Gadgetell Review: AVG 2011

I’ve been a fan of AVG for several years now. It’s done a great job protecting my computer and I’ve always highly recommended it. Recently I was prompted to upgrade to AVG 2011 and did so. This new release promises increased social networking protection by automatically scanning all links posted to sites like Facebook and Twitter. Another new feature is called Smart Scanning. This real-time virus scanning promises to work in high priority mode only when your system is idle. It also offers a feature called PC Analyzer that claims to scan your system to find registry errors, broken shortcuts, and other problems that could be slowing your system down. However, to fix any it finds, you have to download another program called AVG PC Tuneup 2011. The program will work once for free, and after that costs $27 a year.
Installing this takes some patience. The download itself is pretty quick but the installation is SLOW. It takes a good 15 minutes and that doesn’t include the forced reboot. Once that happens, installation continues!  Once installed it then forces an update, which takes an additional 5 minutes.
I’ve found AVG 2011 to be pretty much business as usual. No false alarms, regular updates, quick scans and very comprehensive protection. One feature I’m not sure I’m happy with is Smart Scanning. While it promises to stay in low priority mode when your system is active, I’ve found that it still has an affect on system performance. Facebook seemed to run much faster when it was disabled. I’m running a Windows 7 system, and of course, your mileage may vary. All in all tho, I still recommend it! It’s a free anti-virus solution packed with features well worth paying for!