AVG Antivirus Review 2023 Is AVG Antivirus Any Good?

In 2019, it came to light that Avast had sold millions of personal user data to third parties through a subsidiary. This subsidiary has since been closed, and Avast has promised several times that it will not collect or sell non-essential data. The app itself is very well designed and has a big on and off toggle in the middle.

The VPN Protocols page is where you can select the VPN protocol you want to use. I don’t think an app designed to protect your privacy should make any third-party API calls. AVG’s strongest point, 10 devices per account, isn’t an impressive enough distinction from other VPNs in its price range. AVG offers discounts on the initial term, so your renewal price will be higher. On renewal, the cost is $99.99, $194.99 and $294.99 for one, two and three years, respectively.

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It’s vital that confidential files and documents are deleted properly. Simply sending them to the recycle bin doesn’t rule out the possibility of files being misused by miscreants. To simplify the deletion process, AVG provides a data shredder that irreversibly deletes selected files or folders. Be careful about what you shred, though — the files can’t be recovered once shredded. AVG antivirus is no different and includes a robust ransomware protection tool. You can identify files and folders that will be protected against any alterations or deletions.

The Network Security page in AVG’s app lists some security-related settings. This is where you can set the VPN to auto-connect when you’re connected to the internet. Or you can also choose for the app ask you to turn on the VPN when you’re connected to the internet. Disabling both options will require you to manually connect the VPN when you want to use it.

I am quite happy with the services, I am not a computer-savvy person so I have to trust my provider, but so far they have not let me down. While AVG has been one of the more popular antivirus scanners for a while, it was discovered that its parent company, Avast, had been selling user data. This taints our impression of AVG and definitely reduces its trustworthiness.

Eight alternatives to AVG VPN

The AVG Internet Security suite shares a few other features with the Free AntiVirus version. We cover each of them in more detail in our review of the free product, but here’s a summary of the additional tools you get. AVG has added its Ransomware Protection to the free edition since our last review, so be sure to check out that review for specific settings. In testing, AVG prevented our utilities from creating log files on the desktop. Then, we tried to edit a file from the Documents folder using a custom-built editor; AVG flagged the program as suspicious, scanned it, and eventually determined it harmless. When we went to save the edited file, AVG blocked the change and required us to grant it access permission.

Since TCP usually has fewer problems with port blocking, we would hazard a guess that AVG VPN only supports UDP. Of course, we can’t know for sure without official confirmation. During our testing, we watched a lot of YouTube shorts without a single buffer circle. We usually watch some good shows on Netflix during this phase, but we skipped it here since AVG VPN doesn’t work with Netflix.

This will give you a wider look at knowing how much you’re investing and all your about to invest your money into. This is the case because there are some affordable and reliable VPN services while some are not great. However, there shouldn’t always be a price tag where security is concerned.

As with many other VPNs, it is not activated automatically, but you can turn it on in the client’s settings area. If you do activate it, the kill switch will protect you if the connection to a VPN server fails. As we always do when testing a VPN, we put AVG Secure VPN through our leak-testing process.

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I also like how AVG bundles some of its non-essential applications inside its AVG Ultimate package. It’s just a shame that AVG doesn’t include all of its bonus apps in this package. However, they do give users the ability to leverage a 7-day free trial without having to provide their credit card details. AVG Secure VPN pricing plans offer a full money-back guarantee if you are unhappy with the service after buying it, you can ask for a return within 30 days of the purchase date. The only time this doesn’t apply is if you’ve consumed more than 100GB of data or logged on more than 100 times.

After browsing the forum for a while, though, we discovered that not many user questions were answered properly. When it comes to payment methods, AVG only accepts PayPal and credit cards. We prefer the option of paying for VPNs with crypto and hope AVG will include this in the future. In the meantime, we always have services like Mullvad VPN, which accepts anonymous cash payments.

If you want to try AVG’s VPN, you can get it as part of AVG Ultimate or as a standalone product (with a 60-day free trial). In comparison, I didn’t experience any issues with the TOR network while connected to ExpressVPN’s servers. I was also disappointed with the unnecessary program scanner. I tested it multiple times, and each time it said there were no unnecessary programs on my computer.

If you think this VPN is not necessary, then you can turn it off from the app settings. To test it out, we abruptly disconnected from AVG VPN and noticed no popup prompt for the kill switch, which was pretty sad. Private Internet Access is cheaper than AVG, and it comes with the same number of simultaneous connections. Importantly, PIA also comes with a dedicated IP address option for business-minded users and a much larger server network, giving you options with where you tunnel. There does not appear to be support for Linux, although it may be possible to configure your computer to connect without an app. We don’t recommend this approach, however, because it’s difficult to maintain and you won’t get access to all the features you’re paying for.

The question is – can AVG’s VPN be used for outsmarting the popular streaming platforms? And can it be used to hide your torrenting activity and avoid any problems with the law? It uses industry-standard encryption, showed no leaks during our testing, and includes a kill switch that defaults to off, but can be turned on in seconds. The AVG Secure VPN offers reasonable pricing for new customers. As you can see in the image below, their best price is $4.49 per month for a one-year subscription, and $4.39 per month for a 2-year or 3-year subscription . These prices are in line with other VPNs, although we would not consider this to be the cheapest VPN by a long shot.

For example, someone may want the VPN to be on at a coffee shop and off when they’re at home. To do that, you would need to add your home network to the private/trusted networks list. AVG also offers a seven-day free trial that doesn’t require a payment method to use. So you can try it risk-free and without giving up your valuable payment information.

Knowing that no kill switch was part of the deal, I tried my best to keep my hopes up, praying that AVG VPN doesn’t have any leaks for IP, DNS, and WebRTC. Sadly, AVG does not provide one of the main features any VPN should have, which is the Kill Switch which we’ll discuss later on. In addition, we measure a number of PC performance metrics and analyze pricing, ease of use, compatibility, and additional features. Upon launching AVG, it provides a very clear message at the top of the window to give you reassurance that your devices are protected. A message in the bottom panel also tells you if you are protected across web, email, privacy, and payments.

• It seems designed for newcomers who simply want to turn it on and get back to using the internet.
• AVG Secure VPN comes with a ticketing option that you can find on the VPN’s Support & Help page.
• The speeds decreased as the servers I connected to were farther away, just as you’d expect.
• There’s an option to sound a loud alarm or put a message on the display, though Google’s Find My Device feature offers similar capabilities.

This opens up possible avenues for the misuse of https://coinbreakingnews.info/ data. If you want to access country-specific content, use a server located in that country. This will be easier if you have more server options available to you through your VPN. ExpressVPN has a proven record of providing blazing speeds and strong privacy measures. This VPN provides a kill switch feature and gets brownie points for accepting payments in bitcoin, making a completely anonymous experience.

The company owns some servers but, like most VPNs, also rents space on corporate data centers. To create its VPN connection, AVG Secure VPN uses the OpenVPN protocol with its Windows and Android apps. We prefer OpenVPN because it’s open-source, and therefore has been picked over for any potential vulnerabilities. The best VPNs offer multi-hop connections that route your web traffic through a second VPN server. This provides additional protection and assurance that your traffic has not been tampered with.

More avg vpn review equal better speeds because there is less congestion, so I see why AVG Secure VPN is not on par with other top-tier VPNs in this respect. On my 7-day trial, the speed was terrible, meaning not playable or even downloadable. I tried downloading and playing League of Legends while connected to a server in Montreal, Canada. Installation was straightforward, with a few hiccups here and there. I experienced extremely slow speeds on my 7-day free trial.