AVG AntiVirus Free 2015 PCmag review

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Petrovic

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Hands-On Testing
In addition to checking scores with the major testing labs, I put each antivirus through hands-on testing. I start by opening a folder containing a collection of malware samples. The simple access that occurs when Windows Explorer gets file information for display was enough to trigger AVG's real-time protection. It detected 72 percent of the samples on sight and offered to remove them.

Next, I launched the samples that weren't wiped out immediately. Overall, AVG detected 79 percent of these samples and earned 7.8 of 10 possible points. That's definitely on the low side, but I give significantly more weight to the independent lab tests. My own malware-blocking test serves mostly to give me hands-on experience with each product's way of handling real-time protection.

One feature of AVG's Web TuneUp browser extension is Site Safety, which promises to warn you before you visit a "risky or dangerous website." Apparently Site Safety doesn't apply to URLs that point directly to malware programs; Site Safety didn't kick in at all during my malicious URL blocking test. However, of the 100-odd newly reported malicious URLs I tried, the real-time protection component wiped out 54 percent. That's better than the current average of 41 percent.

McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2015 holds the top score in this test, with 85 percent of the URLs blocked. Avast managed a respectable 72 percent.

Unusual Phishing Protection
Phishing websites are frauds that imitate banking sites or other sensitive sites. Their aim is to steal your login credentials for the real sites they mimic. The antiphishing component in most security products simply diverts the browser to a warning page. AVG goes about the process differently.

AVG watches for signs of phishing in each Web page as the browser displays it. If it determines the site is a fraud, it interrupts the browser's rendering of the page and pops up a warning, much like the warning you get when it detects malware. As with the malicious URL blocking test, the Site Safety browser plug-in didn't get involved.

I tested this feature using about 100 URLs that had been reported as fraudulent but not yet verified. For comparison, I tried to load the same collection of URLs on a system protected by Norton. I also checked how the phishing protection built into Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome reacted.

AVG's detection rate came in 25 percentage points lower than Norton's, the same as Avast. That put these two right in the middle of current products. Firefox and Chrome also beat AVG, by 18 and 15 percentage points respectively. It's true that AVG's detection rate was 33 percent better than that of Internet Explorer, but virtually every product beats IE in this test.

A Good Solution
In tests by independent labs, AVG AntiVirus Free 2015 gets generally good marks. It turned in a decent performance in my hands-on malicious URL blocking and antiphishing tests. The new user interface is attractive, and the bonus Web TuneUp plug-in enhances browser security.

However, the independent labs uniformly give Panda Free Antivirus 2015 excellent ratings, and Panda also edged out AVG in my own tests. AVG is quite good, but Panda is our Editors' Choice for free antivirus. If you're willing to lay out a little cash, we've identified three non-free antivirus tools as Editors' Choice, Bitdefender Antivirus Plus 2015, Kaspersky Anti-Virus (2015), and Webroot SecureAnywhere Antivirus (2015).

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