AVG Introduces Free Protection Against Online Threats
June 30, 2009 Computer Safety Tip
AVG Technologies, developers of the world’s leading free anti-virus software, is launching AVG LinkScanner as a free 
standalone product to protect users against random, invisible online threats.
If a user simply visits one of these corrupted web pages they don’t even need to click on anything to get into real trouble, to lose their credit card details, their ID or other valuable information or files. Regular anti-virus software alone cannot protect against this type of threat.
AVG LinkScanner gives users an additional real-time layer of protection on top of their existing security software. It works by looking at the web page behind a link or a web address typed into a browser and analyzing whether it harbors a threat. If it does, then AVG LinkScanner stops the user from downloading that page.
AVG LinkScanner also applies this targeted analysis of web pages to search results from Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Whenever users search using these search engines, they will see safety rankings for all ‘organic’ search results. In addition, the AVG LinkScanner will scan your bookmarks as well as links contained in instant messages and emails before you open them to ensure they are safe.
Compared to other solutions, AVG LinkScanner analyzes individual pages on a web site to generate a rating for those pages. Envisage that one or two pages on a vast site like Facebook or MySpace are being used to spread malware. If a safe-surfing solution only rates entire sites based on what it finds on a couple of pages, a bad rating on those one or two poisoned pages would result in blocking users’ access to any of their friends’ pages on that site.
AVG LinkScanner aggregates intelligence gained through these three channels, compares it in real time, and includes is back into the threat analysis process to continually improve user protection.
Other trickery is also being developed continuously, and users should not presume they are safe if some other pop-up appears while they are surfing the web or downloading files. Running AVG LinkScanner will protect users against new as well as existing forms of social engineering trickery.
The AVG software is free for use on any personal home computer for non-commercial purposes. It can be downloaded from http://linkscanner.avg.com. Support is available through a free online forum hosted by AVG at http://freeforum.avg.com.
AVG LinkScanner runs under all current versions of Windows XP and Vista, both 32- and 64-bit. The software is well-suited with all major security software and with Internet Explorer 6 or later and Firefox 2 or later browsers.
AVG LinkScanner is available at present in English and will be available in Brazilian Portuguese, Czech Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish, Korean, Bahasa, Chinese (Traditional & Simplified), Russian and Malay from mid May.
