AVG by Avast AntiVirus Business Edition

What is included in AVG by Avast AntiVirus Business Edition?

File Shield – Scans every file that is opened or downloaded.
Web and Email Shield – Checks URLs, certificates and desktop mail client messages.
Firewall – Filters network traffic and blocks unreliable inbound connections.
Remote Access Shield – Blocks unwanted RDP connections and brute-force login attempts.
Cloud Management Console – Deploys agents, applies policies and reports across all devices.
Important – No EDR, patch management or server-side Exchange scanning included.

What are the main benefits of AVG by Avast AntiVirus Business Edition?

AVG by Avast AntiVirus Business Edition is endpoint antivirus for Windows workstations and Windows Server, managed either through the vendor-hosted Cloud Management Console or a self-hosted On-Premise Console. The line was previously sold in year-numbered versions such as AVG Business Edition 2016, and AVG dropped the year from the product names when it moved to a continuously updated subscription.

Single console rollout – Push installers and policies to new devices remotely.
Ransomware protection – Combines behavioural tests, static analysis and sandboxing.
SharePoint Server protection – Scans documents uploaded to and downloaded from SharePoint.
Off-hours scanning – Smart Scanner runs outside working time to protect performance.
Local update server – One device distributes updates to save WAN bandwidth.
On-premises console option – Self-hosted alternative for organisations avoiding vendor-hosted management.

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Which company size is AVG by Avast AntiVirus Business Edition suitable for?

The product fits organisations that run Windows only and need central visibility without a dedicated security team. It stops fitting as soon as macOS or Linux endpoints, detection-and-response evidence, or local-language support enter the requirements.

Does AVG by Avast AntiVirus Business Edition meet the requirements of Swiss cybersecurity legislation?

The reporting obligation under the revised Information Security Act (ISG) has applied since 1 April 2025 and covers operators of critical infrastructure such as energy and water supply, healthcare, finance, telecommunications, transport and cantonal or municipal administrations, not every company. Affected organisations must report a cyberattack to the Federal Office for Cybersecurity (BACS) within 24 hours of discovering it, with a further 14 days to complete the report. This product supports the discovery side of that duty: the Cloud Management Console raises alerts when a threat is detected and produces threat, device and task reports that document when an infection was found and on which machine. It does not support the investigation side, because there is no EDR component, no process-level telemetry and no retained attack timeline, so reconstructing how an attacker entered and what was touched inside a 24-hour window needs additional tooling or an external incident response provider. This text is not legal advice, and whether your organisation falls under the reporting obligation should be clarified with your own legal counsel.

Does AVG by Avast AntiVirus Business Edition meet the requirements of European cybersecurity legislation?

No security product makes a company NIS 2 compliant, because the directive addresses organisational measures rather than software features. NIS 2 requires essential and important entities to put in place risk analysis and security policies, incident handling, business continuity and backup management, supply chain security, security in the acquisition and maintenance of systems including vulnerability handling, cyber hygiene and staff training, cryptography, access control and multi-factor authentication. This product contributes to two of those categories: malware protection as part of cyber hygiene on Windows devices, and the detection and alerting half of incident handling. It does not cover backup and business continuity, vulnerability handling and patching, encryption, access control, multi-factor authentication or supply chain assessment. Treat it as one control inside a larger set of measures, and plan the remaining categories separately.

What should you know about official assessments of Avast?

In February 2024 the United States Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint alleging that Avast collected browsing data through its browser extensions and antivirus software and sold it in re-identifiable form through its subsidiary Jumpshot between 2014 and 2020. The FTC finalised the order on 27 June 2024: Avast paid 16.5 million dollars, is barred from selling or licensing browsing data from Avast-branded products for advertising purposes, must delete the transferred data and the models derived from it, and must operate a privacy programme reviewed by an independent assessor for 20 years. The order remains in force, and the FTC opened the consumer refund process in February 2025. Avast has stated that it disagrees with the FTC allegations and characterisation of the facts and that it closed Jumpshot and ended the data collection in January 2020; AVG-branded products were among those whose data was involved. Independent laboratory testing of the AVG engine has continued in parallel: AV-TEST certified the AVG consumer Windows product in June 2026 with the maximum score in protection, performance and usability. In practice this matters most to buyers with public sector contracts or supply chain questionnaires that ask whether a supplier has been subject to regulatory action, and it is a data-handling history to weigh rather than an operational restriction on the business product.

Does AVG by Avast AntiVirus Business Edition help with security questionnaires from large customers?

Yes for the endpoint protection questions, and no for most of the rest. It answers whether anti-malware is deployed on all in-scope devices, whether it is centrally managed, whether real-time protection is enforced by policy instead of left to users, and whether you can produce evidence, because the console exports threat, device and task reports showing which machines are protected and which detections occurred at what time. It does not answer the items that follow on most large-customer questionnaires: endpoint detection and response, log retention and SIEM or syslog forwarding, patch status of third-party software, disk encryption, multi-factor authentication, backup and restore testing, and coverage of macOS, Linux or mobile devices. Two of those gaps can be closed inside the same family, which is usually cheaper than adding a second vendor: AVG Patch Management adds third-party patch scanning and patch reports to the same console, and AVG Internet Security Business Edition adds server-side Exchange scanning. The remaining gaps have no answer anywhere in the AVG business line, which contains no EDR, encryption, backup or non-Windows agent, so a questionnaire that scores those items will force a second product or a different platform, and that is worth knowing before you standardise on this one.

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What is the difference between AVG AntiVirus Business Edition and AVG Internet Security Business Edition?

The decisive difference is Exchange Server Protection: only the Internet Security edition scans mail on the Exchange server itself. AntiVirus Business Edition scans mail at the desktop client through Email Shield, which leaves messages that never reach a protected client unscanned. The second difference is Password Protection, which guards credentials stored in browsers against malware and unwanted applications. Everything else that most buyers compare, including the Cloud Management Console, the firewall, CyberCapture and SharePoint Server protection, is present in both editions. If you run your own Exchange server, choose the Internet Security edition from the start, because retrofitting server-side mail scanning later means a second purchase.

Which limitations should you know before buying?

Platform coverage is the first hard limit: agents exist for Windows 10, Windows 11 and Windows Server only, so macOS, Linux and mobile devices stay unmanaged and unprotected. Vendor support for the business line runs 24/5 in English only, which matters in Switzerland and the European Union where first-level support in German, French or Italian is often expected. Patch management is not included and requires a separate AVG Patch Management subscription, and it is the most common follow-up purchase because patch evidence is exactly what audits and customer questionnaires ask for. The product is also absent from the AV-Comparatives Business Security Test series, whose March to April 2026 factsheet lists Avast Ultimate Business Security from the same vendor group rather than the AVG business edition, so business-specific independent results are not available for this exact product. The On-Premise Console remains available for organisations that cannot use a vendor-hosted console, but AVG states that it does not support all features and services and receives updates later than the Cloud Console.

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Frequently asked questions about AVG by Avast AntiVirus Business Edition

Which Windows versions are supported?

Workstation agents run on Windows 10 in the Pro, Education and Enterprise editions and on 64-bit Windows 11. On the server side, AVG lists 64-bit Windows Server 2025, 2022, 2019, 2016 and 2012 excluding Server Core, plus SharePoint Server 2010 to 2019.

Can a company use AVG AntiVirus Free instead?

No. The free edition is licensed for personal use and does not include the business components, specifically CyberCapture, cloud-based Real-Time Outbreak Detection and central management through the Cloud Management Console. Without the console there is no way to enforce a policy or prove that protection was active on a given device.

Does the ransomware protection replace a backup?

No. Ransomware Protection uses behavioural and static analysis plus sandboxing to stop encryption attempts, but the product contains no backup or file recovery component. If an attack succeeds, restoring data depends entirely on a backup you maintain separately.