Today is the day that AVG releases their latest version of AVG Free Edition 8. I went to their web site and downloaded the latest edition and noted that it is 45.6MB [though another link indicated the file to be 46.1MB] in size. I was actually surprised that the download speed was over 370 kb since I thought that the servers at AVG would be overloaded with users trying to get the latest and greatest. Maybe I just lucked out and hit the servers when they were not busy.

I tried doing an install without installing AVG 7.5. Nope. You need to uninstall AVG 7.5 first [I choose to keep my settings and dump anything in the vault] , reboot, and install 8.0. During installation I was asked if I wished to install the ‘toolbar’ to monitor links. I personally choose not to do this since I’m currently using McAfee Site Advisor and testing WOT. But if you have no site monitoring software installed, I would recommend this option as well.

After the install completed an update was compelted and I did a scan of the system which came up clean.

For the next week or so I’ll be playing with the new GUI since everything has been changed, which for the most part, appears to be very user friendly thus far. Oh yes, this is a complete suite. Anti-virus, spyware & web link checker. Not bad for a freebie. But like with any software, time will tell just how good it is.

Review next week.

Comments welcome.

Get AVG Free Edition from here.

PS My buddy Dennis said that he needed to install a patch for Vista in order to get AVG 8 working. Patch is here.  Thanks Den.

Tags: avg, free, edition, new, version, 8, spyware, links, blockers, gui, interface