and author of the Within Windows blog, … Read more

While AVG has made some important security improvements in its latest major release, including important protection against fake antivirus and ransomware, how the suite impacts your PC is the focus of AVG 2012. Available at no cost as AVG Anti-Virus Free 2012 (download), or as a paid upgrade to AVG Anti-Virus 2012 (download) or AVG Internet Security 2012 (download), AVG's 2012 offerings hang their hats on major performance gains.

Specifically, the company says that it has reduced by 40 percent the size on your hard drive of the virus signature database. That database is a major component of how … Read more

The bottom line: AVG Free 2012's renewed focus on performance keeps scans zippy, but struggles with slowing down your boot time and too many false positives.

Review: The never-ending mantra chanted by security suite vendors sounds a lot like "faster scans, easier to use, better performance," and AVG has released a new version that it says accomplishes all three. Certainly, the scans are faster, it does install more quickly, and some tweaks to the interface have made it easier to view. Two new core security changes will make you safer, too.

Editors' note: Portions of this review … Read more

A new suite from AVG called Premium Security introduces one new feature that AVG Antivirus Free and AVG Internet Security lack: identity protection. AVG Premium Security 2011, available only to people in the United States and United Kingdom, includes a new personal data protection feature called Identity Alert.

The feature is a direct response to the interests of AVG customers, said the company's ambassador of free products, Tony Anscombe. "Identity on the PlayStation Network highlights it perfectly," he said. "Ninety-four million people were affected by the hacks, and the information was hosted on servers in Japan. … Read more

What do you do when a virus or trojan horse cripples your system? Your favorite security app may have a bootable rescue CD you can use but could require you to enter a valid license key. Alternatively, you can use the free AVG Rescue CD.

In part six of our "What to do with your USB flash drive," we'll show you how to install the AVG Rescue CD onto your USB flash drive. Here's how:

Step 1: Download the AVG Rescue CD software. Be sure to download the one labeled "for USB stick." Rick … Read more

PRAGUE--The city of Brno in the Czech Republic is a place people go to learn. Situated some 130 miles southeast of Prague, its 11 universities host approximately 80,000 students, many of whom are computer engineers. So it's no surprise that while AVG's corporate offices are headquartered back in Prague, Brno hosts the lifeblood of the company: the virus lab.

Although consumer computer security has grown tremendously in the past five years--with nearly all the major security suite makers including some form of community-based protection, URL verification, or phishing prevention to accompany more traditional tools like firewalls and … Read more

Security firm AVG is doubling down on cloud storage.

The company today announced LiveKive, a service that allows people to upload data to the cloud that can then be downloaded to other computers or Android- and iOS-based devices with the LiveKive mobile app. It works on both Windows and Mac.

AVG is currently offering two packages: a $49.99 per year option that gives customers 25GB of online storage and a $79.99 a year plan with unlimited data. In either case, people can upload files, folder, and multimedia content. The service also supports automatic syncing for those who don'… Read more

In this week's episode of Tap That App, we look at the growing Android security field and check out three apps with three different takes on what's important when making Android safer. One thing's for sure: the makers of all three think that there's more to Android security than mere antivirus and malicious app scanning.

For a more detailed analysis, check out the story this episode of Tap That App is based on.

Just the other day, I got about 50 Facebook Wall posts from my cousin - all of which were the same message, repeated literally 50 plus times. I almost clicked on the first message since it was from my cousin, of all people, but then I saw another Wall post come in that looked exactly the same. So, I knew his account was hacked. I tried to delete them one by one, but it kept coming throughout the day and night for a few days, so I gave up. I guess they are here to stay. I'm still hoping … Read more