Everyone is concerned with protecting their computer against viruses, spyware and general malware. You should always wonder whether any anti-virus package is enough. Today we’ll take a look at whether AVG is good enough to protect your computer from all the malware out there.
Introduction
Okay, the simple answer to this question is yes. AVG is probably enough to protect your computer. If you’re a halfway responsible with your browsing then you don’t really need to roll around in a virtual tank to be safe. That said, if you want extra security, you have a lot of little options that go great with AVG to make for a very secure machine.
AVG Anti-Virus Software
Before we start, let’s really take a look at AVG. The latest free version of AVG has just about anything you’d probably want from a security package. You need to shell out some money for the Identity Protection package, but everything else is free. The really nice tools are the link scanner and the resident shield. The link scanner does just what it say. It should work alongside an internet plugin (it will work automatically with Firefox). When you’re online and searching it will scan the links and check the website for a list of known problems or bugs. This ties right in with the resident shield. If you stumble onto a virus or spyware online through an infected website, it will at least attempt to clamp down the connection and keep your computer safe. It also scans files as you use or download them, as a type of passive protection.
The active searches are pretty good. Scan times will obviously vary. They can be somewhat intensive on the processor, although you can always set them to use minimal resources. There are frequent updates for the program with up-to-date virus definitions and spyware definitions. I obviously can’t say whether it will always have the right definition in time, since there is always a bit of an arms race between protection software and malware.
In general, it’s got most of the tools that you’d need for a good security package. But why stop there?
The Basics
Let’s get down to the real bare bones. There are other articles that handle safe browsing, but it’s still good to cover the basics. You should hopefully never even have to use your AVG anti-virus software. Just follow some common sense guidelines. Don’t just run into random websites or download unknown packages. Don’t even open spam mail; just trash it or report it. Make sure that you put in the address correctly. People often register misspellings of popular domain names. Sometimes they just make poor landing pages that try to scrape up a little ad money. Others have malware on them. A noticeable issue is that you need to make sure that you spell .com properly and not .cm. The government of Cameroon have turned every single .cm website into a landing page and I have received anti-virus alerts on them before.
To be extra safe, you can use a program, like NoScript, to prevent any untrusted sites from running scripts on your machine. This puts up a nice barrier at the cost of convenience.
Other Software
The really nice thing about using AVG anti-virus software is that it doesn’t usually conflict with other anti-virus software. This means that you can have another system running in the background or at least installed and ready to run in the event of an infection. I personally like Avast or Avira. They conflict with each other, but not with AVG. So if you’re very worried about computer security against malware, you can look into these malware protection suites as added protection
Wrapup
What’s the point at the end of this little journey? Well, AVG is a good anti-virus package and it is probably enough to protect your computer against spyware, viruses, worms, trojans and just about anything else that comes along. That doesn’t mean that you can do a little bit extra to get a lot more protection for your computer.
