AVG is moving its free anti-virus from version 7.1 to 7.5. Never fear, it’s still free, despite the announcement implying that it won’t be after January 2007. What it’s actually saying is that version 7.1 won’t be supported after that time, but a lot of people are misreading it.
The optimist in me says it’s just worded badly. The cynic in me notes that some recall the switch from version 6 to 7 was worded in a similar way and it smells a little bit of the Real Player page that featured a big advert for the paid version, and a tiny link to the free one. But hey, the bottom line is AVG is still free, and millions of home users can continue to protect their PCs. Can’t really argue with that.
Free version 7.5 download here.
Other freebie anti-virus packages for Windows include Avast, Trend’s free adhoc (online) scan and the open-source ClamWin.
It was not as bad a Real Player. I found it easily. It did cause me some angst last Saturday though. I don’t want the email virus checker on as it shows every message in Outlook Express as having an attachment. But then Zone Alarm became unhappy and then Widnows did too. It took some sorting. All is well now though. Although email virus checking is off, it still seems to check. I get a pop up box when emails are arriving.
I dread fixing up our friends pc with dial up though.
Thank you Daniel, you’re a life saver. Count me in the people wholve been misreading it, infact I’ve just been freaking out about having to pay for AVG not 10 minutes ago. Nowhere in the popup or Grisoft site that I can find mentionss anything about it still being free though. What a con.