In the past I have tried out a lot of anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewalls and other applications. I purchased a two-year subscription for all three of my computers back in October of 2007. This set me back $86.95 which was relatively inexpensive, considering that I was protecting all of my computers for less than $4 a month. I do spend a lot of time on the internet and I download a large quantity of files from questionable sources. =] This is why I choose to give myself a little bit of protection.

Most of the other brands that I’ve tried were either (a) too annoying to setup/implement, or (b) weren’t catching malicious content that AVG was finding. I started off using AVG’s free anti-virus and anti-spyware software, which only has 33% of the functionality included in their Internet Security suite. I used to download one file onto my laptop while it was “protected” by some other anti-virus software and I would eventually transfer that file to my desktop which was running the free version of AVG. I soon found out that AVG was much better than most others when it was catching malicious files that the other applications were letting slip by. AVG’s Internet Security 8 has received the VB100 award by detecting a wide variety of viruses in its default state during on-demand and on-access scanning without any false positives. AVG has since earned my trust and I haven’t experienced any problems finding those naughty files since using their software. The following paragraphs contain my review of AVG Internet Security as well as some basic information about viruses and what not.

Getting Started

You will most likely be interested in trying AVG’s Internet Security free of charge. This trial doesn’t pull any punches; it is fully functional for 30 days. You will have access to technical support as well as all of the suites features, just as if you had paid for it. The download is 56.3 megabytes and you won’t need to give up any personal information. Once downloaded, just run the simple install and it will help you through each step. Once installed the interface is also very easy to operate.
Keep in mind that some specifics may have changed since I wrote this article.

How It All Works

AVG’s Internet Security brings together every type of security product that you’ll need to protect your computer. This software suite protects it’s users from viruses, worms, trojans, spyware, adware, identity theft, phishing, fraud, spam, hackers, threatening websites, dangerous instant messages, as well as other hidden threats and malicious content. Malicious software is able to copy, corrupt and even erase the data on your computer.
One of the newest features is the ability to scan a website’s address prior to you actually going to the website. This way, if the website you were going to visit is a known threat – AVG will warn you before you go any further and possibly get infected.

Why do I need all this?

Anti-Virus

One of the foundations to your computer’s protection is the Anti-Virus feature. The number of Viruses out there in the world is expected to reach one million by sometime in 2009. A Virus is an application that can duplicate itself and infect your computer without you even knowing about it.

Worms differ from Viruses because they are able to spread themselves without a user’s actions. The Code Red Worm infected more than 359,000 servers in less than 14 hours. The Sapphire/Slammer SQL Worm took approximately 10 minutes to spread worldwide and infected at least 75,000 victims.

Trojans basically hide inside a file that you would think is harmless. Most of the time it is very hard to detect a Trojan before it is actually executed. If you accidentally run a Trojan, it can practically cause any kind of damage that it wants to your computer.

Around 40% of computer users have been infected by a computer virus.

Anti-Spyware

Spyware can do a variety of nasty tasks. There are programs that can steal your personal information, email address and address books. Some Spyware likes to keep a log of everything that you type (like your passwords) and then it sends those logs to the Spyware creator so they can steal your identity. There are a lot of Anti-Spyware programs that pretend to be security solutions but actually consist of Spyware themselves.

Other malicious software can consistently deliver advertising emails to your inbox, use your computer to broadcast pornography to others, slow down your internet connection and/or crash your computer.

Adware usually keeps track of what you’re browsing on the internet, redirect you to certain websites, and open pop-up windows all of the time. A program using Adware (like some of the toolbars out there) will display advertisements that are related to what the Adware notices you’re viewing while it is spying on you.

Around 91% of high-speed internet users have some form of Spyware on their computers.

Anti-Rootkit

A Rootkit is another type of malicious software that takes control of your computer system. This allows someone else to access your computer while avoiding detection. It manages to do this by hiding files, looking like it is part of the system and concealing the processes that it runs.

Anti-Spam

Approximately 14.5 billion Spam messages are sent out across the globe each day. Spam consists of unwanted messages that are related to advertising, adult-related topics, financial matters, fraud, phishing and other scams. Not only a constant annoyance, Spam also contains links to the above mentioned Viruses and Spyware.

Firewall

Another threat that is lurking around out there is the individual that tries to access your computer and the data contained within. This person could steal your personal information or perform illegal acts from your machine without your knowledge. Imagine getting in some legal trouble because your computer was responsible for launching a Spam attack or hosting child pornography. A firewall will help to prevent any unauthorized application or person from having access to your computer and it also stops applications from spreading to the internet from your computer.

Other Safe Services

AVG Internet Security is always screening for threats, even while you download files or communicate with others on the internet. There are also security exploits and drive-by downloads that are executed by malicious websites; meaning that you can get infected just by visiting a web page. AVG Internet Security makes sure that your search results, websites, and favorites are safe before you open them.

Tech Support

There are Frequently Asked Questions, video tutorials and a lengthy PDF User Manual for you to look at if you have any problems. You can also email AVG’s Technical Support via e-mail but you have to pay to talk to someone on the phone.

Not Just For Home Users

Businesses are not immune to the threats of malicious software. The costs can be horrendous and are usually associated with loss of data and productivity. When you operate a business – it isn’t just your operations and financial data that is at stake, but your customer’s information as well. Usually large companies pay IT professionals to protect them from such vulnerabilities, so it is actually the Small and Medium Businesses that need to worry about protecting themselves. Since all of those big enterprises are so secure, most criminals will often spend their time attacking easy targets like your entrepreneurial quest.

The Cons

AVG Internet Security doesn’t give you much info about infections. All I’ve ever gotten from them is the name of the threat that it caught. On the other hand, it is quite easy to research the infection once you have the name and I’ve never really need to look too far into it – because AVG has always removed the threat.

Some say the AVG Internet Security 8.0 slows down their computers. Some have claimed that a full system scan use up to 70% of their system resources. I personally have experienced any problems with AVG and the speed of my computer. I prefer not to have anything else running when I’m scanning for viruses anyway, so I do my full system scans when I’m asleep or away from the keyboard.

AVG doesn’t search for Rootkits by default, you have to manually search for them. This doesn’t really make any sense to me, but it isn’t hard to perform either. This would probably be the one feature that I would change if given the choice.

I don’t like programs that have partnerships with other services and then try to dupe the user into installing that service along with their program. I always recommend that you perform a custom install whenever possible and do not install any additional toolbars or services that aren’t related to the program being installed. AVG does ask if you want them to set Yahoo as your default search engine (in Internet Explorer) and Yahoo Search will be on their toolbar as well. I didn’t default to Yahoo and I didn’t install the toolbar – you actually don’t need the toolbar to be fully protected.

While we’re on the subject..

For security and usability reasons, I suggest that you never use Internet Explorer. Instead, you can download Firefox or Google Chrome which are both free. I also recommend that you make Google your default search engine because they are extremely accurate with search results.

Final Ramblings

AVG offers a 100% free Anti-Virus & Anti-Spyware (doesn’t expire) program. This is good if your 30 day trial of AVG’s Internet Security expires and you choose not to pay to be fully protected. When I wrote this article, AVG’s free software was the most downloaded file over at CNET’s Download.com with 1,649,472 downloads.

AVG is trusted by over 80 million users. You need to be protecting your computer(s) from all of the threats out there. It is also important to realize that installing a good security program is a good first step, but you also need to backup your data. Do not let Internet Security or Data Backup sit on your to-do list, take care of them now!

When I sat down to write this article, I had approximately 166 gigabytes of music, 365 gigabytes of pictures and home video, 386 gigabyte of various software and personal documents, as well as 441 gigabytes of random videos, movies and TV shows on my main computer’s internal hard drives. Just in case “1,358 gigabytes” means absolutely nothing to you- my computer has over 45,000 folders that contain a total of about 650,000 personal computer files.

Please understand that I am not attempting to brag; a lot of real computer geeks store way more data than I do – I’m just a poser geek. My point was to let everyone know that (a) I’m a pack-rat, but more importantly (b) I would have no idea what to do with myself if I lost any of my digital data. All of the pictures and personal videos that I have taken since 2004 are digital. I can’t imagine losing all of those memories because of a stupid accident or hard drive crash.

Even worse than your hardware crapping out on you, is being victim to a natural disaster that not only destroys your computer but everything else that you own. California has had a horrible fire season this year and hundreds of people suddenly found themselves without a home. A lot of us use our computers to store not only personal images but also some of our music, emails, financial records, contact information, or other important documents. If I had just lost everything – I’m sure that I would feel a tiny bit better knowing that I could retrieve those important files and documents from my secure online backup.

It’s not just a California problem and it’s not just about fires. Pretty much any natural disaster has the power to destroy your computer. Luckily only about 7% of data loss situations are caused by some type of disaster. However, if you keep reading you will realize that there are all types of gremlins trying to ruin your files.

Average People and Data Loss

There is a very high chance that the average person will lose some or all of their digital data at one point or another. There are statistics floating around out there which claim that 32% of lost data is due to human error. Not only do we accidentally delete things, but approximately three out of five computer users have lost a file (or more) that they could have sworn was saved to the right place. However, being stupid isn’t the only thing that we need to worry about because every 15 seconds there is a hard drive out there in the world that crashes (or fails.) I’ll go ahead and note that a simple drive recovery can cost hundreds of dollars and is not guaranteed to be successful. While you’re worrying about all that; there are approximately 2,000 laptops stolen or lost every day and about 97% of stolen laptops or desktops are never recovered.

Let’s not forget about computer viruses which can corrupt or destroy your data very quickly. Around 40% of computer users have been infected by a virus which is a low percentage considering that 75% of us either (a) don’t use any anti-virus software, or (b) don’t update their existing anti-virus program on a regular basis.

Businesses and Data Loss

Businesses should definitely be using some sort of data backup service because lost data can be very costly. Almost half (46%) of all the businesses that participated in a 2001 survey claimed that one hour of downtime would cost them at least $50,000. Depending on the nature of the business, loss of data and downtime could actually cost millions by the hour. This is especially true for any businesses in the financial sector, as well as retail, insurance, manufacturing, telecommunications, and the like.

40% of Small to Medium Businesses don’t back up their data at all. This is probably because almost every type of business has (or should have) some sort of hard copy that they can work with and rely on if their computers go down, but what happens when your paper trail is destroyed along with your computers by some natural disaster? 60% of businesses that suffer a major data loss will close down within 6 months. 93% of companies that aren’t able to recover within 10 days of losing their data center (due to a disaster) have filed for bankruptcy within one year.

Final Ramblings

85% of computer users say that they are very concerned about losing important digital files and yet only 25% of us actually back up files frequently. If you’re interested in finding a backup service, please read my review of Carbonite (the service that I use.)

You can backup 2 gigabytes of data for free with a backup service named Mozy, but if you need more than 2GB of space – I suggest that you use Carbonite.