The interface is probably the biggest news, which the company said was intended to perform the tricky balance of allowing conventional mouse control to co-exist with a touchscreen interface modelled on feedback from user testing.

The company also pushed the theme of better performance, claiming reduced startup time (-26 percent), better scan times (-36 percent) and a smaller footprint although all antivirus companies say much the same thing during product launches.

AVG said the integrated firewall had been redesigned to make it easier to understand and the software now included 'file reputation', a service that checked all new files added to a PC against a cloud database. This should spot suspicious files although such technology has a reputation of giving users false positives froom time to time.

What about AVG's AntiVirus's army of free users? Apart from the new interface and performance tweaks, pretty much as before. It scans files on a hard drive and monitors memory.

Free users do get AVG Secure Search (previously called LinkScanner), a browser security layer, as well as the cloud file reputation service for anyone that opts in.