Looking For Virus Protection?

For what it's worth...

Published on March 1, 2006 By PoSmedley In Industry

I've seen a few posts on and off topic when it comes to anti-virus protection. It can be a touchy subject for a lot of people due to poor customer experience when it comes to 'paid-for software' and just finding one that will do the job without 'messing' with their computer. Sometimes, 'uninstalling' an anti-virus' program in itself can be frustrating.

I have often put my two cents in and have been an advocate for Avast. I'll tell you why.
1. It's free. Like Adaware, you can run a free version or upgrade to the paid PRO version.
2. Unlike some other free programs, it covers all the bases. It works on P2P, email,messenger and everything else you would want it to.
3. It updates frequently, sometimes 2 or 3 times a day. (That is, if you choose to run the automatic updates)
4. It does a 'boot-time' scan.
5. It's skinnable! (Like WinAmp or some other Apps, you can make skins for it or download skins.)

I switched to AVAST after going through Norton, MacAfee, and AVG. My particular problem was running across viruses that the one would detect and not the other. Or one 'mistaking' the wrong file for a virus. Or..one finding a virus but not being able to remove it. I bit the bullet and tried AVAST and have had NONE of those problems since. I deleted my 'paid-for' version of Norton and have been running AVAST for the past 7 months with NO problems. To the best of my knowledge, it has caught everything that has tried to get on my PC. It woks great with Limewire, messenger, and my email.

Some 'reader' reviews on CNET say it is a system hog, has slowed down this and that. When I installed it, my PC only had 256mb of 'shared' memory and it didn't affect my PC's performance at all, with the exception of the automatic updates. When they occured, things would lag a 'little', but not enough for me to turn off the automatic updates.

AVAST does require that you register even the free version. No fee involved. Again, some people seemed to have a problem with this at CNET. Basically, because they thought it was just 'inconvenient'. And, again, I did register and have suffered no problems because of it.

For me, this App has worked better than NOrton, AVG, and MacAfee. I have had absolutley no problems. The ONLY software conflict has been with ZoneAlarm. If you have it installed, AVAST will detect it on install and give you the option to shut off the AVAST setting that conflicts, leaving your ZoneAlarm just as it is and NOT affecting AVSTS performance!

So why am I going on about this. AVAST, for what it's worth, has just won SC MAGAZINES READER CHOICE AWARD 2006 for best ANTI_VIRUS Program. So if your looking for a new or better anti-virus program, this may be the one to check out.

AVAST wins award>Link

SC MAGAZINE AWARD WINNERS>Link

Comments (Page 2)

Double Zero

on Mar 03, 2006

Ok wheres my friggin eraser...

LoL

GypsyRyder

on Mar 12, 2006

So it's ok to run both zone-alarm and avast at the same time, without conflict??
~Jazz~

Double Zero

on Mar 12, 2006

So it's ok to run both zone-alarm and avast at the same time, without conflict??

Should be just fine...

Jafo

on Mar 12, 2006

I use AVG exclusively but I also use an assortment of other AV software,

That really IS a silly statement.... Spell checker

PoSmedley

on Mar 12, 2006

So it's ok to run both zone-alarm and avast at the same time, without conflict??

Yes. When you set up AVAST, it will check your ZA to see if any of the features it is running will conflict with AVAST. If there is one, AVAST will let you know and give you the option to turn off the 'AVAST' feature that conflicts, leaving your ZA as you have it.

Avast states that they are currently working with Zone Alarm so that the 2 will be fully compatible.

Double Zero

on Mar 12, 2006

That really IS a silly statement....

Uh-oh, Now I have been "Jafo'd" Boy I wish I could find my eraser!, LoL

Hmmmmmmm, heres a thought, why dont we run that statement on the front page in the "poll" section? at least it will give us all something else to vote on!

Adamness

on Mar 13, 2006

We should have a poll to see if that should be a poll.

PoSmedley

on Mar 13, 2006

We need to have a petition first, to see if we should have a poll on the poll.

Island Dog

on Mar 13, 2006

But we still need to finish the petition about stopping petitions before any more petitiions are posted.

Bichur

on Mar 13, 2006

so...we need a poll as a short petition to see if the petition to stop petitions should go ahead so we can post a petition to have a poll?

Island Dog

on Mar 14, 2006

Exactly.

Larry Kuperman

on Mar 14, 2006

Uh... I can't resist the semantics battle.

It should be "This sentence doesn't seem to JIBE with my definition of "exclusively"" not JIVE.

Jibe: To be in accord; agree.

Jive: Slang. To talk nonsense; kid. or To play or dance to jive music.

Katrinakat

on Mar 14, 2006

Yeah, you're right. I was wondering about that after I'd written that message, but I was hoping nobody would notice.

Little did I know the whole thing would escalate like this!

Notok

on Mar 24, 2006

Avast and AVG don't have that great of detection rates - http://www.av-comparatives.org
I personally like NOD32, light and fast with very good detection rates. The heuristics are also the best of any (see the retroactive tests at the link above, they test new malware with old signatures, so all detections are purely heuristic or use generic signatures). Then I like Ewido for backup scans (http://www.ewido.net/ - trial turns to free version after 14 days).

If you want to beef up your protection for free and don't mind using beta, you could use Prevx1 R - http://free.prevx.com/ It's very versatile and detects a lot of malware. The database is central, so you don't have to wait for updates - they're instant, and it also has behavioral heuristics that catch a lot. There's a lot to this program, so it's worth reading the website. The betas have never been very problematic for me, they do as much testing as they can before putting them out. I think the worst I've encountered was some high CPU usage, but that was fixed pretty quickly.

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central

bakerstreet

on Mar 25, 2006

Has anyone noticed that avast hits its database file constantly? Watch with filemon. I kept hearing my HD and I wondered what it was. I opened up the file monitor and avast was hitting the database 2-3 times per second. I don't know if that is the norm for virus checkers, or if it is something wrong with the version I have. If it isn't the norm I think I'm going to find one that doesn't behave that way. Why would it do that?

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