When you or your employee sits down at a company PC protected by AVG, you’ll see the local app that I’ve described above. That’s fine for the staff, but administrators have an additional level of control, which is managed online.
AVG’s Cloud Console
When you log in to AVG’s cloud console, you get a display that’s very similar to Avast’s Business Hub. It even says “AVG Business by Avast” up in the corner. A menu running down the left side offers the same eight options: Dashboard, Alerts, Devices, Policies, Reports, Users, Company profile, and Subscriptions.
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The initial dashboard page summarizes activity across all your company PCs. Front and center, you see the latest alerts, with the option to click and dig deeper for any of them. Each alert also comes with one or more action items, such as viewing the corresponding PC’s quarantine or rebooting it into a boot-time scan.
Remote Installation
The Devices page naturally lists all the devices in your network that are protected by AVG. Depending on just how many PCs you’re protecting, physically going over to each one and installing protection could be tedious. That’s why AVG, like Avast, offers remote installation.
The first step toward installing AVG remotely is to designate one PC on your network (most likely the one you use yourself) as a scanning agent. Then you launch a network discovery scan from the Devices page. The resulting report lists each found device by name, with its IP address and status. That status field is important. You’ll want to apply a filter so that it shows all status types except Unmanageable. Now, in theory, you can remotely install protection on each device whose status is simply Unmanaged.
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As with Avast, I found that I was unable to make remote installation work. My tech support contacts explained that remote installation is a beta feature, and that analysis shows almost nobody uses it. For now, you’ll need to use other techniques, such as emailing installation links to all employees. Once AVG is installed, you have full remote control of those company computers.
Remote Monitoring and Management
On the Managed devices tab of the Devices page, you will find a list of all company computers with AVG active. If the device has any status other than “No issues,” check the Alerts, as you can likely resolve the problem by taking the recommended actions.
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You can also fix problems remotely from Norton’s online console, but that’s about it for remote management. With AVG, you can remotely restart or shut down a device (with a warning for the user). More useful, you can remotely launch a full, quick, custom, or boot-time scan. And there’s an option to trigger updates for the program or for its virus definitions. Bitdefender offers a similar degree of remote management, though not as extensive as what you get with AVG or Avast.
Policies Make You the Boss
Whether you succeed at remote installation, have security installed by sending email links, or manually install AVG from PC to PC, it would be a pain to dig in and configure each installation separately. ESET addresses this problem by allowing you to save settings from one correctly configured PC and then restore those settings to all the others. AVG, like Avast, has a much more polished system for managing all your protected PCs.
Every new installation obtains its settings from a predefined configuration, known as a Policy. A new installation uses the Default policy. AVG’s documentation suggests using the default for all endpoint PCs and, if necessary, defining a separate policy for your company servers. Norton handles servers differently, offering up to five licenses for a server-specific edition. ESET licenses are compatible with either the standard endpoint suite or a server-specific version.
As noted, the default policy controls settings for every new installation. In addition, changes to the policy affect all computers associated with that policy. That being the case, you should review and adjust that policy before installing AVG on devices.
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As you review the policy’s antivirus settings, you’ll see that quite a few include on/off toggles, and most of those are on. I mentioned that Browser Defense and Remote Access Shield were turned off by default—you could change that here in the policy editor. You can also drill down into each feature for detailed configuration options.
This remote configuration system is one of AVG’s strongest points. If you’re working on your local computer and get the urge to make a settings change for AVG, stop and consider whether you should make that change to the overall policy instead. That way, all your company’s computers benefit.
Server Support for Exchange and SharePoint
Near the bottom of the scrolling list of antivirus policy settings, you’ll find entries for Exchange and SharePoint. These aren’t installed by default, since they don’t belong on desktop computers. In the policy editor, these two don’t have an on or off status selected, as they’re not installed by default. The trash can icon is highlighted instead.
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Clicking that trash can icon gets you the opportunity to install the corresponding protective component. Depending on whether you use Exchange, SharePoint, or both, you’ll want to make these part of your policy for company servers.
Other Policy Settings
Getting the antivirus settings just the way you want them is the biggest task in creating a policy, but it’s not the only task. By default, firewall rules in the policy override any local changes. You surely don’t want the employees making firewall decisions, so leave that in place. When defining policies for Avast, you get the option to configure the Web Control content filter and the USB Protection system, but AVG doesn’t offer those features.
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Your policy can define proxy settings for all company computers, if needed. Policy also controls the handling of configuration changes that require a system restart. By default, AVG restarts the system after hours and gives any after-hours users a 60-minute warning. You can choose to restart when the user logs out or restart as soon as possible. There’s also an option to periodically restart the computer.
