AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 2012 is the latest version of AVG's popular malware detector.

At the program's heart is a strong core antivirus engine, which monitors incoming and outgoing emails, as well as every file you access, detecting and blocking threats before they can cause any damage.

There's a new focus on performance in this version, though. Like some of the competition, AVG Anti-Virus Free now checks known safe files just once, rescanning them only if they've changed: once that initial check is out of the way, scans can be much faster than in previous versions.

And while a very flexible scheduler makes it easy to run scans unattended, a default "User sensitive" option means on-demand scans are more flexible than before. If you launch a scan, then sit back and watch, it'll run at high speed; but if you try to use your PC for something else then AVG Anti-Virus Free will back off a little, and do its best not to interfere with your other tasks.

If you choose to install the optional AVG LinkScanner toolbar then you'll get browsing protection, with the program using warning icons to alert you to dangerous links in your search results. And that's just the start - new Social Networking Protection checks your links on Facebook and MySpace to make sure they're safe.

Elsewhere, the interface has been simplified a little. And if you're using Windows Vista or 7, it's now possible to view your system's security status, launch scans or check for updates from a simple desktop gadget, without launching the full program console at all.

There's also a new PC Analyzer component, which checks your system for performance-related problems like Registry errors, file fragmentation, leftover junk files and broken shortcuts. This isn't quite as useful as it sounds, because the Analyzer won't fix anything: you'll need to download the new AVG PC TuneUp to do that, and after the first run that'll cost you $29.99 annually. So this is more of a TuneUp ad than anything else, though it's hard to complain too much about that when AVG are giving away such a powerful product for free.