AVG Anti-Virus is a very solid, reasonably-priced anti-virus application with centralized management features. In my experience, AVG is less likely to cause conflicts with innocent applications than either McAfee or Norton. You know, I've been using AVG for so many years that I can 't remember who first brought this application to my attention!
AVG offers a free edition for home users at http://free.grisoft.cz/. Be aware that this free version isn't legal for use by businesses, even nonprofit organizations.
If you are a non-profit organization or school, you can typically receive a 20% to 30% discount off of AVG professional products. Go to http://www.grisoft.com/doc/111/lng/us/tpl/tpl01 to find out more about their charity discount program.
The standard price for AVG is very reasonable. Also remember when you compare the price to other vendors, AVG includes a 2-year subscription instead of the standard 1-year subscription that a lot of other vendors provide.
Our business model at Vangor Computer Technologies focuses on service. In short, we make money on labor. We sell products and software strictly as a convenience to our customers. We get a 25% reseller discount on AVG when we purchase it. Because we make money on the labor to install/configure AVG, we pass AVG license fee along at cost. Therefore, a customer that hires us to install AVG, will pay for our labor and 75% of the licensing cost listed on Grisoft's web site. A nonprofit customer that hires us will pay for our labor and about 50% of the licensing cost. So AVG is very reasonable for VCT customers!
TechSoup carries Symantec Anti-Virus for only a nominal administration fee for qualifying nonprofits. So, I've been asked why we use AVG at the Community Foundation of Sarasota County (CFSC) when they could get Symantec Anti-Virus for nearly free. The answer is that originally they also needed an anti-virus agent for their Exchange Server, and for some reason the Symantec Anti-Virus Exchange Agent was never in stock at TechSoup. To this day, I have yet to see the Symantec Anti-Virus Exchange Agent in stock at TechSoup! I wanted to keep a single anti-virus vendor in the organization, so I purchased AVG products for all of CFSC's anti-virus needs and they got it at a 50% discount from AVG's already reasonable price.
Now that I've been using AVG for several years, I wouldn't go back to Symantec even if the entire suite of products was offered for free because of the ease of management for AVG. Using a centralized console, we can keep track of version levels on all PCs, and we can even "push" fresh copies of AVG onto new PCs. It's reliable and easy, and that saves labor. Additionally, I just haven't had the conflicts with AVG that I've experienced with other products in the past (Norton/Symantec and McAfee, in particular). AVG just works reliably.
"But, Van...you didn't mention TrendMicro! TrendMicro has a great reputation!" That's true. I've heard good things about TrendMicro, too. From a "behind the scenes" technology standpoint, it is supposedly one of the best anti-virus packages available. However, it is expensive. Also, I tried to get ahold of someone in the company to see if they offer a nonprofit discount (for CFSC), but nobody returned my call. Also, I know a local tech that swears by TrendMicro, but he couldn't get the "push" installation feature to work. Let me tell you, this particular is very sharp, too. He has helped me with a lot of issues in the past by sharing is vast experience. Oh sure, TrendMicro supposedly is able to push installations of its anti-virus software to remote computers from a central console, but if a seasoned technician has had problems getting it work, what does that say? I'm sure that other people have gotten this feature to work, but can you imagine an accidental techie having to configure it?! So, in my anecdotal experience, TrendMicro is expensive, complicated, and they don't return phone calls. I'm not impressed. Again, AVG is reasonably priced and just works. Enough said.
One other bonus is that we discovered that AVG integrated nicely with the "Fluffy the SMTPGuardDog" anti-spam application, where McAfee, Norton, TrendMicro, and Symantec do not. By integrating AVG with Fluffy, we were able to get rid of the need of having an Exchange Anti-Virus Agent at all. Fluffy and AVG remove the viruses before the incoming mail hits our Exchange server.
"But, Van...what's so good about not running an anti-virus agent on Exchange Server?" To quote Scotty, the Chief Engineer on the Starship Enterpise, "The more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to clog." The least amount of stuff that you run on your Exchange Server (or any server, for that matter), the more reliable it will be.
Another great feature is that I can configure AVG to send email messages to me when certain events occur, such as when a scan finishes on a particular PC or if a virus is detected. This feature helps me keep tabs on remote systems so I can be sure that they are staying up-to-date and virus-free. The Manatee Community Foundation in Bradenton operates as a remote office of CFSC from a technology standpoint. I have the AVG antivirus software on their computer configured to email regular status messages so I can make sure that they are staying up-to-date and virus free. Additionally, the status messages are highly customizable, too.
For more information about AVG Anti-Virus, go to http://www.grisoft.com/.