AVG antivirus is a software program used to scan files. If a virus or any other malicious software is present, AVG will identify it and remove it. AVG ensures that any files downloaded directly from the internet are also safe by warning the user if any threats are present. AVG employs a variety of strategies, one of which involves signature-based detection, in which it searches known malicious patterns in executable code.
Ant-virus protection is necessary and should be relevant to the way you use the computer and the internet. Wether it be banking and shopping, surfing and searching, chatting and emailing, or downloading files and social networking.
AVG Free provides you with basic anti-virus and anti spy-ware protection for Windows. It’s main advantages are that it does perform well, provided it’s kept up to date. It’s also free, with fast on demand scanning speed. It offers fast, effective security against viruses and spy-ware and is compatible with Windows 7, Windows XP and Windows Vista. However, it can be quite heavy resources and tends to slow down your system.
Standard Installation Guide
This guide is for a standard installation and configuration of AVG Anti-virus (Free) on Windows XP. The software can be downloaded from the AVG website.
Once the software has been downloaded, navigate to where the anti-virus program was saved and open it by double clicking the icon. Once the icon has been clicked on, another window should appear in which all AVG Antivirus files needed to start the installation wizard should begin extracting.
Once all files have been extracted, a welcome window will come into view in which you can choose your setup language. By clicking the "Next" button, the "Acceptance Notice" window will appear asking you whether you agree to abide by their terms. Then, by clicking on the "Accept" button the "license Agreement" window will show. If you once again accept all of the terms, click on "Accept" button.
The next window will offer you a choice of "Standard Installation" or "Custom Installation". Since this guide is only for "Standard Installation"(default installation), select it and continue by clicking on the "Next" button. Now you should see the "Activate your AVG Free license" window in which by clicking the "Next" button again should bring to an additional feature called "AVG Security Toolbar". Once you’ve decided on whether to install it or not, continue with the installation and click on the "Next" button once more.
The final window on installation called the "Setup Summary" will allow you to review the path to the installation folder. If the destination folder is appropriate, continue by clicking the "Finish" button. The installation window will then appear and install AVG Antivirus on your computer. If everything went well you should see a new window that informs you with an "Installation complete" message. Press the "OK" button.
Once AVG has successfully been installed, double click the shortcut icon on the desktop to configure the anti-virus. The interface is very simple to use which will allow you to navigate quiet easily. We are going to perform an update manually. To do so, look on the left bar (having the blue colour) and click on the "Update Now" button.
When updating AVG, you should see a new window appear showing its progress. The update process searches for any available updates to download them. After the update process, return to the main interface and click on "Computer scanner" button. You can now perform two types of scans, the first one called "Scan whole computer" and the second one called "Scan specific files or folders". Select the first option called "Scan whole computer". This option will let AVG scan your entire computer. You can now click on the "Close results" button (after the scan ends) and you will be taken back to software interface.
When scheduling regular scans and updates, you can leave it as it is, or customise it to your preferences; however, if you want to manually scan your computer you can uncheck the box that says "Enable daily scanning (recommended)". Make sure to have your anti-virus updated daily with the latest system.
