If you asked a random group of friends to name free antivirus software, you could bet your house on AVG figuring among the top three answers.
AVG AntiVirus has been around for eons, dating to the time when Trojan horses were ponies, and ransomware sounded like a kidnapper's fancy dress costume.
While rivals have come and gone, AVG has plowed ahead, protecting digital devices from harm in the hope of upselling users onto an upgraded subscription service. To have lasted this long, they clearly are doing something special. And it's not just in antivirus protection.
● Scans for threats in real-time
● Built-in VPN
● Scan WiFi networks for threats
● Cleans up junk files
● Speed boosting by shutting down unnecessary tasks
● Extends your battery life
For a free Android app, AVG AntiVirus is surprisingly well-featured. If you want to keep your data safe and secure - and who doesn't? - then AVG is most likely the answer. Indeed, over 100 million people think so, and there's always safety in numbers.
With AVG, you can keep all your personal stuff under lock and key with the AVG app lock, photo vault, app permission tool, and WiFI security scanning. The added extras like power-saving, junk file removal, speed-boosting, lost phone location via Google Maps, and so on only serve to make this app even more compelling.
Except if you are an iOS user. In that case, you only have the option of downloading AVG Mobile Security and getting a free trial of between seven and 14 days, depending on whether you want to pay monthly or yearly, respectively. A year's subscription will set you back $19.99, which isn't too steep in the grand scheme of budgetary things, admittedly. But it will still have been nice to have been included when freebies are going around.
The free Android version is ad-supported, but you can upgrade to go ad-free. But given how frequently you will use the app in reality, you can probably easily live with the ads. However, trading will unlock more features, some of which you might really, really want.
● Free
● Effective protection against viruses and malware
● Lots of compelling extra features
● Multi-language support
● The free version is only available for Android
AVG is downloadable from Google Play. Android users will need 35 MB of storage space and have Android 5.0 or later. The app gets a high-scoring 4.7 out of five from users on the strength of over seven million reviews. This rating speaks for itself as attested to by the number of five-star reviews, which vastly outstrip the one to four-star reviews combined.
Over on the App Store, AVG Mobile Security catches a 4.8 out of five rating. iOS users need to part with just 58.3 MB of storage space and be running iOS 12.0 or later.
Again, and even though there's only a free trial on offer, the app gets excellent reviews, and five-star reviews hugely outnumber sub-five-star reviews by a giant margin.
