AVAST has announced betas of AVG Free Antivirus 15 (32-bit here) and AVG Internet Security 17 (32-bit here).

The releases follow AVAST’s acquisition of AVG earlier this year, and aim to combine the best technologies from both companies: AVAST’s core engine with AVG’s behaviour analysis.

Setup wasn’t reliable in our first tests. The installers equipped our PC with ZEN, and eventually Free Antivirus, but our Internet Security installation wasn’t recognised and ZEN repeatedly prompted us to reinstall it.

Oddball problems happen in betas so this wasn’t a great surprise. We went directly to the program folder, ran AVGGUI and could view the new interface.

Both programs offer only basic computer, email and web protection right now. AVG Internet Security has separate “Hacker Attacks”, “Private Data” and “Payments” modules which you can optionally install, but we didn’t try these.

The best of AVG and AVAST in one application

We wouldn’t recommend you spend long exploring these features, either, because the release notes suggest they’re far from complete. Current “known issues” include the fact that the “Main Scan” won’t check your system drive, (you must use the Quick Scan instead), and heuristics are disabled on XP and Vista.

Overall this is strictly for AVG fans, and even then we’d treat the programs with extreme care. Don’t install them anywhere that has an existing AVAST or AVG installation, or isn’t fully backed up.

Betas of AVG Free Antivirus 15 (32-bit here) and AVG Internet Security 17 (32-bit here) are available for Windows XP and later.