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AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition provides basic Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware protection, plus the full AVG Link Scanner safe search and surf technology. There are some limitations with AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition compared to the commercial versions of AVG products and other free anti virus. These limitations include: - Less protection – AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition provides the same anti-virus and anti-spyware scanning engine as the commercial product; however, it lacked anti-rootkit protection until 2010. The older 7.5 Free Edition is perfectly capable of finding and disabling rootkits based on signatures, but cannot scan for rootkit-like activity. The 8.5 version of AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition version lacks any anti-rootkit capability. While there is no official protection for files from messaging sources, the Resident Shield component automatically scans files before they are opened or copied.
- Infrequent updates – AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition receives updates via a lower priority service. Priority updating via high-speed servers is only available for the commercial versions of AVG products.
- No telephone or e-mail technical support – There is no telephone or e-mail technical support provided by AVG for users of AVG Free Edition products anywhere in the world. AVG Free Edition users have access to support via the self-help AVG Free Forum.
- Less customization – Scheduling options in AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition are very limited (only one scheduled update per day). However, the AVG Resident Shield configuration allows exclusions. The on-demand/scheduled scanner allows advanced testing options such as heuristics and reporting of password-protected archives reporting. Process priority for on-demand/scheduled scans can be dynamically adjusted over three different configurations.
- No server support – AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition cannot be installed on server operating systems (such as Windows Server 2003), nor can it be used for the scanning of network drives. Note, the newer AVG 2011 free edition can be installed on Server operating systems like Windows Server R2.
- AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition is only licensed for home and non-commercial use on a single computer.
