Most security packages are updated to an annual schedule, but AVG has been sitting at version 7 for more than three years. Over that time, it’s evolved from simple antivirus and firewall into a complete internet security package, including an antispam system and web protection. The user interface, however, had remained basically the same – clunky, illogical and difficult to use.

The good news is that version 8 brings a complete overhaul. The grey boxes of old are gone, replaced by a clean blue and white look. Navigation has been drastically simplified: everything is brought together in a single control centre, with buttons and options cut to a minimum.

The new interface is simple to use, too. Malware detection supports on-access, on-demand and scheduled scanning. A VB100 certification confirms that, as of February, the engine detected 100% of in-the-wild viruses. And against our own more varied selection of malware, it identified 22 out of 28 current threats – not a bad score, although we also retested A-List title-holder Kaspersky Internet Security 7 with the same malware: it managed 24.

The firewall, meanwhile, uses an automatic multiprofile system, minimising user intervention while ensuring that, for example, public Wi-Fi connections don’t get the same level of trust as connections from within your company LAN. We particularly liked the way it built an initial whitelist of recognised applications by scanning the hard disk during installation. This reduces the opportunity for malware to sneak under the radar in future.

Web protection works in a similar way to McAfee’s SiteAdvisor (web ID: 111764), warning you when you try to visit a dodgy site, and even inserts helpful icons next to web search results, indicating how safe or otherwise the link is. It worked seamlessly, although it sometimes took ten seconds or so to give us a rating.

The last major feature is the antispam module, which integrates with Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Thunderbird and, unexpectedly, The Bat. In use, we found it unobtrusive and surprisingly effective without any configuration or training at all, although greater flexibility is there if you want it.

AVG’s engineers have done a good job on the program’s footprint, too. In our last security suites Labs (web ID: 106750), we criticised AVG’s memory demands, but the latest version gets the load at boot-down to just 93MB. In comparison, Norton takes 115MB and Kaspersky Internet Security eats up over 200MB. It’s no CPU hog, either – during our tests, processor usage never hit 100% for more than a few seconds.

All this streamlining makes AVG an appealing choice if you want a suite that ‘just works’, but you can customise it if you want to. Under advanced settings, you’ll find options to tweak a huge range of behaviours, ranging from the task priority of manually initiated scans to when the program should start deleting quarantined files.

The spam filters in particular are hugely flexible: you can manually train and adjust the Bayesian filter, manage RBL servers, filter mail by language, origin or character set, compile your own black and whitelists and more. You can even run multiple scanning servers at once, using either POP or IMAP.

A lot of thought has gone into AVG 8’s usability, but our experience was marred by the occasional communication issue. Sometimes the option to delete an infected item was missing, with no explanation given. There was a tick-box for ‘remove as power user’, the purpose of which was unclear. These are minor niggles, but they diminish AVG’s appeal.

Our biggest complaint, though, is over AVG’s promotion of Yahoo search. The AVG browser toolbar includes a Yahoo search field that can’t be hidden without sacrificing the rest of the toolbar. We’re sad to see a security company using its own product as something of a Trojan horse.

Overall, though, AVG 8 is a real rebirth and the company’s most usable product to date. At $70 for one PC, it isn’t cheap, but it’s a free upgrade for existing users and you can go up to three PCs for $26 more. A merely mediocre malware-detection score and some shilling for Yahoo hold us back from a wholehearted recommendation, but otherwise it’s a likeable, well-conceived package that finally puts those interface criticisms to rest.