AVG Internet Security 2011 (10.0.1410) – Full Review

The Rating Scale Breakdown:

• 0  – 0.5 – Abysmal
• 1 – 1.5 – Terrible
• 2 – 2.5 – Poor
• 3 – 3.5 – Average
• 4 – 4.5 – Great
• 5.0 – Excellent

• Undetermined – Too soon to tell or lacking evidence to provide a solid answer
• Not Tested – Has yet to be requested or there is some limitations to prevent accurate test results
• Currently Being Tested – In the process of testing feature and have yet to finalize results 

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Price: No longer available to purchase

A. Installation AVG – 3.5 “Average” – Slower then AVG claims.

B. Un-installing AVG – 2.5 “Poor“ – Pretty slow and sloppy un-installer

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C. Stability Of Program – 5.0 “Excellent” – We have received absolutely no e-mails about the lack of stability with AVG 2011 free and or paid (This time around).

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D. Has AVG Free Been Compromised By Hackers Or Virus – 5.0 “Excellent” – AVG Internet Security 2011 has not been compromised or disabled.

E. Speed of Scan – 5.0 “Excellent“ – Very quick on most computers. Also now you can decide how much memory you want to take up during each system scan.

F. Does AVG Free Do Automatic Updates By Itself Without Issue – 5.0 “Excellent“ – Yes, and this time around there seems to be no stalling and or hanging. When we manually update AVG. As we have seen in older versions of AVG Free 2011.

G. Internet Browser Cookie Detection Rate And Removal Test – 2.5 “Poor“ – Getting better. But you are way better off with SUPERAntiSpyware or CCleaner to remove your Internet cookies.

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1. Anti-Virus Detection Rate Test –

1A. Windows XP – 3.5 “Average“

1B. Windows Vista – 3.5 “Average“

1C. Windows 7 – 3.5 “Average“

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2. Anti-Spyware – 2.0 “Poor“ – AVG still seems to miss very common and not so common spyware/adware. You are much better off with SUPERAntiSpyware or Spybot as your adware, spyware, malware protection.

3. One Click Fix – 4.5 “Great“ – I really like this idea. But I am not a fan of the idea that if I want to de-activated a service. Such as the Link Scanner that AVG should still show it as not being fully protected.

4. Anti-Spam – 3.0 “Average“ – GMail has better spam mail protection. 

5. FireWall – 4.0 “Great“ — Not the best Firewall I’ve tested. But it does do what it is suppose to.

6. Link Scanner – 4.5 “Great“ – Can be very very useful to some.

7. AVG Security ToolBar – 3.5 “Average“ – Not a fan of any toolbars. The AVG toolbar is way to hard to get rid of. It also seems to slow down most Internet browsers.

8. AVG SideBar Gadget – 3.5 “Average” – Love it and have it on both my Vista and Win 7 sidebars. But it is way to large.

9. Residential Shield Test – 3.5 “Average“ – I find that AVIRA and or AVAST still seems to grab the virus way before AVG does.

10. Family Safety – 4.5 “Great“ – Cost $19.99 CAD per year for 3 PC’s to activate this just newly added option. But it covers unlimited profiles. So you can have just one or two kids or 11 kids and your good. Provided it is only used up to 3 PC’s.

11. LiveKive – Not Tested – This option has just been added to AVG Dashboard. But it cost money to activate. –See below for cost to activate said option–

*Cost $49.99 CAD for 25 GB of storage per year.

*Cost $79.99 CAD for Unlimited  storage per year.

12. E-Mail Scanner – 3.5 “Average“ – It’s ok, But I find it is way more difficult to set-up then it needs to be.

13. Update Manager – 5.0 “Excellent“ – No issues here at all. And it even updates faster then past AVG versions, such as 8.5 and 9.0.

14. Online Shield – 4.0 “Great“ – Still not really sure how really effective this option is.

15. Anti-Root Kit – 4.5 “Great“ – Very hit and miss. But can be very useful if there is a reason to believe you may have a deep rooted virus. Never hurts to run this every few weeks just to be on the safe side. And AVG has it as a completely separate dedicated scan option as well (Which makes it way quicker to run and it uses much less system resources.)

16. System Tools – 3.5 “Average” – Great idea but very poorly execution. Now the information is there but it is very very hard to decipher even for the more Computer Savvy of us.

17. Identity Protection –  4.5 “Great” – A very useful feature that lets you know when you maybe at risk for identity theft and or other important information maybe at risk. Such as with Peer 2 Peer programs and certain add-ons and or toolbars

18. PC Analyzer – 0.5 “Abysmal” – If you don’t mind that you only can fix your errors for free once then great. But if you are like me and you probably feel this options is both somewhat misleading and out right bait to buy this extremely expensive add-on. Then you are probably with me on my conclusion.

** On a side note I fully expected with the paid version of AVG Internet Security 2011. That the PC Analyzer would be an included as a usable option.

19. AVG Support – 1.5 “Terrible” – Even with e-mail support and phone support. AVG remains as one of the worst main stream software companies for help with their paid versions of their software. And yet again this is very disappointing and sad thing to report as AVG is in the top 3 Anti-Virus solutions out there.

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My Final Verdict Part 1: There has been very little improvement in this new version of AVG Internet Security 2011. So don’t expect to much in the way of major improvements over the last version.

My Final Verdict Part 2: As many of you know this version is now obsolete. But the funny thing is I still enjoy this version quite a bit more then the new AVG Internet Security 2012. It has more features and the UI (User Interface) is more pleasant to look at and way easier to use.

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My Overall Score: 91.5/135

67.7% = D +

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Here are 2 links to download the 30 day trailware version of AVG Internet Security 2011:

1. No longer available to download (AVG Main Site)

2. No longer available to download (Via download.com/Cnet)

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Till The Next Review,

Remy “Se7en”