The Rating Scale Breakdown:
- 0 – 0.5 – Abysmal
- 1.0 – 1.5 – Terrible
- 2.0 – 2.5 – Poor
- 3.0 – 3.5 – Average
- 4.0 – 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
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Price: Free
A. Installation AVG – 3.5 “Average“ – There is no doubt that AVG is getting beating score wise. Due to a very hit or miss installation process. I honestly have never had to install any anti-virus program more the 2 times. Where in AVG 2013’s case it took right around the 10 tries for just doing 2 computers. My laptop only took 3 times. But my desktop to 7 and it still was not working correctly very glitchy.
AVG has only recently seem to have drastically cut down the number of times. I’ve need to install AVG Free Anti-Virus 2013.
B. Un-installing AVG – 3.0 “Average” – AVG Free Anti-Virus 2013 is very sloppy un-installer. But that is not a surprise to me. So has every other previous AVG version going back 5 or 6 years.
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C. Stability Of Program – 4.5 “Great” – The UI (User Interface) seems to have been fixed. But I do see bugs pop-up every once in a while. Such as when you try to remove a virus and it locks up. But AVG is getting better with each update, which is nice to see.
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D. Has AVG Free Been Compromised By Hackers Or Virus – 3.0 “Average” – Still quite a few issues reported. But mostly on older operating systems such as XP and Vista. Also a very common false positive has been fixed. That issue being the Auto-run Trojan when inserting new unformatted USB sticks or USB external drives.
E. Speed of Scan – 5.0 “Excellent“ – Very quick on most computers.
F. Updating – 3.5 “Average” – Automatic updating is fine. But if you want to manually update your AVG. Expect some epic slowness. I’m still not sure why. I have often run into times where it will stall on 30%, or 50% and it seem like forever before you get the 100% completed notice.
G. Does AVG Free Do Automatic Updates By Itself Without Any Issue – 5.0 “Excellent“ – Yes, you can now with, no doubt. But leave the manual update option alone unless you want to invite stability related issues.
H. Internet Browser Cookie Detection Rate And Removal Test – 2.0 “Poor“– You are way better off with something like SUPERAntiSpyware or CCleaner that is more dedicated to removal of Internet cookies. AVG Internet cookie detection rate is terrible even with the option active and checked off.
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1. Anti-Virus Detection Rate Test:
1A. Windows XP – 3.0 “Average“
1B. Windows Vista – 3.0 “Average“
1C. Windows 7 – 3.0 “Average“
1D. Windows 8 – 4.0 “Great”
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2. Residential Shield Test – 3.0 “Average“ – I still find AVIRA and AVAST seems to grab the virus way before AVG does.
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Computers Protection
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3A. Anti-Virus Scanner – 3.5 “Average” – AVG is barely scoring an average in this respect. And that should tell you a lot.
3B. Anti-Rootkit Scanner – 4.0 “Great” – Great option. Works well.
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Web Browsing Protection
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4A. Link Scanner – 4.5 “Great“ – Not a fan. But it can be very useful to some.
4B. Online Shield – Not available In the Free Version
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Identity Protection
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5A. Identity Protection – Not available In the Free Version
5B. Identity Alert – Not available In the Free Version
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E-mail Protection
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6A. E-mail Scanner – 3.0 “Average” – Utterly baseline and average. I found no use for it.
6B. Anti-Spam – Not available In the Free Version
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Firewall
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7. Firewall – Not available In the Free Version
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Extra Features
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8. Fix Performance (AKA. 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.
9. Mobile Protection – N/A – This option is pretty much just a bullet point reminder. As you can download the AVG Free Smart Phone app from the Google Play Store.
10. Speed Test – 5.0 “Excellent” – I found this addition to be very useful and very accurate as well. If only all speed tests apps / programs and or sites were this worry free.
11. AVG Direct Support – 0.5 “Abysmal” – With only a free forum and a phone number to call for support.
You will often find yourself ether being told to go to the free forum or they will recommend you go to further specialized support via Tech Buddy. Which like I said above is a MONEY GRAB. Completely worthless as well as falsely advertised and very overall misleading.
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My Overall Score: 71.5/100
71.5 % = B –
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My Final Verdict – AVG Free Anti-Virus 2013 takes what it once was good and flips it on its head. It presents itself as a new more user friendly version of it’s past AVG iterations. This version of AVG and I’m talking about all AVG 2013 versions. Are clearly tailored first to Windows 8 and then to Windows 7. If you don’t have ether. Then you maybe as disappointed as I was. When I switched over to AVG 2013.
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Till The Next Review,
Kirbe
The Computer Savvy Weblog 