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Brand-new AVG PC TuneUp speeds up, cleans up and now updates critical software

January 11, 2017 007admin Leave a comment

Users have been asking for it for ages and now it’s here. With our new 2017 release of the AVG PC TuneUp ,we’re pleased to introduce Automatic Software Updater!

A product which keeps users’ PCs up to date with their critical software for improved experience and protection from vulnerabilities.

AVG PC TuneUp cleans, speeds up, and improves battery life of all Windows®-based PCs and laptops and it’s based on 20 years of solid engineering and experience of getting the best out of PCs. If you are a fan, we’ll show you what’s new for 2017 and give newcomers a rundown of what makes AVG PC TuneUp an essential part of everyone’s PC.

The Big One For 2017: Automatic Software Updater

For this release, we moved beyond speeding and cleaning and looked at some of the core reasons for bugs, crashes and security issues – UPDATES! Since keeping up with updates for all your programs is tedious, it’s no wonder that our research across 116 million users found that 52% of programs are out-of-date on people’s PCs.

That’s why we created our all new Automatic Software Updater, which checks and updates the most popular applications people run on PCs to fix vulnerabilities, solve problems and even add new features to programs like Skype, Chrome or Java.

Here’s what you get with our new Automatic Software Updater

Peace of mind: no more dealing with constantly checking for updates manually or annoying update nags
Support for the most used applications: including Skype, Adobe Reader, Flash or Chrome
Works fully automatically: no need to bother with painful installers, ad-ware or reboots
Informs you about what’s new in your favorite programs
Manage Software Updates: go the hands-on way if you choose and manually check, download, update and manage all your software updates, all on one screen
Notifications: for critical software updates

And we’re adding more programs over time, all the time

Which programs do we support?
We’ve made sure that we support the most popular and critical applications, such as:

Browsers: Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer
Tools and Programs: 7-Zip Filemanager, WinRAR Archiver, WinZip 9
Frameworks and technologies: Flash Player Plug In, Adobe AIR, Adobe Shockwave, Java Runtime Environment 6, 7 & 8, VLC Media Player, GOM Media Player, iTunes, Nero MediaHome, DivX, Adobe Reader, FoxIt Reader

and more!

Where can I find Automatic Software Updater in TuneUp?
If a program is out of date you’ll find it under the Fix Problems category or you will get a notification on your desktop. Once clicked, you’ll see an entry for a list of outdated programs that you can update manually – or flip a switch and have it be done fully automatically.

IMPROVED: Sleep Mode Tackles Slow PCs

Is your PC sluggish? Tired of battling it to get things done? The new release of AVG PC TuneUp puts speed, battery and network draining programs to sleep to give you that extra performance boost.

The new version of AVG TuneUp comes with a significantly improved Sleep Mode, previously known as Program Deactivator, which stops inactive programs from draining your PC, giving you back that fresh out-of-the-box performance.

Sleep Mode speeds up your PC by stopping programs that you rarely use from quietly draining processor power, such as instant messaging tools, screen capture utilities or driver control panels. And you don’t need to worry about losing access to the programs you love as the Automatic Start-Stop Mode allows any programs that you have deactivated to be reactivated in a single click. When you have finished using them, they are automatically deactivated again.

In this new version for 2017, we have also combined our Startup Manager feature – which detects items that automatically run when you turn your computer on – with Sleep Mode. Sleep Mode now shows a single list of all the applications that are draining your PC’s performance, giving you smarter detection across even more programs.

IMPROVED: Deeper Than Ever Cleaning

Our new Disk Cleaner include significant new and improved cleaning definitions to help remove the wasteful files of 40 additional programs.

We’re also removing 60 types of browser traces from the latest releases of Chrome, Firefox, IE and now Microsoft Edge.

The Top 10 Features & Benefits from PC TuneUp

In a nutshell, AVG PC TuneUp keeps your computer running at peak performance. Get more speed, less crashing, longer battery life and more disk space, whether you choose automatic maintenance or want to take a more hands on approach.

Live Optimization helps keep your PC at top speed. Live Optimization works silently in the background, constantly prioritizing all the applications that are running to increase loading speed and computer performance. For those who want that extra bit of power, Turbo Mode turns off over 70 processes with just one click. In addition to the existing Economy Mode, there’s Flight Mode: both features significantly prolong battery life, which is invaluable when you’re on the go.

And you can easily free up more disk space, thanks to New Disk, Duplicate, and Browser Cleaners. Out of 40 features, these are our top favorite:

ENHANCED! Program Deactivator: puts resource-draining programs and startup items to sleep and makes your PC feel like new again
Live Optimization: constantly prioritizes all programs to deliver optimum performance
NEW! Automatic Software Updater: regularly checks & updates dozens of the most important applications
Registry Cleaner: cleans up your registry and helps you solve problems
Duplicate Finder: the new automatic selection helps you get rid of duplicate even faster than before
ENHANCED! Disk Cleaner: now wipes junk to free up disk space from 220+ applications, such as the gaming platforms Steam® and popular programs like VMware
Flight Mode: one click turns off Wi-Fi® and Bluetooth® for even longer battery life
Automatic Maintenance: cleans up and fixes your PC every few days, completely silently in the background
Defrag: over the years your hard disk may have become cluttered, slowing down read & write access. With AVG Disk Defrag you’ll bring order into chaos and speed up your disk
Uninstall Manager: helps you identify and get rid of long-forgotten programs that you installed over the years

AVG PC TuneUp is available standalone or as part of our AVG TuneUp – Unlimited package for $49,49/year, which can be activated on an unlimited amount of devices. It also includes AVG Cleaner for Android PRO and AVG Cleaner for Mac. You can download the 30 day trial here.

AVG

How to Speed Up Boot Time on Your PC or Laptop

June 10, 2016 007admin Leave a comment

No one likes a computer that takes forever to start up. Don’t settle for less when it comes to performance – find out how to improve your boot speed now.

Do you wait ages for your PC or laptop to boot? Then there’s clearly something wrong. We’ll show you the most likely causes and the steps you can take to fix them easily!

Why is your PC slow at startup?
First of all, out of the box, Windows should boot blazingly fast, no matter whether you’re using Windows 7, 8, or 10. It’s what you do with your PC that actually causes it to slow to a crawl over time. The top causes of long boot times include:

New drivers. Drivers control devices inside your computer. For example, they’re responsible for making sure that your sound chip plays back your favorite MP3 and that your YouTube clips aren’t just silent movies. If drivers aren’t working properly, they could introduce some serious delays in your PC’s boot time.
Software. The more applications (such as PhotoShop or iTunes) you install, the slower your computer becomes over time. This is caused by 3^rd party start-up items or background services that silently launch every time you turn on your computer. Some of these items you can find in your task bar (see below); others are invisible.

New updates. Many applications check for product updates when you start your PC. Even Microsoft sometimes delivers cumulative updates or even new (Windows 10) builds that can drastically decrease boot time.
Malware: Viruses, Trojans, spyware, and other malicious software can make your PC boot up much slower than when you first got it, so make sure you’re running the latest antivirus software.

To figure out what’s causing your PC to boot up slowly, use a Windows tool called Event Viewer. It documents all apps that drastically add to your computer’s boot time. You can then turn off the worst offenders using the Windows startup manager or Task Manager.

All these tools are built in. But using them can be a bit complicated, as you’ll need to jump between them to get what you want. It can be far easier to use a more integrated start-up manager, like the one in AVG PC TuneUp , that shows the impact of all automatically running startup apps and allows you to turn off these resource hogs with a simple click. (Yes, this is a shameless product plug; but our engineers put blood and sweat into this – and we want you to know about it and check out the trial version.)

We’ll cover both methods below.
The do-it-yourself approach

For those who want to get their hands dirty with systems admin tools, figuring out how to speed up boot time can be a great way to better know your PC. Basically, you need to:

Identify slow-boot up times
Hold down the WINDOWS key on your keyboard and press R. This will bring up the Run menu:

Type in Eventvwr.msc and click OK. Expand the following folders: Applications and Services Logs, Microsoft, Windows, Diagnostics-Performance and Operational.

Watch for an event ID called 100. This one shows how long your computer takes to start up. In our example, it is 35 seconds. The 101 IDs then show you which applications slow down your computer. For example:

Here we can see that NVIDIA software took 6.5 seconds to load. This is 1.5 seconds longer than on the last boot, so there’s clearly something wrong. NVIDIA drivers just give you access to some advanced graphics options which can be useful for intensive tasks like gaming. In most cases, you won’t need it at startup, so you can safely turn it off by using the built-in startup manager.

To do that, hold down the WINDOWS key and press R again. This time, type in msconfig, hit ENTER, and go to the Startup tab. Now you can uncheck items or, if you’re running Windows 8 or 10, go to Task Manager and right-click on an item to disable it.

As you can see here, there may be dozens of entries that you’d have to manually research to determine if they’re important or not.

The automated (and easier) approach

Using Event Viewer and the old-school “msconfig” tool may work, but it’s far from convenient and user friendly. So it takes time. That’s why we built an easier way to turn off slow moving applications when you boot your PC. It is a core part of our AVG PC TuneUp suite (try the trial version and see for yourself).

1. Once you’re running AVG PC TuneUp, head over to the Speed Up section and look at the total optimization progress bar.

You should see a slice of the bar that says Disable startup programs. Clicking on Show will give you an overview of all startup applications that slow down your computer, including whether they’re actually necessary or optional. Moreover, instead of complicated file names, it shows you full product names, such as Microsoft Office or Skype. It also highlights new applications you may have recently installed.

2. Flip off the switches. Easy.

And now some bonus tips

Upgrade to Windows 10

If you’re still running Windows Vista, 7, or 8, we recommend moving to Windows 10. In the new OS has managed to reduce boot times by a few seconds when compared to its predecessors.

Install an SSD or move to a laptop with flash storage

If you’re in the market for a new computer, just make sure that it’s got flash-based storage (SSD, solid state drive), and not a traditional mechanical hard disk drive (HDD). Computers with SSD start dramatically faster and retrieve information that is in regular use almost instantly. The difference in boot times between SSDs and traditional hard disks can be night and day; so this is perhaps the biggest thing you can do to reduce your boot time.

These days, price declines mean even some low-end laptops come with an SSD. If you are bold (and tech-savvy), you can also grab an SSD and install it in your PC or laptop yourself. (But that is another post.)

AVG

AVG Performance PRO package is out!

September 29, 2015 007admin Leave a comment

Do you think that slow-downs, crashes, and poor battery life only affect ageing Windows XP (or Vista) PCs or last-generation smartphones? Think again. Even the latest operating systems, such as Windows 10 and Android 6 (Marshmallow) still haven’t found a cure for performance, bottlenecks, storage hogs, and battery drainers.

Whether you’re running an older PC, smartphone or the sleekest, latest hardware, it’s crucial to keep it running at top performance from day one.

AVG Performance comes bundled with 3 products to help keep all of your Windows computers, tablets, Mac computers, and Android phones/tablets clean and fast. The AVG Zen platform is built into each product, so you can optimize all your devices from one place.

An overview of what’s new:

AVG PC TuneUp (Version 16.2): comes with a completely new interface, better cleaning and Windows 10 support. It’s available as a standalone application if you just want the PC version
AVG Cleaner for Android: has a new App Manager and a fresh design. Available on the Google Play store
AVG Cleaner for Mac (Version 14): has a fresh design and new iPhoto & video cache cleaning. Available from the Mac OS X store.

AVG’s products and suites will now be auto-updated on a continual basis, so if you purchase AVG Performance you will no longer need to worry about keeping your products up to date.

Let’s get to into the detail of what’s new:

NEW AVG PC TuneUp (version 16.2)

Remember how quickly your PC ran when you first got it? The latest version of AVG PC TuneUp helps you keep your computer at peak performance even more so than before:

NEW Tuning Dashboard: Gives you faster access to all tuning features so you can easily see performance potential.
ENHANCED PC cleaning: Now cleans up hidden and leftover files from even more Steam games, your Download folder and other applications like VMware.
NEW Support for Windows 10

So you may ask: PC tuning? Why would I need that on my new machine? Well, whether you’ve got a 2008-era desktop PC or a shiny new ultrabook, AVG PC TuneUp can do something for you. In our internal tests, we looked at how we could improve performance on both new and old machines, here are some of the results*:

AVG Cleaner for Android

AVG Cleaner for Android helps you clean up your Android phone or tablet more easily, and can help keep tabs on performance-draining apps better than ever before, thanks to:

NEW App Manager: The new ‘App Manager’ feature gives you an immediate overview of renegade apps from a single screen and helps you get rid of them:

Running Apps: Shows running apps and how much RAM they’re consuming.
Unused Apps: Identifies apps that the you haven’t used in a long time.
Data Usage, Battery Usage and Storage: Helps you spot the largest apps and the ones with the most battery and mobile traffic drain.

Curious to try it out for yourself? Download it from the Google Play store for free – if you like what you see – upgrade to the PRO version and benefit from improved battery life enhancements, too.

AVG Cleaner for Mac (version 14)

AVG Cleaner for Mac scans for hidden data trash and unwanted duplicate files that gather on Mac computers through everyday use, helping to free up disk space for more of your precious photos, music, and other files.

We’ve added lots of new features for all you Mac fans out there:

FRESH Design: The new Cleaner for Mac app sports a new user interface.
NEW iPhoto Cache & video cache: iPhoto creates its own “cache” folders which help speed up the viewing of photos, but also take up more space over time. With help from user feedback we’ve now implemented a means to remove iPhoto caches effectively for deleted photos.

You can try our Performance package as a 30-day trial from www.avg.com/performance.

Over the course of the next few weeks, we’ll show you how these products work in greater detail including some step-by-step guides. Stay tuned.

* The results from our internal test lab are indicative only. Your results may vary.

AVG

AVG launches its next generation consumer products

September 28, 2015 007admin Leave a comment

AMSTERDAM – September 30^th, 2015 – AVG^® Technologies N.V. (NYSE: AVG), the online security company™ for more than 200 million monthly active users, today announced the availability of its next generation consumer product releases for PC and mobile. AVG’s products and suites will now be auto-updated on a continual basis, so users will always have the latest features and capabilities and will no longer need to worry about keeping their products up to date. This is AVG’s first step towards Security as a Service.

As well as including AVG’s latest protection and performance products for Windows, Android, iOS and Mac OSX devices, both suites feature AVG’s flagship AVG Zen^® platform, which makes it easy for users to monitor and manage protection and performance across an unlimited number of their own devices, and those of family members, from a single dashboard on any PC or Android device.

AVG has coordinated these releases with two, industry initiatives: European Cyber Security Month and National Cyber Security Awareness Month, to underscore its leadership in online security and its strong commitment to protecting devices, data and people, at home and at work.

“From the number of devices we own, to the types of apps we use, the digital world is now more intrinsically linked with our lives than ever before; and this dependency shows no sign of stopping,” said Andrew Reid, SVP, Products at AVG Technologies. “However, with the online landscape getting more complicated on a daily basis, we know that consumers and businesses cannot afford to be left unprepared. That is why we are constantly evolving our products – giving our customers peace of mind that their devices will always be protected and performing at their best, no matter how their device use changes.”

New features of the updated AVG Protection and AVG Performance suites include:

AVG Protection

Available in FREE or PRO versions, AVG Protection includes AVG’s leading AVG AntiVirus software for Windows, Android or Mac, and features the following updates:

AVG AntiVirus for Windows

Real-Time Cloud Detection: helps instantly spot new malware outbreaks using up-to-the-minute cloud-based crowd intelligence.
AI Detection: uses advanced artificial intelligence and crowd-sourced data to proactively identify new threats in real-time, before our AVG VirusLab team has catalogued the threats.
Improved Online Shield: in the PRO version includes cloud-based detection to identify dangerous downloads faster than ever.

AVG AntiVirus for Android

Better malware protection: Better protect your phone or tablet, thanks to new smart cloud scanning, shortened scan times, and improved detection.
Improved Anti-Theft: Improved algorithms make remote location faster on FREE and PRO.
More informative: To make scan results easier to understand, we’ve integrated with AVG VirusLab to provide more information about the threats we find.
Improved Battery Save mode: We’ve made it easier to improve your battery life by allowing you to turn on Battery Save mode from directly within the low-battery notifications in your phone’s notification panel.

AVG AntiVirus for Mac

New Quarantine: in AVG AntiVirus for Mac now lets users isolate infected files from the rest of their Mac devices, so they can decide how to handle them at a later time.

AVG Performance

Comprising AVG’s three tuneup products – AVG PC TuneUp, AVG Cleaner for Android and AVG Cleaner for Mac – the upgraded AVG Performance suite includes the following:

AVG PC Tune Up

New Tuning Dashboard: giving users faster access to all tuning features and better visibility of potential performance issues.
Enhanced PC cleaning: now cleans up more games from Steam, the Download folder and additional applications such as VMware.
Enhanced Browser Cleaner: removes 60 types of browser traces from the latest browsers such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome and Firefox.

AVG Cleaner for Android

New App Manager: gives users an immediate overview of the most draining apps from a single screen and helps to get rid of them once and for all.

AVG Cleaner for Mac

New iPhoto Cache cleaning: to stop iPhoto ‘cache’ folders taking up space and preventing photo deletion over time.

AVG Protection and AVG Performance are available to download now* via the AVG website. PRO versions of both suites, which include features such as AVG Internet Security, are also available for 30-day trials, or to purchase as annual subscriptions for $59.99 (Protection) or $39.99 (Performance). * The upgraded products will be available in Brazil in Q4 2015

To view our Press Kit, which includes product screenshots, video content and further details on this news, please visit http://now.avg.com/avg-new-protection-performance-press-kit/

About AVG Technologies (NYSE: AVG)

AVG is the online security company providing leading software and services to secure devices, data and people. AVG’s award-winning technology is delivered to over 200 million monthly active users worldwide. AVG’s Consumer portfolio includes internet security, performance optimization, and personal privacy and identity protection for mobile devices and desktops. The AVG Business portfolio – delivered by managed service providers, VARs and resellers – offers IT administration, control and reporting, integrated security, and mobile device management that simplify and protect businesses.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

www.avg.com

Contacts:

North America:
Deanna Contreras
Tel: +1 415 371 2001
Email: [email protected]

Rest of World:
Zena Martin
Tel: +44 7496 638 342
Email: [email protected]

Press information: http://now.avg.com

AVG

Windows 10 vs. 150 Programs vs. AVG PC TuneUp!

September 1, 2015 007admin Leave a comment

To understand the effect of 3rd party programs, such as iTunes or Adobe Creative Suite, on your typical home computer, we installed 150 of the most popular programs of 2015 from sources such as Download.com, Softpedia, Top 10-20 lists etc.) on two devices, the HP Spectre x360 (Core i5 2.5 GHz) and the Asus UX-501 (Core i7 3.6 GHz), and measured performance on both without the optimization of AVG PC TuneUp and after, with it enabled.

Experiment complete: This is how our desktop and taskbar looked after the installation of 150+ popular programs. It was beyond slow! Can AVG PC TuneUp help with this mess?

Once we installed AVG PC TuneUp, we literally went through every single tool that helps improve performance, such as AVG Program Deactivator, Turbo Mode, Startup Manager, Registry Defrag or Startup Optimizer

The results….

1. PC Startup Time: Windows

For “boot time” tests, we used Microsoft’s “Windows® Performance Toolkit”: It’s used by software and hardware makers to test the impact of battery life and performance of their products on typical machines and I consider it one of the most accurate testing tools out there.

Under the load of more than 150 applications, even the more powerful Asus UX-501 suffered as countless startup items, services, drivers and scheduled tasks were loaded which made the machine barely usable in the first couple of minutes.

It’s worth noting that the Windows desktop, the taskbar and all icons were visible within one minute on all devices, but weren’t usable: That’s why we measured total boot time until the very last program was loaded and the PCs or laptops were actually usable.

After we optimized the PC using all the various performance tools included in the 2016 release of AVG PC TuneUp, boot up time dropped between 32-77%.

However, this theoretical number doesn’t reflect how the machine actually “feels”: In the case of the Asus UX-501, the Windows Assessment Console also showed the actual time to desktop. In all cases, the web, games or office applications were instantly usable after the boot.

2. Internet Explorer Startup Time

Again, to measure how long it takes to achieve a simple task such as loading a program, I used Windows Assessment Toolkit. I wanted to see how much of an impact the load of 150 programs has on load time of a simple browser:

Internet Explorer 10 launched within 1,37 seconds on both devices, mostly due to their fast Solid State Disks. However, even on these faster devices these times went down to 0,45 and 1,2 seconds after the optimization with AVG PC TuneUp.

3. Performance while playing GTA V

Let’s see how much of an impact 150 programs and the optimization using AVG PC TuneUp has on the more fun tasks, such as gaming. In this example I used one of the top hits of 2015, Grand Theft Auto V, which includes a built-in benchmarking tool.

Unfortunately, having installed the 150 programs on the Asus UX-501, the benchmark frequently crashed so I could only look at the performance on the HP Spectre x360. it achieved only 24,4 fps under the load, but once I optimized the laptop using AVG PC TuneUp, frame-rates crawled to over 30 fps in some scenarios and averaged at around 29,9 which is considered smooth gameplay.

4. Performance while gaming

The de-factor standard for measuring gaming performance, Futuremark 3DMark, is my next test to measure how games in general perform on a specific device.

Once I got rid of all the extra load on these PCs, I saw quite some improvements in the final 3DMark score:

the HP Spectre managed to achieve 118 more points, whereas the much faster UX-501 (with its 960M) got 279 additional points back once all the optimization using AVG PC TuneUp was complete. Some gamers buy new hardware or overclock their devices just for this kind of improvement.

5. Writing, Web Browsing and Video Chat Performance

The next test involved the benchmarking tool PCMark 8 which uses real-life scenarios such as browsing the web, Office 2013, Adobe Creative Suite and other tools to recreate a typical home and business scenario.

It measures the exact time it takes to complete tasks down to the millisecond:

*Results in Seconds

**Results in points

Note: The numbers you see in the graphs for the Asus UX-501 represent the time it took to complete the browsing benchmarks. That’s because the 150 programs interrupted some additional benchmarks (which we didn’t take into account) and thus PCMark couldn’t spit out a final score. The differences were ultimately the same, though. On the HP Spectre x360, however, the benchmarks ran through just fine and showed an increase of 8%. Nice!

6. Office 2013 Performance

The next test involved PCMark running automated actions in Word, PowerPoint and Excel to measure performance, such as converting and calculating a huge Excel file:

An almost 50% increase while performing complex animations in PowerPoint, calculations in Excel or documents in word is a noticeable improvement. It also goes to show that the impact of 150+ popular applications can, in some cases, have quite an impact on speed.

7. Adobe Creative Suite Performance

Many professionals can’t live without Adobes Creative Suite which includes tools like PhotoShop, InDesign or Illustrator. Given that you’re working with a lot of heavy files, your PC needs to focus all of its resources on the task:

Again, my trusty benchmarking tool PCMark helps out here: it automatically performs complex tasks such as applying a filter to a huge PhotoShop file or putting together an InDesign document and measures the time it took to complete the tasks.

In the end, I again got a score for the performance under the load of 150 programs – and once I optimized it using AVG PC TuneUp:

Not a huge improvement, but definitely a nice boost for anyone working with Adobe Creative Suite.

8. Battery Life while watching a movie

When you’re on a long flight or train ride, you really need your battery to keep up with you while you’re binge-watching TV shows or movies. Unfortunately, the additional background load and Windows 10’s default power management settings had quite some effect on one of my devices:

Under load, the HP Spectre gave in after 4 ½ hours. Once I tuned the device to its maximum, freed it from all the resource hogs and activated Economy Mode and Flight Mode, battery life went up to almost 10 hours. That’s crazy. Even on the Asus UX-501 I managed to get an additional 20 minutes.

9. Disk Cleaning Tests

Performance and battery life isn’t all when measuring the performance of a computer: over time, Windows, applications and browsers accumulate Gigabytes of data. Case in point: even on the newly purchased mobile workstation (Asus UX-501), the installation of 150+ programs and the upgrade from Windows 8.1 to 10 accumulated to roughly 38,5 Gigabytes of unnecessary files

The HP Spectre had only about 2.7 GB, but that accumulated over the time of only a few days following a clean install of Windows 10.

Verdict

Windows 10 is arguably Microsoft’s best operating system. It has improved in some scenarios when compared to Windows 8.1 and is a highly stable and smooth-running OS. However, it still suffered under the the load of 150 programs.

Once we fired all of AVG PC TuneUp’s performance guns at it, performance improved.

One of the key benefits of AVG PC TuneUp is that it helps alleviate performance load by using a feature called Program Deactivator which temporarily turns off programs that you don’t use, and enables them on the fly again when you need them, leaving you with a usable system!

Have you tried AVG PC TuneUp for Windows 10? Click here to give it a try.

AVG

Performance Shootout: Windows 8.1 versus Windows 10

August 26, 2015 007admin Leave a comment

One of the first things you see when reserving your free copy of Windows 10 is that it’s “designed for speed”, promising you faster boot times, resume times and more. But is Windows 10 really that much faster than its direct predecessor? We’ve put it to the test and show you how the new OS fares in multiple scenarios such as boot time, performance while working, smoothness of gaming or battery life.

The Device Tested

In our lab, we started our tests with a rather high-end multimedia notebook – the Asus UX-501.

It’s equipped with a Core i7 (which clocks up to 3.6 GHz), 16 GB of RAM, a rather powerful GeForce 960M GTX and a blazing-fast 128 GB SSD. It’s one of the hotter devices of 2015 and should definitely show if and how much Windows 10 was able to speed things up compared to the pre-installed Windows 8.1.

How we tested

To get reproduceable and comparable results of Windows 8.1 versus Windows 10, we clean-installed both versions and installed only the latest drivers as well as our speed testing software, such as PCMark 8. Then we prepared both installs with the following steps:

Put the devices in a controlled room with 23° celcius and 250 (+/- 50) lux
Set the power plan to “Balanced”
Run all scheduled tasks and automated tasks using the “Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks” command
Installed all updates
Left all Windows optimization features enabled
Repeated all benchmark tests three times and then averaged the results

So let’s have a look at the tests we performed before and after the upgrade to Windows 10 Build 10240 (final, including the latest updates as of July 27^th):

1. PC Startup Time: Windows

For “boot time” tests, we used Microsoft’s “Windows® Performance Toolkit”: These tools are used by software and hardware makers to test the impact of battery life and performance of their products on typical machines.

The difference isn’t huge, but it shows that Microsoft is working hard to shave off seven milliseconds of boot time: 9 versus 8,3 seconds isn’t something you feel on such a powerful device, but on a slower PC or laptop this could translate into a far higher benefit.

Winner: Windows 10

2. Internet Explorer Startup Time

During a typical work day, applications get launched and closed all the time. Long loading times aren’t just an annoyance to the user, they could even hinder his ability to work or browse the web properly. This is why we used Windows Assessment Toolkit to measure how long it takes to launch an application, in this example Internet Explorer, down to the millisecond.

Yet again, a reduction from 0,9 to 0,45 seconds is something only few people would notice – yet it’s more evidence how Microsoft continually improved performance in every aspect and handles application launch just a tad better than before.

Winner: Windows 10

3. Writing, Web Browsing and Video Chat Performance

The numbers you see in the graphs represent the time it took to complete the browsing benchmarks. Unfortunately, in this instance, the results really weren’t that different. A 0,11s difference is completely within margin of error and doesn’t have any real-life effect.

Winner: Tie

4. Word, Powerpoint and Excel Performance

The next test involved PCMark running automated actions in Word, PowerPoint and Excel to measure performance, such as converting and calculating a huge Excel file:

We were impressed: In all test iterations, Windows 10 was able to run 8% faster when working with the Office suite.

Winner: Windows 10

5. Grand Theft Auto V performance

Thanks to the ubiquity of services like Steam and the increased sales of capable PCs or laptops, gaming applications are not just some of the most popular applications pn PCs, but also the most resource-intensive too. This is why we used the top game of 2015 Grand Theft Auto V and its built-in benchmark tool which measures the average FPS (Frames per seconds) for different scenes and scenarios of the game:

Windows 10 performed slightly slower, but also well within testing tolerance. However, one of the main benefits of Windows 10 is the exclusive implementation of Microsofts graphics platform DirectX 12 which is supposed to speed up games by to 50% – unfortunately, we’re still waiting for such titles so there’s no way to really put this to test.

Winner: Tie

6. Adobe Creative Suite Performance

While the last couple of tests focused more on consumer activities, such as browsing the web or working with Office, particularly IT professionals have a need for snappy performance. One such example is Adobe’s Creative Suite:

Again, Windows 10 showed better results: Likely due to the improved resource utilization and improved driver support.

Winner: Windows 10

7. Battery Life while Working

Microsoft promised better power management in Windows 10 and that it would save more battery life when on the go. We tested this using PCMark 8s work tests (in loop) until the battery ran dry. The result:

In all three test iterations, Windows 10 managed to run 9 minutes longer. Not a massive improvement, but definitely enjoyable.

Winner: Windows 10

8. Battery Life while gaming

Gaming is the number 1 battery drainer so it doesn’t come as a surprise that our tests were done rather quickly. Unfortunately, even with NVIDIAs latest drivers (as of July 28^th), battery life on the 960M while playing GTA V went down rather than up:

A reduction of 13% in all of our tests. We’re hoping that NVIDIA and Microsoft are working closely on a new driver to fix this issue.

Winner: Windows 8.1

9. Battery Life while watching a movie

It came as a surprise that our movie tests showed some significant improvements for Windows 10. When watching a 1080p video clip in a loop using Windows Media Player under Windows 8.1, the laptop died after 2 hours and 25 minutes. However, when going to Windows 10 it lasted a whopping 3 Hours. Likely that Windows 10 does something in the background to reduce resource usage and just focus the power on the things necessary for movie playback:

Winner: Windows 10

Verdict

Windows 10 – even in its first release – a tad faster than Windows 8.1. But beware, it doesn’t do magic: some areas only improved marginally, whereas other areas (battery life) really jumped up noticeably.

However, we just tested a clean install of Windows 8.1 versus a clean Windows 10. The areas in which operating systems really suffer from performance is the gradual slowdown that occurs over time and with more and more programs or drivers installed. That’s why, in our next blog, we installed 150+ programs on new Windows 10 devices to see how much the new OS is resistant to this load – and what we, as AVG, can do about it! Stay tuned.

AVG

5 Reasons Why Windows 10 Needs a Proper Tune Up

August 13, 2015 007admin Leave a comment

While Windows 10 is full of brand new features to help you get the best possible experience, I wanted to take a look under the hood and see if it was vulnerable to the same performance hogs as its predecessor Windows 8.1. I am of course talking about system slow down thanks to program load. YES, as crazy as it sounds, but just by installing programs on your desktop PC or laptop and simply using them you’re slowing it down a bit.

It is not noticeable at first, but the more programs you install, the more this slowdown creeps up on you. But why is that the case? And what can our own tool, AVG PC TuneUp, do about this? This blog has the answers.

Reduce The Daily Slowdown

More installed programs equal more processes and services going on in the background. Don’t believe us?
Using a professional analysis tool called Windows Assessment Toolkit, we measured the average resource consumption while working with Microsoft Office both under the load of 150 applications (see benchmarks below for more details) and once the device was optimized with AVG PC TuneUp:

Before (without AVG PC TuneUp)

After (with AVG PC TuneUp)

The increased activity doesn’t just have an impact on performance, but on the total lifespan and power consumption, as well. Tools like AVG Program Deactivator, Startup Manager, Uninstall Manager or Turbo Mode help you decrease this activity and make your PC run smooth again.

To Solve Hard Disk Thrashing & Fragmentation

Background applications and 3^rd party software can be responsible for a lot of unnecessary hard disk activity, even though you’re not actively using the programs. Of course, this also affects the total lifespan of all hardware components.

Then there’s the fragmentation phenomenon which occurs daily: Creating, copying, moving and deleting files causes hard disk data to be scattered all over the place which, in turn, reduces overall performance. AVG Drive Defrag restores perfect order to your hard drive while speeding up file access, boot times, and program launches.

To Free Up Disk Space

Windows® and your programs constantly save log files, “Most Recently Used“ lists and temporary data on your hard disk – but “forget” to delete them. Over time, that leads to critical disk space issues and problems with you applications. AVG Disk Cleaner removes all of these types of files.

To Increase Battery Life & Reduce Power Consumption

Even Windows 10 doesn’t really turn off unnecessary hardware of your laptop when when you’re on the road or adjust to what you’re doing sufficiently. Our AVG PC TuneUp Economy Mode and Flight Mode result not just in increased battery life, but also reduced power consumption: Work longer and save on your power bills, thanks to an array of power-saving techniques such as smart CPU power control, power saving modes for your devices and the deactivation of power-hungry Windows features.

To Improve Stability

Windows 10 has its weak spots, just like Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8. One of them is the registry and the way it’s built: Through daily usage of a PC or laptop, the registry could become cluttered with registry errors such as pointers to non-existent startup items, file types, programs, settings or hardware components no longer in use. This could result in some of the following problems:

Invalid startup entries: These leftover entries may cause startup errors.
Incorrect file type references: Causing files to be opened by the wrong program.
Incorrect uninstaller entries: Such entries lead to errors when installing or uninstalling applications.
Missing fonts: Causes fonts to not show up in programs.
Invalid ActiveX and COM component pointers: may lead to error messages when running applications.

AVG PC TuneUp’s Automatic Maintenance feature and Registry Cleaner fix such issues on a regular basis.

AVG

7 Essential Tips When Transferring To A New PC

February 20, 2015 007admin Leave a comment

Before you decommission that old XP, Vista or Windows 7 machine, you must first make sure that you’ve saved everything you need and prepared it to be out of action.

In this guide, I’ll show you what you need to do to get all your stuff backed up and set up.

Don’t forget your files!

Windows has a great tool called “Windows Easy Transfer” which helps you easily move stuff from your old PC to the new one. Using an external drive, it collects files, emails, user accounts, and settings from your old PC. Here’s how it works:

Windows Vista and Windows 7:

Insert a USB thumb drive or hard disk into your old PC.
Click on the Start menu and type in “Windows Easy Transfer” in the search box. You’ll end up with a pretty big “Windows Easy Transfer File from Old Computer.mig” file, which you need to save on to your USB.

Windows XP

If you’re old machine is Windows XP you will need to copy “Windows Easy Transfer” from your new PC. Here’s how:

Insert a USB thumb drive or hard disk into your new PC.
Select “An External Hard Disk or USB Flash Drive”. Go to “This is My New Computer” and click on “No”
Select “I Need to Install it Now”. This will copy Windows Easy Transfer to the to the USB drive so you can use it on your old XP machine.)

Save Your Bookmarks!

If you’ve had your old machine for a while, you’ve probably built a massive library of browser bookmarks or favorites. Make sure you take these with you by backing up your bookmarks.

Internet Explorer: Go to “Computer” and simply open up C:UsersYOUR_USERNAME_HEREFavorites. Copy the entire folder on to your new PC! XP users will find it under C:Documents & SettingsYOUR_USERNAME_HEREFavorites.
Google Chrome: Chrome syncs your bookmarks once you’ve signed into your Google account. If you haven’t done so, sign into your Chrome browser on your old PC – and it will upload your bookmarks to the cloud. Do the same on the new PC to download the bookmarks again. Voilá!
Firefox: The fastest way is to use Firefox Sync, which backs up all your browser settings – including bookmarks – to the cloud and gets it to your new PC easily once you’ve signed in. Here’s how it works.

Clean Up Your Old PC!

When migrating to a new PC, you don’t want to transfer any unwanted files, so it’s important to give it a good clean up before you make the switch.

Probably the best way is to use AVG PC TuneUp’s Disk Cleaner which is part of our AVG Performance bundle – you can also try it out for free here. Disk Cleaner removes unwanted and junk files from over 200+ applications and Windows features, definitely things you don’t want on your new machine.

Click here for a step by step guide on how to clean up your PC with Disk Cleaner.

Find Those Hidden Files!

Even if you’re super-organized and painstakingly keep your files and folders in order, there’s always that odd folder or file that floats somewhere hidden or deep on your hard disk.

Case in point: I recently save my best buddy’s wedding montage, but the tool I used stored it under “C:Program FilesVideo ConverterProjects”. I would have totally forgotten about it, had I not used AVG Disk Space Explorer to get an overview of where music, videos, photos and more are stored on my disk….

…but also where the “Top 100 files” are on my disk:

And there it was, sitting hidden on a old laptop I was ready to completely wipe clean…

Deauthorize your programs!

Some programs are tied to the computer they’ve been installed on, so you may not even be able to use them on a new PC unless you deactivate them on your old one.

Popular example: iTunes! It allows you to activate up to five PCs to play (protected!) content. If you forget to deactivate an account on a PC and wipe it clean or give it away, it’s gone and you’ll soon end up seeing this:

To deactivate an old PC, simply open up iTunes and press the “CTRL” key. This will bring up the classic menu bar. Click on “Store” and “Deauthorize this computer”. Done!

Another example is the Microsoft Office 365 subscription, which allows you to install Office 2013 on up to five PCs or Macs, so you need to log in and go to your dashboard to deactivate the Office installs on your old PCs:

Don’t worry, many programs don’t have a limited number of licenses but it’s always worth checking – and keeping the old PC around for a few days while you’re setting up your old one.

Take a snapshot of your programs settings!

Got a complex program, such as Adobe Photoshop or Excel, perfectly set up for your needs? Then it’s a true pain to set it up and figure out your favorite settings. Here’s what I do: I just take a screenshot of my favorite settings and simply apply them to the new one.

For example, I just took a screenshot of my favorite settings in the video codec configuration tool Shark007 which I use to playback pretty much all audio and video files imaginable – and it’s complicated! So I just use Windows’ built-in Snipping Tool (just use the Start menu search and you’ll find it) to take a screenshot of the settings and apply them later. Sure, a bit crude and manual, but it works:

Don’t forget your savegames!

I recently wiped an old PC which had a 97% complete gamesave from my favorite game of 2011, Super Meat Boy. If you know the title, you’ll know just how frustrating that is!

That save game is gone and I never made it through the final stages. While many modern games save the gamestats under your “DocumentsMy Games” folder or synchronize them with the cloud (Steam, Origin), many games still hide the savefile in their program folder.

If you spend 69 hours completing Far Cry 4 or any other game, you better make sure you don’t lose that savegame. My advice if you can’t find the savefile: Google the games name and add “savegame location” and you will find a blog, a forum thread or a wiki that’ll show you where to look:

If you follow these simple steps you can be sure that you’re not leaving anything behind on your old machine and that your new system will have that personalized, familiar feeling.

Next week we’ll look at breathing new life into your old PC.

Users have been asking for it for ages and now it’s here. With our new 2017 release of the AVG PC TuneUp ,we’re pleased to introduce Automatic Software Updater!

NEW AVG PC TuneUp (version 16.2)

AVG Cleaner for Android

AVG Cleaner for Mac (version 14)

1. PC Startup Time: Windows

2. Internet Explorer Startup Time

3. Performance while playing GTA V

4. Performance while gaming

5. Writing, Web Browsing and Video Chat Performance

6. Office 2013 Performance

7. Adobe Creative Suite Performance

8. Battery Life while watching a movie

9. Disk Cleaning Tests

Verdict

The Device Tested

How we tested

1. PC Startup Time: Windows

2. Internet Explorer Startup Time

3. Writing, Web Browsing and Video Chat Performance

4. Word, Powerpoint and Excel Performance

5. Grand Theft Auto V performance

6. Adobe Creative Suite Performance

7. Battery Life while Working

8. Battery Life while gaming

9. Battery Life while watching a movie

Verdict

Reduce The Daily Slowdown

To Solve Hard Disk Thrashing & Fragmentation

To Free Up Disk Space

To Increase Battery Life & Reduce Power Consumption

To Improve Stability

Don’t forget your files!

Save Your Bookmarks!

Clean Up Your Old PC!

Find Those Hidden Files!

Deauthorize your programs!

Take a snapshot of your programs settings!

Don’t forget your savegames!

Software and Security Information