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HOME TOPICS SEARCH ABOUT ME If everyone used AVG, we would be free from all those Nimda and Sircam viruses. |
technofile Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983 AVG antivirus: It checks e-mail in and out, it works great and it's freeNov. 21, 2001 By Al Fasoldt Copyright © 2001, Al Fasoldt Copyright © 2001, The Post Standard When my favorite antivirus software changed its policy of providing free versions of the program for home use, I started looking for another free antivirus program. I only half-heartedly hoped to find one at least as good as my departing favorite, InoculateIT. After all, InoculateIT seemed to do everything about as well as any program can do. It ran imperceptibly all the time, checking all activity, and didn't let any viruses through in many months of use. It also was easy to update. But one thing that InoculateIT did not do was check the mail. It did a fine job when a file finally showed up on my computer's hard drives, but didn't have any special ability to check e-mail messages and message attachments while they were still in my mailbox. Bless America, I'm in antivirus heaven. I've found what could well be the best virus-fighting program currently available for Windows PCs, regardless of cost. It's AVG AntiVirus, and it has a price as prominent as a goose egg. It's totally free. You can get it from www.grisoft.com. You'll have to fill out a form with your name and e-mail address and a few other things in order to get the free antivirus software. (That's only fair. The company behind AVG, Grisoft Inc., wants to know who is using its free software.) AVG works at least as well as InoculateIT in finding and blocking viruses. But the bonus that made me a convert is the way AVG scans e-mail. Not only does it go through every attachment that comes into your mail software, diligently looking for viruses; it searches every out-going attachment, too, so you can't inadvertently send out any viruses. (Think about it: If everyone used AVG, we would be free from all those Nimda and Sircam viruses that hundreds of thousands of unwitting Windows users have sent out to others for months.) But the best is yet to come. AVG examines every inch of every piece of mail, incoming and outgoing. Every message, whether or not it has an attachment, is put through a thorough scan for viruses of all kinds. This means AVG checks for all those script viruses that take advantage of the flaw in Windows that allows viruses to enter your computer through e-mail without an attachment. I'm not saying this because I read it somewhere; I'm saying this because AVG had a field day ridding my inbox of virus-infected mail. (I usually can tell by the nature of the message when I get a Sircam virus, but I didn't need to make any educated guesses once I installed AVG. It popped up a notice and played a sound each time some unsuspecting Windows user sent me yet another virus.) AVG was simple to install and easy to set up. You can tell it to do its work without informing you, but you might want to keep AVG's notices turned on so you will know how what's going on. Most Windows users who do a lot of e-mail probably have no idea that viruses are being sent to them every day or two. AVG's alerts quickly show how naive we all are. I tested AVG on a Windows 98 PC and a Windows 2000 PC. Grisoft says AVG works fine under Windows XP, Windows Me, Windows 95 and Windows NT also. |