AVG the popular free Antivirus software has been lagging behind other popular offerings due to speed and user experience. However, starting with AVG 9.0 you will see a lot of difference in both speed and stability.

With AVG 9.0, AVG is going back to basics and focusing on performance, protection, and the user experience. For example, the installation has been shortened by 50%, the user interface has been refined, scan times have been reduced by up to 50%, and boot time and memory usage have been improved by 10% to 15%.

For AVG users in the United States, the free Identity Theft Recovery Unit will provide victims of identity theft with support from a dedicated team of identity theft recovery experts. AVG is the only security vendor to offer this type of service for free, and it shows that AVG is striving to protect their users both online and offline.

Additionally, AVG 9.0 delivers improved anti-phishing detection through enhancements to its LinkScanner offering, which can now more quickly and accurately determine whether or not a web page is hosting a phishing attack. This is accomplished by allowing the software to apply more than 100 different potential threat indicators to a page. If the result is inconclusive, LinkScanner then makes a call to the cloud to check a multitude of phishing feeds plugged into the AVG research network to make a final determination regarding threat potential.

AVG 9.0 Free should be available for downloads somewhere in Mid-October. If you have been using earlier versions of AVG, AVG 9.0 is a recommended update as definitely improves on several aspects.