AVG Antivirus Free Edition 2012

Anti-Virus Guard (AVG) is a family of anti-virus and Internet security software for the Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and FreeBSD computing platforms, developed by AVG Technologies, a publicly traded Czech company formerly known as Grisoft.

History

Main article: AVG Technologies

The brand AVG comes from Grisoft's first product, "Anti-Virus Guard", launched in 1992 in Czechoslovakia. In 1997, the first AVG licenses were sold in Germany and UK. AVG was introduced in the U.S. in 1998.
The AVG Free Edition helped raise awareness of the AVG product line.
In 2006, the AVG security package grew to include anti-spyware, as AVG Technologies acquired ewido Networks, an anti-spyware group. That same year, Microsoft announced that AVG components would be available directly within the Windows Vista operating system.
AVG Technologies acquired Exploit Prevention Labs (XPL) in December 2007, and incorporated that company's LinkScanner safe search and surf technology into the AVG 8.0 security product range released in March 2008.
In January 2009, AVG Technologies acquired Sana Security, a developer of identity theft prevention software. This software was incorporated into the AVG security product range released in March 2009.
According to AVG Technologies, over 106 million users have AVG Anti-Virus protection, including users of the Free Edition.
Version 2012 of AVG (Basic, Internet Security, ...) released in 2011. AVG also advertise] 3rd party services to remove what AVG doesn't/can't

Features

AVG features most of the common functions available in modern anti-virus and Internet security programs, including periodic scans, scans of sent and received emails (including adding footers to the emails indicating this), the ability to "repair" some virus-infected files, and a quarantine area: "virus vault/chest" in which infected files are held.
A handy & clear (if somewhat misleading) feature / product comparison table is at Free vs Paid.