What AVG Anti-Virus Free 2011 Has to Offer

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 28 Sep 2010

AVG Technologies, company that specializes in providing antivirus and internet security protection to home and business users, is gearing up for the release of its 2011 range of products. At the time of writing this, if you went to avg.com of free.avg.com, you would see the following message:

The AVG website is temporarily unavailable.
That’s because we’re revamping our site to help launch our new software.
We’ll be up again on September 28th at 12 pm Central European Summer Time.
Come back then and see what’s new with AVG. We promise you won’t be disappointed.



The message includes links to AVG’s 2011 range of products, which have already been launched exclusively to CNET Download.com: AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 2011, AVG Anti-Virus 2011, and AVG Internet Security 2011.

The free AVG-developed security software solution, AVG Free, is one of the main reasons why AVG Technologies is such a big name in the security industry. Putting the spotlight on AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 2011, here is what the application has to offer.

Speedier installation

AVG Technologies is aware of the fact that nobody likes to wait. That is why it has designed AVG Free to install faster than ever before. If in the past the user saw 13 install screens, the user now sees only 5.

Better protection

The 2011 version of 2011 can now protect against security threats better than ever before. The big news is that the threat detection engines in the free version are identical to the ones in the paid versions.

New features
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 2011 employs what AVG Technologies calls “smart scanning”. Using AVG's behavioral detection network, this feature scans files once. The files are scanned a second time only when a change has been detected.

The smart scanning feature ensures that while a scan is running, the computer’s performance isn’t negatively impacted. Scans scheduled to run while the computer is being actively used, run slower so as not to interfere with whatever the user is doing. Scans scheduled to run when the computer is idle, run faster.

Another new feature that AVG Free 2011 introduces is PC Analyzer. This new feature identifies Windows Registry and disk errors, defragments the disk, removes broken shortcuts. Please note that PC Analyzer is included in the premium solutions developed by AVG Technologies. In AVG Free 2011 it is a one-time deal – it allows the user to detect and fix errors ONCE.

Refreshed interface

AVG Free 2011 features several one-click buttons that allow the user to run primary features from the main window. There’s a Scan button, an Update button, and a Fix button that appears when the security software solution finds a problem.

Vista and Windows 7 users can take advantage of a new desktop widget. This widget gives the user easy access to the scan and update functionality.

Improved AVG LinkScanner

AVG LinkScanner (also available as a separate download here) now scans links posted on Facebook and MySpace.

Faster scans
According to AVG Technologies, the 2011 version scans three times faster than AVG Free 2010.

UPDATE: AVG.com and free.avg.com are no longer unavailable. They now serve AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 2011, AVG Anti-Virus 2011, and AVG Internet Security 2011. Here is how free.avg.com looks like:




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