How does the free edition of AVG 6.0 compare to the AVG Professional edition? Does the pro edition give you more options? I have been using Trend's pc-Cillin 2000 without any problems, but the software is up for renewal next week for another year of updates for virus signatures.

I have the free version and can't really say what advantages there are to paying for it, but it is a great AV program and uses less than 2 meg of resources, updates are FREE. LOL if you buy it, let me know what the advantage is.

You could download the Pro version 30 day evaluation copy and see what you think, then download the FREE version and see if there is any difference worth paying for.

Since I live in the Netherlands, I'm not entitled to a "free" copy of AVG, so I bought a licence to the Pro edition based on my experiences with the 30 day trial version. But some comments have been raised by a few individuals concerning the poor results AVG has achieved to detecting "in the wild" viruses. More on that subject here So I sent them an email concerning that fact and this is the reply I received today: Dear Sir/Madam, Actually, detection rate of the all modern antivirus programs is very close together (not mentioning that counting such ratios is very complicated and not so transparent process). Importance of the VB100% mark is not so high as you maybe think. Success in these tests rely on many things and missing even the only virus sample means losing whole test. I see more diferences and I consider more important for users how the running antivirus affect their work, how antivirus can handle virus infection when found and how the user can understand the program. In addition, we're preparing the new version of AVG with improved detection capabilities so that users who rely on detection ratios should be satistied. Please mention your serial number and technical support referral number in the subject line of all your emails. Without this info, our reply might be long or even none. Thank you. Best regards, Jan Fiala hotline AVG GRISOFT(c) Software tel.: +420-5-41 24 38 65-7 mailto:fija+us@grisoft.cz Personally, I've found the AVG program very smooth and it has successfully detected a few viruses embedded in web pages. They also respond very quickly to email enquiries. Prior to that, I downloaded a free trial PC-cilin (Trend Micro) and they took over a month to respond to a simple mail. This latter program can also cause problems in Windows as can be seen here Hope this info helps.

Andy, my comments are pretty much same as Brant's but about a month ago I found a worm virus in my Restore temp files using AV6 Free Ed. and frankly was quite amazed as my updates were very regular. Deleted three files and since them had no other problems with the free edition. Worm had bought his license for the Pro edition so his is probably better in detecting viruses - well, he's paying for it.

i've been using quick heal by cat computing for a few years now and in that time i've never had a virus, although it did detect a virus on my older floppies. anyway, i think it's great and it's easier to use than a lot of the better known ones. i get online and email protection and i can scanthe hdd manually at my lesuire. i get weekly updates and quick heal is cheap to buy (under $50). just go to google and type quick heal and check it out. it's xp compatable too.

I will add this: Although I am well pleased with AVG having found two viruses that were not picked up by Norton or System Suite's AV, when running Scan on Demand, I can't say that I am overly pleased with AVG's e-mail scanner or their realtime scanner. AVG reportedly has an e-mail scanner which is supposed to designate individual e-mails as safe or not prior to opening, but I have never seen this work. Perhaps the Retail version does? I must admit at times this does concern me.