Anti virus - recommendations please.

[Martin963]

SWMBO has been whinging about how slow her computer has become this winter, and as the only major change to it was the upgrading from AVG 7 to AVG 8 I thought I'd uninstall it and see what happens.

A revelation,   it boots up much faster,   and one is not kept hanging about while Thunderbird or Firefox open,  which were taking up to a minute to function after the initial command.

I've read elsewhere that AVG is going the way of Norton (ie gobbling resources) and I thought I'd try Avast.

But before I install it,  has anyone got any better recommendations?  Simple,  efficient,  and free please.

Tim? ErnieY?  Anyone?

Thanks folks.

[anniefromwales]

I have AVG on one and Avast! on the other. No real problems with either but of the two I prefer Avast, it is less intrusive.

[DerekJ]

Martin. I recently had need to install Avast in an emergency. My brother in law had got his PC severely infected I think mainly due to an expired McAfee licence.  After much hassle (due to the infections) I managed to download Avast and install it on his machine. Once it ran it identified around 60 infections during the boot scan... result was that his PC is now back in the land of the living. As to daily use of Avast I can't comment as I'm still running (probably foolishly) the preloaded Norton that came came with my laptop. It's my plan to move across to Avast though.

[Ron Avery]

Funny you should say that Martin, since I upgraded to AVG 8 my PC seems to open every internet page "twice" in succession,  it seems it gets scanned and then re-opened,  My PC is not as slow as with Norton that really slowed it down but I have taken off the E mail notifier in the task bar as it was just a bloody nuisance. However, I now only have to open Word and the memory tells me its out!  I suppose that all virus protectors have to do a job, but one less intrusive would be good to find.

[Russethouse]

 I used AVG for years with no problems, but could not update to the latest version on my old hard drive, and changed to Avast, no problems with that at all.

However when I had a new hard drive fitted the computer guy installed AVG again, now it is just fine, it updates automatically and scans each day at a set time, I'm only aware of it as a pop up box tells me......maybe there is something conflicting with AVG ?

[Clair]

I use Avast! too and my only advice would be to disable the sounds, unless you need verbal confirmation of the updates...

[Danny]

I find Avast excellent too.

It takes a little time to download or check virus database is up to date -  maybe twice a day - but rest of the time it seems pretty quick to me.

And effective. And free too - can't complain

Danny

[Jacqui Too]

Morning Martin

I put a similar post just a while back : http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/1529906/ShowPost.aspx

I had an excellent response, well worth reading [:D]

[Martin963]

Thanks folks.   I'll try Avast and I'll also check for conflicts.

The computer is about three years old but certainly - for whatever reason -  removing AVG 8 has transformed it.

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

We use Avast on all 6 of our computers. Runs fine.

Don't forget that no anti virus program is perfect and none will give you 100% protection.

[cooperlola]

Having used AVG for yonks, it suddenly refused to update so I changed to COMODO on my laptop (on the recommendation of somebody else on the forum - perhaps Pierre?) and it seems to work a treat also.  However, I've left AVG on the PC and there it's continued to work well.  Mystery.

[BJSLIV]

I gave up on AVG last last year. It was taking about 4 hours each day to carry out it's scan routine during which time the machine was virtually unusable. So I switched to Avast.

 

[AnOther]

[quote user="Russethouse"]and scans each day at a set time[/quote]Why on earth would anybody want to do a daily scan [:-))]

If an AV is up to date and doing it's job then it will catch any nasties on arrival therefore daily scanning is completely pointless and can only serve to stress your hard drive and hasten it's demise.

Once a week is more than adequate and even that could be said to be excessive.

[sid]

I second Ernie's comment; complete waste of time, and knackers the hard drive in the process!

I use AVG and find it good.

Sid

[Russethouse]

I guess thats just how the guy who takes care of my computer, set it up - I could probably adjust it....

[AnOther]

From memory it's the default setting and yes, by all means change it.

[Russethouse]

Just found where to change it and made it scan weekly, plus scan on start up if missed, at least I could locate the setting. Although I liked Avast I never discovered how to 'do' anything to it, maybe I just didn't need to know.............[;-)]

[Pierre ZFP]

[quote user="cooperlola"]

 I changed to COMODO on my laptop (on the recommendation of somebody else on the forum - perhaps Pierre?) and it seems to work a treat also. 

[/quote]

Yes, 'twas I and I still use Comodo very successfully [:D]

 

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

[quote user="sid"]

I second Ernie's comment; complete waste of time, and knackers the hard drive in the process!

I use AVG and find it good.

Sid

[/quote]

I probably scan mine 5 or 6 times a year, and that's only if I remember.

I do spy scans more frequently though because I don't have a real time scanner like I do for viruses.

[Mr Wiggy]

I must completely agree with sid AGV are very good and if you are stuck you can download all the security you need at no charge.

[Martin963]

Just a quick update;   I moved my main computer (XP) from AVG 7 to AVG 8 about a week ago.   Although there were no immediate problems,   it was noticeable that the whole thing slowed down a bit (the computer is only just over two years old) - transitions from one Window to another often seemed to be painfully slow with a lot of HDD clicking,  particularly if the computer has been on for more than a couple of hours.    The slow running was not as noticeable as on MOH's,  but still a little annoying...     I have extensively scanned for viruses and other nasties using several utilities but none have been found.   Defrag is not required according to that utility.

So today I uninstalled AVG and moved to Avast.    Things now running much more smoothly,    one can move between applications more quickly and there's much less HDD work judging by the present lack of gentle grinding noises.

I don't want to badmouth AVG,   it's been satisfactory up to now,  but I can't be the only one who has now ditched them for the opposition.....

Let's hope they take the feedback (I did send some) on board,  because apart from now I -  like many others above - have been pleased with them.

[AnOther]

I see AVG FREE v8.5 is available now so wonder if anyone has installed that and got any observations they'd care to share ?

[Department71]

I upgraded from AVG free 8.00 to 8.5 free a couple of weeks ago on my P3 desktop, don't know what is different but it now takes ages to load up, have tried adjusting  the advanced settings but no luck, maybe its because I don't have the latest spec computer, I'm now looking to try avast.

Steve

[AnOther]

Not tried it myself but from what I've read 8.5 is supposedly a tad less resource hungry than 8.0 and also faster to scan so perhaps you have missed a setting somewhere ?

[tel]

In the past two months I have changed from AVG Free 8.0 to Avast which, though I have used in the past I found to have an awkward interface and slow scanning, I then tried Avira which was fairly good but limited in scanning choices. Now back on AVG Free 8.5 and agree with ErnieY, not as bloated as v8.0 and scans quicker. I have had no problems with my P.C. slowing down using the newer version of AVG. One excellent result from all of the above, they prevented my from accessing a website for an animal charity that I advise on telling me that it had been hacked and was downloading onto computers re-directs to porn sites. This had NOT been picked up by the Charities own compters who use either Norton or Bullguard. I was able to warn them to get the server cleaned and their website re-published.