Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1371 in Software
• Brand: AVG Technologies Ltd.
• Released on: 2008-03-12
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000

Manufacturer's Description

The Internet has dramatically changed how we live our lives, searching for box office hits, surfing the latest sites, paying your bills or socialising with friends.

Today Cyber Criminals have become more sophisticated, hiding exploits in trusted sites to steal your identity - safe one minute, dangerous the next.

AVG 8.0 Internet Security delivers patent pending 'Real Time' technology, protecting you from threats and exploits, with software that won't slow you down...

So whether you Search, Surf, Bank or Play you can count on AVG to be Tough on Threats but Easy on You!

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Outstanding....no competition
I have tried Nortons, McAfee and Bullguard and they all either slow the machine down or have compatability problems even on Windows XP Pro. So I tried the free AVG antivirus 7.5 and this was very simple and effective. So I bought the full AVG v8 Internet Security package from AVG on line (although Amazon are cheaper!) and it is excellent. You wouldn't know it was there. Very simple and the spam filter is the best I have come across. You can download a trial version. I have wasted so much time and money on others - go for this one.

Background Protection


Well, I'm glad I'm not the only technophobe who's installed this software. But unfortunately, I didn't have assistance installing, which is a shame as it asked me a few technical questions during the installation process that I didn't have the answer for, so I guessed.

I did have an initial glitch with this software as it interfered/conflicted with my Microsoft Office, especially Outlook, software. But this became resolved after a couple of restarts.

Then I had problems accessing my usual sites as pop-ups appeared asking things like; "a system request has been made to connect to URL blah blah, do you want to grant access?" And I would think "I dunno, who is that?" so I would click 'no', but then when I couldn't access my usual sites like Bike Trader, etc. I soon realised I'd have to click 'yes for safe' or 'yes for all' next time.

So the next perplexity I was left thinking with was "what the heck does yes for safe mean!"

Eventually, I got into the habit of clicking "yes for all", as I was a bit fed up with all the interference. Which, in a sense, makes me feel like I've nullified part of the protection the software gives - almost like an open door policy. But anyway, since then, apart from some minor slowing when my PC starts-up I've hardly noticed the software.

To my recollection there's only been one warning of an imminent internet threat, so as far as I can tell, it's doing its job in the background and I guess that's all anyone really needs from anti-virus software.

Finally, for all of you who understand these terminologies, here's a list of its features:

1. Anti-Virus
2. Anti-Spyware
3. Ant-Spam
4. Firewall
5. Anti-Rootkit
6. System Tools
7. E-mail Scanner
8. License
9. LinkScanner
10. Web Shield
11. Resident Shield
12. Update Manager

I do have one final concern; the "License" portion of my features states it will expire 02 July 2008, i.e. one month as opposed to the one year I was expecting, therefore, I don't quite know what to expect when 3rd July gets here. I will update this review once that happens.

Installation needs drastically improving
Over the years I have used many of the leading AV titles - Norton, Avast, Kaspersky and ZoneLabs. When I got offered this product as part of the Amazon Vine programme, I decided to install it on my low-spec machine.

Although I didn't have any problems setting up and configuring AVG 8.0, there were a few issues during installation that really disappointed me:

The first thing that amazed me is that the installation menu appears in the web browser. Any secure browser will not allow the setup file to run (because of security risks!), and so you can only save it to your desktop and run it manually. Although not a big deal for the experienced user, for the novice this is just totally confusing and lacks common sense.

Secondly I was disappointed at being asked during installation whether I want to change my browser search engine to Yahoo! Surely AVG can make money using other approaches than selling out to search engines. The whole approach here has nothing to do with protecting your PC, and is well out of place.

Then, the installation routine asked me to identify what networks my computer was part of (i.e. home office, domain etc). My computer actually spans different ones, so I thought I'd check the Help file to clarify. Amazingly, the HELP button on this screen didn't even work and no help was provided, and no help windows opened!

Then AVG recognised a network and asked me to name it. This is a high-risk scenario because AVG doesn't even tell you the name of the network it has found. Is it your network, or your neighbour's, or the guy in the street outside wanting to steal your password details? I was lucky because I am in a detached house away from other networks, but living on a street you wouldn't get any help from AVG.

Lastly, the installation routine automatically connected to the internet to get the latest updates. It did this without problems and installation finished. The problem was that when I then clicked clicked the Update button again, ANOTHER set of updates was then downloaded and installed!! Why didn't AVG get the most recent updates and leave my computer properly protected?!?

The final insult came when I opened my browser. The AVG toolbar that I had chosen to install to make browsing safer was actually a Yahoo search toolbar with a few extra AVG buttons.

The plus point to AVG is that it runs without slowing the computer down. Although it doesn't detect as many threats as other titles (Kaspersky is the current champion according to PCPro magazine), it is a good deal better than having nothing. For £30 though, I'd put my trust into a different product.