NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, December 2006
AVG FREE Anti-Virus 2007 Availability
By Bill Shook, Editor
bshook1019@aol.com
(click to email author)


Sorry I missed last meeting; heard you had a good one; but I was under the weather. But I understand there were a number of you concerned over the AVG anti-vius FREE edition being available in 2007. My info tells me not to worry, that it'll be alive and well in 2007.

From the latest Langalist newsletter, widely thought of as the best newsletter ever, Fred Langa writes:

    "If my volume of reader mail is any indication, many of you are concerned about the imminent demise of a favorite antivirus tool. Take reader Graham Gwilliam's note, for example: "Fred, I hear that Grisoft's AVG AntiVirus Free Edition will not be free in the new year. I, together with my friends, have used this excellent antivirus software for some years. Is this the latest free software that we will now have to pay for or find an alternative that works as well?"

    Langa's response:
    Not to worry. It's only the older versions that are going away. The newest version of AVG (7.5) is already available, and is still offered in both free and paid versions.

    The reason for the confusion is that Grisoft's main Web site is set up so that you have to read through a lot of descriptive prose about the paid version before you find the links to the free one.

    That's not a malicious trick or raw greed on Grisoft's part, it's just good business sense. Grisoft is doing a wonderful service to the computing community by continuing to offer a free, fully-functional and quite complete antivirus tool for personal and home use. But although that version is free to end users, it's not free to Grisoft. They paid to develop the free version, they pay to make it available for free download, and they pay still more to keep it updated. Version 7.5 will run on all versions of 32-bit desktop Windows from Win98 through Vista.

    Other free antivirus tools: Avast, ClamWin, Comodo, Antidote Lite"

There are at least two ways to get to the place to download files and documentation of FREE AVG anti-virus software (version 7.5 - the new one).

    1) Goto the AVG main page with http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1
    2) Click on "AVG Anti-Virus Free"
    3) Then click on "Download Free Version"
    4) Then go down a few lines, you'll find the procedure for upgrading 7.1 to 7.5 which I've included here for you:

      "AVG Anti-Virus Free.
      Update of AVG 7.1 to 7.5
      Run the AVG Free Edition 7.5 Setup program (which you will be downloading).
      Click "Next >" on the AVG "Welcome!" screen.
      Click "Accept" on the "License Agreement on Use of an AVG Free Edition" screen.
      Select "Repair installation" on the "Select Setup Type" screen and click "Next >".
      Select "Restart the computer now" (pre-selected by the program automatically) and click "OK" on the "Installation Complete!" screen to restart your computer and complete the installation."

    Then go down to "AVG Free for Windows Installation Files" and click on "avg75free_430a848.exe", which is the setup executional file. It is 16.7 MB"

In sending this procedure to member Jim Walsh, he had trouble finding the steps indicated, but he resolved this problem by clicking on "Downloads" (from the menu items on the left hand side of the screen of the main page with http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1). Then click on "Installation files & documentation" at the top of the page. Then about half way down is the "avg75free_430a848.exe" file. Click it to download the setup program. And.....good luck and let me know if any questions...and thanks to Jim for his help.

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