AVG Free

Over the past few decades security software for Windows computers has gotten more and more powerful, offering protection from viruses that have made their way to your hard drive, but also offering warnings when you download a potentially dangerous file, click a malicious link on a website, or even when you’re just about to give out more personal information than you’re comfortable with.

At the same time, many security apps have gotten more and more unwieldy, taking up an awful lot of disk space, memory, and CPU cycles. One of the first things I tend to do when reviewing a low power netbook, for instance is disable or completely uninstall the security software in order to make the computer run faster.

Now the folks at AVG are taking note, and the company’s latest security software is designed to use fewer system resources. The AVG 2012 software uses 45 percent less disk space and 20 percent less memory. AVG says it also loads about 10 percent more quickly.

AVG offers a free anti-virus application, and  along with a fuller-featured AVG Internet Security Suite which costs $49.49. The software supports Windows XP and up and requires a computer with an Intel Pentium 1.5 GHz or faster processor, 512MB of RAM or more, and 1GB or more of disk space.

I’ve used the company’s free software in the past and been relatively impressed with the level of protection you get for the price (or lack thereof).

But honestly, at this point I’ve been using the free Microsoft Security Essentials software and it’s done a pretty great job of keeping my my computers virus-free with little to no impact on overall system performance. But if you’re looking for something a little more powerful, the latest AVG software looks like a decent option.

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2 replies on “AVG’s new security software uses fewer system resources”

  1. I have a Netbook that is basically not usable with AVG running.  I switched to MS Security Essentials and it runs great.

    Maybe I’ll give the new AVG a spin but the article doesn’t really mention that it’s less of a drain on the CPU.  Just says 45% less disk, 20% less memory and loads 10% faster.  That’s great, but if it still consume 50% of my CPU while its running that’s a no-go.

      – Eric

  2. I used the paid and free versions for years, but it turned into too much of a resource hog* and the free version turned into nagware, so I too went to Security Essentials. Microsoft seems to be eating the anti-virus companies’ lunch, which is fine up to a point but I do hope that Security Essentials stands up to the attacks that will no doubt be aimed at it due to its popularity.

    (* Note that AVG was never as bad as McAfee or Norton, both of which are pure evil)

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