Review by K. Dubose

The necessary evil when it comes to computers these days. With some many products on the market, which one do we choose. If you anything like me, you have multi pcs in your house and they all need protection. So AVG Internet Security, when it comes to this I think of couple of things. Will it really protect my systems, how much will it slow down my PC. I’ve always looked for a balance of both. These products will either bring your PC to a halt while its protecting you or will not slow your machine at all and provide minimum protection. So Let give AVG a try. Since we all know about these products I will get to the point and let you know exactly what you need to make your own decision and A/V products.

Installation is a breeze, though it requires a system restart. During installation though you have the option to install their toolbar, which has some security benefits. From looking around at some independent antivirus labs, they gave it a pretty good score. It had good malware detection, the linkScanner blocks exploits (love this feature for my babies), malicious sites. Antiphishing component less accurate than IE alone so I wouldn’t use this feature. I would let IE handle this. Free identity theft recovery service, includes tune-up utility which will only run once, you will have to pay extra for this feature (which stinks! you can perform a single tune-up for free or unlimited tune-ups by purchasing the $29.99 product. I had assumed that those who purchased the full suite would also get full access to the tune-up tool. I assumed wrong. Even if you’ve bought the suite full access to the tune-up tool requires a separate purchase. Do go ahead and run it to take advantage of that one-time performance tune-up, but make sure to do so when you can spare some time to try the other features during the 24-hour trial period. Accurate spam filtering. Small effect on system performance (which is HUGE for me).

AVG’s security suite offers three things the free antivirus doesn’t: a so-so firewall, an accurate spam filter. The paid version is a bite more stable than than the free version. There’s so much protection in the free product that it’s hard to justify paying for the suite. AVG Internet Security 2011 is a good security suite, but on a practical level, I feel it really needs to be revamped and simplified. The antispam and firewall settings in particular include way too many settings that users simply should not touch. And the main window that tracks fourteen distinct security components could be streamlined to better inform the user.

A huge portion of the suite’s components are available in the free antivirus, and the value-add components don’t impress. The firewall is so-so, the antispam is very good, but many users don’t need antispam. Surprisingly, the tune-up feature requires yet another payout for full functionality. And for the market sub-group who want parental control in a suite, AVG is a no-go.