Oh AVG, Why Oh Why Did You Succumb To Temptation?

I've been a fan of AVG Anti-Virus for a long time. I recommend it to friends and family, have installed the free version countless times, and have a paid multiple computer license for my home network.

I used to use Norton AntiVirus, but that was a long time ago. I abandoned that product in frustration because the software kept getting bigger and bulkier and more sluggish. Utility software should be invisible, doing its work quietly in the background efficiently and unobtrusively, only alerting you to its existence when absolutely necessary. Norton AV started that way. But eventually fancier UIs, the constant addition of new ways to check and scan, bigger and slower updates, just being far more intrusive and in the way ... well, Norton AntiVirus finally become more of a hindrance than a help. So goodbye NAV, and hello AVG.

But this week I updated my wife's machines to AVG 8. And to my dismay, AVG has now fallen into the same trap. The machine instantly became more sluggish, task manager shows the app constantly working harder and chewing up precious resources, web pages started taking longer to load ... you get the picture. But hey, the new version looks so much prettier!

Fortunately, AVG allows you to selectively enable and disable features, and I found a combination that works and seems not to impact performance. Still, it's sad to see yet another vendor succumb to the temptation to build bloatware, a path blazed by the likes of Norton AntiVirus, McAfee, Netscape, RealPlayer, and so many others.