AVG Anti-Virus
Encyclopedia
AVG is a family of anti-virus and Internet security
software for the Microsoft Windows
, Linux
, Mac OS X
, and FreeBSD
computing platform
s, developed by AVG Technologies
, a privately held
Czech
company formerly known as Grisoft.
The AVG Free Edition helped raise awareness of the AVG product line.
In 2006, the AVG security package grew to include anti-spyware, as AVG Technologies acquired ewido Networks, an anti-spyware group. That same year, Microsoft announced that AVG components would be available directly within the Windows Vista
operating system.
AVG Technologies acquired Exploit Prevention Labs (XPL) in December 2007, and incorporated that company's LinkScanner safe search and surf technology into the AVG 8.0 security product range released in March 2008.
In January 2009, AVG Technologies acquired Sana Security, a developer of identity theft prevention software. This software was incorporated into the AVG security product range released in March 2009.
According to AVG Technologies, over 110 million users have AVG Anti-Virus protection, including users of the Free Edition.
onwards. In addition to this, AVG Technologies also provides Linux, FreeBSD, and most recently Mac OS X versions of the software. AVG Anti-Virus 9.0 is available in free and commercial editions. AVG 9.0 has identity theft protection through a partnership with Intersections Inc., AVG 9.0 also adds white listing, behavioral protection and cloud operations to their signature-based blocking. The software adds the Resident Shield, firewall, and identity protection modules. The LinkScanner component has been improved to cut phishing threats further. Version 9 was the last version compatible with Windows 2000.
For desktop protection of PC's running Windows, the AVG solutions include:
AVG Free Edition has previously been responsible for popup ads advertising the non-free versions of AVG Anti-Virus and AVG Internet Security , which claim to provide more comprehensive levels of protection. AVG Anti-Virus 8.5 Free Edition users are now also subject to a daily pop-up advertising campaign for a "recommended upgrade" to AVG Internet Security. A "manager" on the AVG free version forum states that this advertisement appears once per day for one month each year.
All versions of the AVG products, excluding AVG Anti-Rootkit Free Edition (now discontinued), are compatible with the 64-bit
edition of Windows.
for the first time. AVG Technologies has incorporated spam detection in addition to virus detection for Linux/FreeBSD software.
A handy & clear (if somewhat misleading) feature / product comparison table is at Free vs Paid
In response to complaints, AVG announced that as of July 9, 2008 "Search-Shield will no longer scan each search result online for new exploits, which was causing the spikes that webmasters addressed with us", releasing a new build on that date that applies a local blacklist, then prefetches and scans only those links clicked on by the user.
Version 2011 of 5 AVG products (Free, Business, Home) for AVG & AVG Internet Security, ...)
Version 9 of AVG (Free, Internet Security, ...), released before June 2010.
Version 8.5, both AVG Anti-Virus and AVG Internet Security require at least 256 MB of RAM for the computer as a minimum. The comparatively high use of paged physical RAM has led to crashes with some software, such as the Half-Life 2 series.
Version 7.5 of AVG Free requires a Pentium (or compatible) CPU with 300 MHz and between 64–256 MB of RAM, depending on operating system (at least 64 MB with Windows 9x, at least 128 MB with Windows 2000 or newer, with more RAM recommended).
An additional caveat with version 7.5 in Windows XP, which is a multi-user system that allows more than one user to be logged in at a time, is that scheduled scans ran as separate processes, which created a situation in which there were two scheduled scans, one in each active account, running simultaneously and causing heavy hard disk throttling and considerable system lag. This fault was finally fixed in version 8.0 of the program.
During its version 6.0 run, AVG was known for its conservative resource requirements . The AVG Anti-Virus Professional Edition required 16 MB of RAM and 20 MB of space on the hard drive.
Internet security
Internet security is a branch of computer security specifically related to the Internet. Its objective is to establish rules and measures to use against attacks over the Internet. The Internet represents an insecure channel for exchanging information leading to a high risk of intrusion or fraud,...
software for the Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, and FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
computing platform
Platform (computing)
A computing platform includes some sort of hardware architecture and a software framework , where the combination allows software, particularly application software, to run...
s, developed by AVG Technologies
AVG Technologies
AVG Technologies is a privately held Czech company formed in 1991 by Jan Gritzbach and Tomas Hofer, with corporate offices in Europe and the United States...
, a privately held
Privately held company
A privately held company or close corporation is a business company owned either by non-governmental organizations or by a relatively small number of shareholders or company members which does not offer or trade its company stock to the general public on the stock market exchanges, but rather the...
Czech
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
company formerly known as Grisoft.
History
The brand name AVG comes from Grisoft's first product, "Anti-Virus Guard", launched in 1992 in Czechoslovakia. In 1997, the first AVG licenses were sold in Germany and UK. AVG was introduced in the U.S. in 1998.The AVG Free Edition helped raise awareness of the AVG product line.
In 2006, the AVG security package grew to include anti-spyware, as AVG Technologies acquired ewido Networks, an anti-spyware group. That same year, Microsoft announced that AVG components would be available directly within the Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
operating system.
AVG Technologies acquired Exploit Prevention Labs (XPL) in December 2007, and incorporated that company's LinkScanner safe search and surf technology into the AVG 8.0 security product range released in March 2008.
In January 2009, AVG Technologies acquired Sana Security, a developer of identity theft prevention software. This software was incorporated into the AVG security product range released in March 2009.
According to AVG Technologies, over 110 million users have AVG Anti-Virus protection, including users of the Free Edition.
Versions for Windows desktop clients
AVG Technologies provides a number of products from the AVG range, suitable for Windows 2000Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
onwards. In addition to this, AVG Technologies also provides Linux, FreeBSD, and most recently Mac OS X versions of the software. AVG Anti-Virus 9.0 is available in free and commercial editions. AVG 9.0 has identity theft protection through a partnership with Intersections Inc., AVG 9.0 also adds white listing, behavioral protection and cloud operations to their signature-based blocking. The software adds the Resident Shield, firewall, and identity protection modules. The LinkScanner component has been improved to cut phishing threats further. Version 9 was the last version compatible with Windows 2000.
For desktop protection of PC's running Windows, the AVG solutions include:
- AVG Internet Security is a full suite which brings together the AVG Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, LinkScanner, Anti-Rootkit, Web Shield, Security Toolbar, Firewall, Anti-Spam, Identity Protection and System Tools protection components.
- AVG Identity Protection provides protection against identity theft and unknown malware threats using behavioral monitoring.
- AVG Anti-Virus plus Firewall provides the Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, LinkScanner, Anti-Rootkit, Web Shield, Security Toolbar and Firewall protection components.
- AVG Anti-spyware was a rebranded version of ewido Anti-Spyware, that was integrated into AVG Anti-Virus as of version 8.0. A free version was also available, having now been merged into AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
- AVG Anti-Rootkit was a free anti-Rootkit program that was discontinued as of late 2006. Like AVG Anti-Spyware, it has now been merged into AVG Anti-Virus
- AVGADMIN is a remote administration tool, which allows the software to be managed centrally on networks.
- AVG Anti-Virus provides the Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, LinkScanner, Anti-Rootkit, Web Shield, and Security Toolbar protection components.
- Like other security products, AVG disables Windows DefenderWindows DefenderWindows Defender, formerly known as Microsoft AntiSpyware, is a software product from Microsoft to prevent, remove, and quarantine spyware in Microsoft Windows...
.
- Like other security products, AVG disables Windows Defender
- AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition provides basic, Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware protection, plus the full AVG LinkScanner safe search and surf technology. There are some limitations with AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition compared to the commercial versions of AVG products and other free antivirus. These limitations include:
- Less protection – AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition provides the same anti-virus and anti-spyware scanning engine as the commercial product; however, it lacked anti-rootkitRootkitA rootkit is software that enables continued privileged access to a computer while actively hiding its presence from administrators by subverting standard operating system functionality or other applications...
protection until 2010. The older 7.5 Free Edition is perfectly capable of finding and disabling rootkits based on signatureSignature (disambiguation)A signature is a hand-written, possibly stylized, version of someone's name, which may be used to confirm the person's identity.Signature may also refer to:* distinctive, characteristic indicative of identityIn art:...
s, but cannot scan for rootkit-like activity. The 8.5 version of AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition version lacks any anti-rootkit capability. While there is no official protection for files from messaging sources, the Resident Shield component automatically scans files before they are opened or copied. - Infrequent updates – AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition receives updates via a lower priority service. Priority updating via high-speed servers is only available for the commercial versions of AVG products.
- No telephone or e-mail technical support – There is no telephone or e-mail technical support provided by AVG for users of AVG Free Edition products anywhere in the world. AVG Free Edition users have access to support via the self-help AVG Free Forum.
- Less customization – Scheduling options in AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition are very limited (only one scheduled update per day). However, the AVG Resident Shield configuration allows exclusions. The on-demand/scheduled scanner allows advanced testing options such as heuristics and reporting of password-protected archives reporting. Process priority for on-demand/scheduled scans can be dynamically adjusted over three different configurations.
- No server support – AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition cannot be installed on server operating systems (such as Windows Server 2003), nor can it be used for the scanning of network drives. Note, the newer AVG 2011 free edition can be installed on Server operating systems like Windows Server R2.
- AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is only licensed for home and non-commercial use on a single computer.
- Less protection – AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition provides the same anti-virus and anti-spyware scanning engine as the commercial product; however, it lacked anti-rootkit
AVG Free Edition has previously been responsible for popup ads advertising the non-free versions of AVG Anti-Virus and AVG Internet Security , which claim to provide more comprehensive levels of protection. AVG Anti-Virus 8.5 Free Edition users are now also subject to a daily pop-up advertising campaign for a "recommended upgrade" to AVG Internet Security. A "manager" on the AVG free version forum states that this advertisement appears once per day for one month each year.
All versions of the AVG products, excluding AVG Anti-Rootkit Free Edition (now discontinued), are compatible with the 64-bit
64-bit
64-bit is a word size that defines certain classes of computer architecture, buses, memory and CPUs, and by extension the software that runs on them. 64-bit CPUs have existed in supercomputers since the 1970s and in RISC-based workstations and servers since the early 1990s...
edition of Windows.
Versions for servers
AVG Technologies also sells AVG anti-virus and Internet security solutions for web/file servers or email servers running either Linux, FreeBSD or Windows.- AVG Internet Security Business Edition provides centrally controlled protection for workstations and file servers, e-mail server and Microsoft SharePoint server protection, plus e-mail server based anti-spam protection.
- AVG Anti-Virus Business Edition provides centrally controlled anti-virus and anti-spyware protection for workstations and file servers.
- AVG File Server Edition provides anti-virus and anti-spyware protection for file servers.
- AVG E-mail Server Edition provides anti-virus and anti-spyware protection for e-mail servers, plus e-mail server based anti-spam protection.
AVG for Linux/FreeBSD
With Version 7.5, AVG Technologies is providing a solution for FreeBSDFreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
for the first time. AVG Technologies has incorporated spam detection in addition to virus detection for Linux/FreeBSD software.
Features
AVG features most of the common functions available in modern anti-virus and Internet security programs, including periodic scans, scans of sent and received emails (including adding footers to the emails indicating this), the ability to "repair" some virus-infected files, and a quarantine area: "virus vault/chest" in which infected files are held.A handy & clear (if somewhat misleading) feature / product comparison table is at Free vs Paid
LinkScanner
The patent pending LinkScanner technology acquired from Exploit Prevention Labs and built into most AVG products, provides real-time updated protection against exploits and drive-by downloads. LinkScanner includes: Search-Shield – a safe search component that places safety ratings next to each link in Google, Yahoo! and MSN search results; plus Active Surf-Shield – a safe surf component that scans the contents of a web site in real-time to ensure it's safe being opened. A faulty upgrade in 8.0.233 causing users to lose internet access, as well as concerns regarding web analytics have made Link Scanner a controversial component (see "Link Scanner Concerns").Concerns
When AVG 8.0 was first released, its LinkScanner safe search feature was shown to cause an increase in traffic on web sites that appear high in search engine results pages. Since LinkScanner disguises the scans as coming from an Internet Explorer 6 browser when it prescans each site listed in the search results, web site usage logs showed incorrect and overinflated site visitor statistics. The prescanning of every link in search results also caused web sites to transfer more data than usual, resulting in higher bandwidth usage for web site operators and slow performance for users. AVG initially said site administrators would be able to filter the LinkScanner traffic out of their site statistics, leaving the problem of excess bandwidth usage still to be solved. Pay-per-click advertising was not affected by the increase in traffic.In response to complaints, AVG announced that as of July 9, 2008 "Search-Shield will no longer scan each search result online for new exploits, which was causing the spikes that webmasters addressed with us", releasing a new build on that date that applies a local blacklist, then prefetches and scans only those links clicked on by the user.
Resource requirements
At any moment, there are usually several AVG products currently supported, as well as the AVG Beta Program. Additionally, each product is available for only certain operating environments (requirements).Version 2011 of 5 AVG products (Free, Business, Home) for AVG & AVG Internet Security, ...)
Version 9 of AVG (Free, Internet Security, ...), released before June 2010.
Version 8.5, both AVG Anti-Virus and AVG Internet Security require at least 256 MB of RAM for the computer as a minimum. The comparatively high use of paged physical RAM has led to crashes with some software, such as the Half-Life 2 series.
Version 7.5 of AVG Free requires a Pentium (or compatible) CPU with 300 MHz and between 64–256 MB of RAM, depending on operating system (at least 64 MB with Windows 9x, at least 128 MB with Windows 2000 or newer, with more RAM recommended).
An additional caveat with version 7.5 in Windows XP, which is a multi-user system that allows more than one user to be logged in at a time, is that scheduled scans ran as separate processes, which created a situation in which there were two scheduled scans, one in each active account, running simultaneously and causing heavy hard disk throttling and considerable system lag. This fault was finally fixed in version 8.0 of the program.
During its version 6.0 run, AVG was known for its conservative resource requirements . The AVG Anti-Virus Professional Edition required 16 MB of RAM and 20 MB of space on the hard drive.
Problems
- When uninstalling AVG version 7 or 8 in Windows XP/Vista and attempting to install other anti-virus programs such as Kaspersky Anti-VirusKaspersky Anti-VirusKaspersky Anti-Virus is an antivirus program developed by Kaspersky Lab. It is designed to protect users from malware and is primarily designed for computers running Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, though a version for Linux is available for business consumers....
or Norton AntiVirusNorton AntiVirusNorton AntiVirus, developed and distributed by Symantec Corporation, provides malware prevention and removal during a subscription period. It uses signatures and heuristics to identify viruses. Other features include e-mail spam filtering and phishing protection.Symantec distributes the product as...
, the latter programs will not install. Instead, they show an "incompatible software installed" error even if the uninstalled software has been removed using the control panel. This happens because software that updates and changes can add registry entries that were not added when the product was originally installed (therefore the uninstaller is unaware of the registry keys). - A signature update dated November 9, 2008, crippled some computers, as it allowed the software to treat "user32.dll", a major component of Windows XP/Vista, as a trojan and advised users to delete it. Users who deleted the file in question were put on a continuous reboot loop. The problem was rectified a few days later with a new signature database and further safeguards were added to the product (270.9.0/1778).
- Towards the end of July 2009, a software update caused the program to inform users that iTunesITunesiTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
was infected with a non-existent virus, Small.BOG. If users followed the recommended instructions, it would remove critical DLL files and corrupt the iTunes installation. - An update of AVG 2011 resulted in Windows 7 64-bit systems being caught up in a continuous reboot loop. The update has now been removed.
Reception
- AVG Anti-Virus was certified by ICSAInternational Computer Security AssociationICSA Labs began as NCSA . In its early days, NCSA focused almost solely on the certification of anti-virus software. Using the Consortia model, NCSA worked together with anti-virus software vendors to develop one of the first anti-virus software certification schemes...
Labs. - It has been tested 43 times, from February 1998 through May 2003, by Virus BulletinVirus BulletinVirus Bulletin is a magazine about the prevention, detection and removal of malware and spam. It regularly features analyses of the latest virus threats, articles exploring new developments in the fight against viruses, interviews with anti-virus experts, and evaluations of current anti-malware...
and has failed 22 times and passed 21 times. During the period from June 2003 to April 2008, it was tested 23 times; passing 20 times and failing 3 times. - AVG won a Highly Commended award from Australian PC Authority magazine 2007 Reliability and Service Awards Best Software category (over 14,000 survey respondents) with an 89% satisfaction rating. It was beaten only by Firefox in satisfaction (93%).
- At PCWorld.com AVG 7.5 received a 77/100. It did a "fine job" in disinfection tests, but ranked last of the ten products tested in proactive protection using one-month-old signature files.