AVG Internet Security 2012
System requirements: 1.5GHz processor; Windows XP/
Vistal/ 7; 512MB RAM; 1GB hard-disk space.
Back in 1992 when it was first released, free AVG security
software was used by millions of people to protect their PCs. Even today there
are 98 million AVG users worldwide. But it’s worth paying out for a full
subscription, which adds to antivirus package the assessment of dangerous
websites, spam and phishing detection, identity protection and a two-way
firewall. AVG 2012 can also scan specifically for low-level infiltration by
root-kits.
The suite is lacking parental control and file backup,
although a separate LiveKive application is provided for the latter.
AVG’s antivirus engine uses four detection techniques: signature,
polymorphic, heuristic and behavioural. The last two are similar, both looking
at software behaviour to determine whether it’s malicious.
The key revisions in this 2012 upgrade are Advisor and
Accelerator. Advisor suggests the best course of action in the face of
potential problems. Accelerator is designed to speed up downloads, although we
noticed no difference.
The main control screen is rather basic in its design. A set
of small icons on the Overview pane take you to more detailed status screens for
various parameters.
The suite con be easily tweaked, making it simple to tailor
AVG 2012 to your particular needs.
AV-Test awarded AVG 2012 a score of 15/18, beaten by only
three products in the most recent 25 suites on which it’s reported.
The scores beak down to 5/6 in the sub-categories of
Protection, Repair and Usability. AVG scored highly in spotting new malware (99
percent) and running malware, including root-kits (100 percent).
Our own test assess a product’s impact on system resources.
It took 44 seconds to copy a 1GB file with AVG running in the background, which
is very good. However, it needed 1 min 47 secs to complete the same task during
a scan.
AVG took more than 47 mins to scan our 50GB basket of
assorted files, but claimed to have scanned more files than any other suite
we’ve tested. Its average scan rate of 63.21 files per second thus sits in the
middle of the group.
Verdict
The scanning engine in both AVG internet Security 2012 and
AVG Free is robust, effective and has a comparatively light footprint. AVG
Internet Security 2012 includes worthwhile extensions into spam and identity
protection. The singe and three PC licences aren’t cheap, though, particularly
when compared with rivals such as Norton Internet Security 2012.
