Anti Virus deals from AVG.

TheForce

SatelliteGuys Master
Original poster
Supporting Founder
Pub Member / Supporter
Oct 13, 2003
38,634
14,771
Jacksonville, FL, Earth
Over the years I have reduced my PC computer requirements to 3, 2 desktop, and one Surface Pro. These require some form of internet anti virus protection and spam adware immunity. I don't bother with my Mac products and after several years of daily use, we just never seem to be bothered with trouble. So this is all about the Windows PC and it's vulnerability.

To adequately protect I found the free AVG product to be less desirable as it doesn't have enough features to do the job 100%. So I subscribe to the subscription which can get expensive for 3 computers. The good news is I found that AVG has deals they will make available if you call them on the phone and nicely ask.

For example- A single computer to renew the for a year is a charge of $48 if you act within a 10 minute window when the offer is made. Then is jumps to $54 for the next 10 minutes. Beyond that the subscription jumps to $79. However, calling them on the phone, will get you a renewal much cheaper. I did this in stages, first I asks for a rate for a single computer for 2 years and the cost was $99. But I had another computer already subscribed for 2 years last March, 2017 and it cost me $85. So next I asked whether they had a package that I could subscribe for 2 years, pay in advance for all 3 of my computers plus an Android Phone. After a 3 minute on hold the CSR came back with a way for me to do that. I would lose 6 months of the one 2 year contract but get 1.5 years for all 3 plus the phone for... $53. My New expiration date is now March 8, 2019 on everything and this is their premium package for security. As you can see this is a considerable saving over the individual subscriptions and it conveniently ties all my systems together under one package. The web site does not offer this deal but I wanted you all to know that if you call these people on the phone, they will work with you and save you money.

Some of you may not agree that AVG is the best product. But I have had very good luck with relying on it to screen out all the undesirable nastiness except for adware. I also use Malwarebytes Premium and that with the AVG works well to cover everything including the ransom-ware threats. I tried Kaspersky, Macafee and a few others but they either failed to do the job or slowed my web surfing significantly.
 
All those are great for very limited services, but they don't offer the premium services that best meet my needs on computers I do research on. I use the free service on one here that is in my home theater, no email, and only access online to my own accounts, never do search of unknown web sites and my Home theater PC stick is used maybe once every couple months, so not worth a monthly fee.
 
My only source of protection is Malwarebytes Premium. I have two lifetime subscriptions I use on three computers. I'm a bad boy I know.

If I were to ever go with a real antivirus application, I would go with a centrally managed endpoint protection scheme. At work I pay $27 per seat for BitDefender Business Endpoint and it is awesome. Custom policies, remote scheduling of scans, email reports. And since you can easily create custom install packages for only the modules you want, there is no bloat.
 
To assume that Macs aren't vulnerable is folly. They are vulnerable and because they run much the same hardware, they aren't a foreign tongue anymore.

You won't get trojans that depend on Visual BASIC scripts and perhaps Office document macros but there are other entry points that Macs share with other operating systems.

Of course if you don't use a computer to browse websites or do e-mail on (the preferred attack vector today), they probably don't need much in the way of protection anyway.

Comcast offers Norton Internet Security that is both comprehensive and will eat your computer's resources alive. I use it on the computers that suffer the most poorly disciplined users. On other computers, I use free (even for business users) solutions. I use Avast Free on my single home Pee Cee and run pretty much barefoot on my Linux boxen.
 
All those are great for very limited services, but they don't offer the premium services that best meet my needs on computers I do research on. I use the free service on one here that is in my home theater, no email, and only access online to my own accounts, never do search of unknown web sites and my Home theater PC stick is used maybe once every couple months, so not worth a monthly fee.

Don are you sure that the free version won't do what you need? Who do you use for internet? The version of Norton that comes free from Xfinity seems to have everything except the online backup that comes with the full version.