TSGL: AVG Free 8

[H Davis]

I installed AVG Free 8 yesterday and thought I'd send along some 
impressions for those that are considering updating or converting. AVG 
says version 7.5 will stop working (updating?) at the end of May.

A review of AVG Free 8 can be found at:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2291382,00.asp

A review of Avast 4.8, a comparable, free alternative to AVG 8 can be 
found at:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2282699,00.asp

The same person did both reviews and generally finds both programs 
pretty good and equally capable.

I had no problems installing AVG Free 8 on 2 machines but it does take a 
while, requiring answering several set up questions, rebooting and 
updating the signature files. More time is required to review and change 
any default settings if you're so inclined. It will  automatically 
uninstall version 7.5 (and probably other versions) if present. If you 
have AVG Free Antispyware or AVG Free Antirootkit installed it will 
uninstall those also, although it never explicitly says so. I think this 
is because those functions are now included in AVG Free 8. As usual, the 
uninstall process is not complete and there are some files/folders/links 
that you'll have to clean out be hand.

One of the set up questions involves installing the "AVG Security 
Toolbar". If you install it, it will appear in all browsers on the 
machine (FF, IE 6 & IE 7 at least), even your non-default browser. The 
toolbar extends the full width of your browser. The only useful thing 
about this toolbar is the search window (Yahoo default) but most folks 
already have some kind of search window available so this looks mostly 
like a way to generate some revenue from Yahoo.

The toolbar is implicitly associated with a "Link Scanner" function 
whereby AVG scans the pages referenced by any search engine results for 
malicious code and some other criteria and places a symbol (red, yellow, 
green) next to the link on your search results based on its findings. 
This will occur regardless of which search window, search engine or 
browser you use. However, the Link Scanner is available whether or not 
you install the toolbar. If you've installed the toolbar and decide you 
don't want it, I haven't found a way to uninstall it but you can make it 
disappear by right clicking on a blank area of the top toolbar and 
unchecking the offending toolbar on the resulting menu. You can bring it 
back the same way if you change your mind.

The Link Scanner takes a few seconds to scan the search results which 
some folks might not like. You can turn off the Link Scanner in the 
Options settings but this will result in the big red exclamation mark 
showing up on your tray icon. If you run like
this normally you will not be able to see any other problem 
notifications, like a signature file out of date.

The link scanner does not scan any other links, like those appearing in 
a web page. You've got to get the paid version for that.

Oddly, if I use my normal FF search window with Google, my search 
results show an icon next to each page link indicating its status. But, 
if I use the search window on the AVG toolbar or Yahoo in my normal 
search window, the results briefly show a gray "?" then nothing. I 
assume that "nothing" means the page is OK because I've seen a red 
symbol which remains above one problematic site link. Why the displayed 
results are different depending on whether I'm using Yahoo or another 
search engine escapes me.

Just my 2 cents and, as usual, your perspective may differ. I'd be 
interested to hear other opinions.

H Davis

-- 
H Davis   hdavis1 at gmail.com