Does anyone know about this program? Any good? Are there other free programs better?

My network has always recommended AVG but I can't say if it is better or worse but I do know that it is capable. Hope someone else can be more insightful.

Avast is pretty good, I use AVG right now. Personal preference, really.

what is the difference between AVAST and AVG? As you can tell, I'm not up to date on these things

For a free anti-virus it's good. A lot better than AVG, it doesn't slow your machine down as much.

They are both good from what I know and as FearandLoathing pointed out, personal preference really. I know AVG so would recommend AVG.
Stand corrected check out above.

I've been using Avast for a few months and like the feel of it a lot more than AVG. It's been a while since I had AVG but it seemed to bog down my system a lot and a few viruses slipped through. Plus my parents have AVG installed and do very little web surfing other than to check the lotto and their e-mail and received a nasty trojan last week. Both my desktop and laptop have stayed clean since I installed Avast and I don't even notice it running in the background...and yep, it has real time protection for all of your incoming and outgoing connections. It's too early for me to tell if the protection is truly better but if both of my systems are clean a year from now with Avast installed then I'll be ready to totally write off AVG. You can check out CNET and user reviews here:

http://download.cnet.com/Avast-Free-Antivirus/3000-2239_4-10019223.html?tag=mncol

Hope that helps.

I was using AVG but I switched to AVAST and I think it's doing a better job