AVG Antivirus Free Edition is one of the most used antivirus software in the world. This software covers just a part of security needs so AVG Internet Security was projected to cover all holes of computers security. This version of AVG Internet Security (9.0) it’s an improvement of previous AVG IS 8.5 version. We tested this software and we can tell you we are not very impressed because AVG IS 9.0 it still has a lot of minor problems and sometimes look still unfinished. Installation time is a little bit longer if you compare AVG Internet Security with other Security Web Suites. It took about 14 minutes to complete install, to perform first update and to restart the computer for finishing installation. A good thing at this version of AVG Web Security is that software is capable to detect which programs installed are possible dangerous and to eliminate these applications from the scanning list. This feature it calls Optimization Scans. If you compare an optimization scan with a normal scanning time you’ll see a real improvement. The menu was redesigned but we didn’t see many changes and this version of AVG Internet Security looks almost the same with 8.5 versions. The menu is well designed and you have good control to all the features of AVG. From Advanced Settings menu you can see all the setting for this security suite. The list is well structured and you’ll not have problems with this menu.
We have little problems with some systems already infected with different viruses and malware stops installation process. You must do some research on Google or to contact support team to solve these installation problems.
AVG Internet Security was tested by few independent laboratory tests like: ICSA Labs and West Coast Labs. This software passed with success all these tests and is certified as clean and safe. This version of AVG IS was improved but the rate of false positive result is still high, and this thing is not a good point. You can scan your PC and find that software found about few threats in your computer but in reality you may have no threat infection.
This version of AVG Internet Security integrates Identity Protection module to assure protection with heuristic engine against undiscovered viruses. It use a comportment engine which is capable to find problems with infected files just because it can “see” some type dangerous of activity. This heuristic detection is the result of collaboration with Sana Security. The results are good and you can count to AVG Internet Security 9.0 version for this type of malware detection.
Another feature of this version of AVG IS 9.0 is capability to use more than one layer to find malware threats. AVG can use the online database called cloud and verify if the detected threat can be found in this database.
A very low detection we see when we tried to download few samples of viruses from well known locations. AVG Internet Security 9.0 didn’t detect anything and let us to download complete the files without any warning. Just after the files are arrived to hard disk, AVG detects the danger and tries to disinfect / delete the files. This is a very dangerous hole in this software security. It’s very possible to download an infected file and this software cannot be capable to disinfect the file. It’s always better to prevent than to try to disinfect the file after infection.
The antispam module should work better. It cannot be integrate in a usual e-mail client, like Outlook Express or Thunderbird Mail. You must define a rule to make possible filtering of messages and marking of spam messages in a special folder. This option is not very user friendly and must be improved in the next versions of AVG Security Suite. Detection of spam e-mails was improved so you can count on this software to detect real spam messages.
The firewall of AVG is above medium and you can count on it to stop network attacks. This version of firewall was improved compared with previous version of AVG IS. We tested the firewall in a hacker attack but we can’t penetrate the system security.
Another feature of AVG Internet Security 9.0 is the toolbar integrated automatically in the browser. It works well with Internet Explorer (versions 6.0-8.0) and Mozilla Fireworks. This toolbar uses LinkScanner detection engine to markup dangerous and safe websites. You are warned against the problems of some sites like phishing attempt or other dangerous web sites. LinkScanner looks for small piece of code, cookies and exploits and do a good job.
AVG Internet Security 9.0 has included Identity protection module. We found this feature to difficult to be used in the safe condition by a novice PC user. You must to be a skilled computer user to have success in this module configuration and to use in good condition without safety risk.
AVG Internet Security 9.0 is not a high consuming resource and can be used at a no very powerful computer. We can say that Internet Security solution is a good choice for non-powerful computers and not often Web users but is still a lot of distance to gain a good position in our Top Ten Best Internet Security Suite.
