AVG - Free Windows Antivirus

Of course, any time you run Windows — even contained in a virtual window under OS X — you’ve got to run an Antivirus program, or pretty soon you’re going to be someone else’s meal.

While writing the previous post about Parallels Desktop for Mac I happened to notice AVG Free updating itself, and remembered that over the weekend I’d noticed a friend was still struggling with Norton on their Windows machine, and it occurred to me that I’ve never really blogged about AVG Free.


Antivirus has always been a pain-in-the-ass on Windows. The big name programs are intrusive (and have occasionally been caught doing stuff like installing their own root kits), costly, and always seem to want to drag in more (paid) features than you ever really want. Since they’ve become mandatory, they essentially amount to both a monetary and performance tax on your Windows box.

Which is why I like Grisoft’s AVG Free for Windows — it does all of the things that an antivirus needs to do (catches viruses, constantly keeps itself up-to-date, etc.), and very little else. Plus it’s free for personal use. Windows Security Center happily accepts it as a reasonable antivirus program as well.

I’ve even noticed a substantial performance difference on machines where I’ve uninstalled things like Norton Antivirus and replaced it with AVG.

Best of all, I don’t end up suddenly having a nag screen and having to go do backflips and get out the credit card to renew my updates subscription — which always seems to happen when it’s least convenient to do so.

If you’re still struggling with one of the other antivirus programs, give AVG a whirl; it might be just the ticket for you.