As an experienced PC user you almost certainly have an antivirus tool already, but does it really deliver the features and performance you need? There are numerous AV options available, from thre free tools through to commercial editions from AV developer heavyweights, such as Symantec. So, what does AVG Anti-Virus do differently that enable the software to standout from other apps?

It all starts with a compact antivirus engine that won't swallow all your system resources. Our test PC saw the major AVG Anti-Virus components consume only around 4 MB of RAM when running in the background, for instance, and CPU utilisation is also very low, so most of the time you'll never even know the program is there.

The efficient approach pays off in scanning performance, with AVG Anti-Virus able to check your entire system at a very reasonable speed. Although if even that's not fast enough, you could set up a custom scan that would run much more quickly. The default System Areas Test, for example, checked commonly infected areas on our test PC in under 5 seconds.

Of course the real aim of AVG Anti-Virus is to prevent you getting infected in the first place, and so the program's Resident Shield looks for and blocks threats before they can be launched. It will scan your incoming and outgoing mail, too, and you can also schedule further scans to trap anything that manages to get by.

The latest AVG Anti-Virus 8 ships with anti-virus and anti-spyware support, as well as protection against rootkit and a webshield. This is the paid-for trial version.