avg

Though not as well-known as some competitors, this antivirus program offers rock-solid protection. AVG Anti-Virus provides all the necessities, including a tool for scanning your hard drive and e-mail, as well as a real-time shield to prevent infections.

You'll find a full-blown scheduling utility for automating tasks and checking for new definitions as often as you'd like. Other perks found in this Pro version include technical support and the ability to run on multiple operating systems. Should a virus create serious system problems, AVG creates a rescue disk to scan your computer in MS-DOS mode.

The program doesn'… Read more

Grisoft, makers of AVG antivirus, on Wednesday released a new update addressing a false positive in another security product.

On Tuesday, AVG users reported desktops warnings that their desktop was infected with something called Trojan Agent r.CX. Some files within zlsSetup_70_483_000_en[1].exe, a compressed file containing dormant set-up files for Check Point's ZoneAlarm, apparently set off the alarm. The ZoneAlarm user forum soon filled with concerned users.

Grisoft did not respond to a request for comment.

Laura Yecies, vice president and general manager … Read more

If you're thinking of switching to free antivirus protection, or are looking for a different program to try, AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is a rock-solid choice. Incidentally, it's also the most-downloaded security application on CNET Download.com.

Yet, it's not enough to follow the crowd. What if you dislike the interface? Or decide that the free edition doesn't give you as comprehensive a protection package as you'd like? These things happen, you know.

Hence this slide show, which attempts to take the guesswork out of scouting for a new application or starting up AVG Anti-Virus … Read more

You don't have to pay a cent to keep your computer secure against the bad guys. Watch this discussion on best practices and best apps between CNET TV's Tom Merritt and Download.com's Seth Rosenblatt. When you're done, head on over to our Security Starter Kit to check out must-haves for both newbies and power users.

On Thursday, Webmasters around the world noticed unusual spikes in traffic. For some smaller sites the sudden surge of Web traffic toward their sites appeared to be almost a denial-of-service attack.

Turns out it was the free version of AVG Antivirus 8.0 just doing its job.

In a statement on Saturday, Grisoft said "We have actively listened to the Webmasters who have brought this to our attention, and as a company we have reacted quickly to solve them." What it did was issue a new build of the popular free program.

What's different in version 8 … Read more

Visitors to AOL's main portal page may have seen a headline "Disgraced 'Oprah' Author Is Back" circulating, but those who clicked may have infected their computers, says Roger Thompson, Chief Research Officer of AVG Technologies.

Thompson said anyone clicking on the headline link would be taken to a legitimate forum page discussing James Frey's latest book, Morning. However, some of the blog posts on that page contained a link to a video site. In order to view the video associated with that post, the user would have to accept the installation of the video codec.

Upon … Read more

Seventy-five million downloads can't be wrong, right? Phenomenally popular security program AVG Free has upgraded to Version 8, and Editor Seth Rosenblatt takes a first look at the revamp.

New features include a blessing of a new interface that's clean and easy to use, LinkScanner to minimize the risk of clicking on dangerous links during searches, and more.

Exceedingly popular, AVG Free offers rock-solid protection, but only the bare necessities. The security features include a real-time shield to prevent infections, antivirus and antimalware wrapped up in one engine, and a link scanner for Web surfing with care.

By default, AVG is set to search for new virus definitions daily, but you can always use the scheduling tool to change this. Should a virus create serious system problems, AVG creates a rescue disk to scan your computer in MS-DOS mode. The program doesn't tax your system when scanning or when running in the background, and it always proved … Read more

AVG Technologies, formerly Grisoft, has updated AVG Free to Version 8.0. The other antivirus programs the company publishes updated in March, following AVG's pattern of updating the free version about a month after the paid editions get their new coats of paint.

As before, AVG Free 8.0 features all the essential functions of AVG Internet Security, but none of the bells and whistles. So the new engine is intact, with combined antivirus, antispyware, and the formerly independent LinkScanner technologies rolled into one. However, there's no antirootkit protection, and other features included in AVG Anti-Virus such as … Read more