Topic: Avast or AVG?

[Pugnate]

Trying to decide what free virusscan to use... can't decide... help...

[ren]

I use Microsoft Security Essentials. It's free and I like it.

[TheOtherBelmont]

Avast.  I used to use AVG, which worked fine but it started getting too bloated for my liking.

[Cobra951]

Part of that AVG bloat is a background process which takes over your online connection.  Any firewall you use needs to allow this process full reign over what comes and what goes, which nerfs the firewall.  I won't touch AVG ever again.

[Xessive]

Microsoft Security Essentials is my favourite so far: it's light and minimalistic, I love it.

However if you're torn between Avast and AVG I'd go with Avast. I used to go with AVG but as already mentioned it did start to get bloated. The extra process running in the background is just one excess, there's also the occasional pop-up that advertises the "pro" or "full" edition.

Avast have made some major strides in making their free edition a nice and tidy little package.

I have also used Avira Antivir Personal, which is also pretty good and free but I did notice a "pro" advert pop-up at one point.

Alternatively, if you're a careful user anyway and don't care for a resident shield but would like a reliable virus scanner you could go with ClamWin, it's opensource.

[iPPi]

Hmmm, all this talk makes me want to switch antivirus solutions.  I have noticed AVG feeling bloated but I still use it currently.  That Microsoft Security Essentials sounds like something I might try... Maybe when I get a new computer first though.

[angrykeebler]

I'm going to say AVAST based solely on the fact that it's what pirates used to yell.

[Cobra951]

Alternatively, if you're a careful user anyway and don't care for a resident shield but would like a reliable virus scanner you could go with ClamWin, it's opensource.

Thank you!  This is exactly what I want, provided it actually works.  The Wikipedia entry on it was not encouraging.  A new version was out last month, claiming big improvements to detection.  We shall see.

I'd be willing to go with something less passive, provided it doesn't take over the system (which seems to be the norm anymore).  Scanning files automatically upon download is fine.  Meddling with every disk access and network transfer is not.

[Xessive]

Glad to be of help I hope it works well too.

[scottws]

I would recommend Avast over AVG.  AVG is a resource hog and just kills older computers.  I had it running for a couple of years on my parents' PC and Jennie's mom's older PC.  Both were about 5 years old and just crawled badly.  I checked task manager and some AVG-related process was using 30-40% of the CPU constantly!

Plus Avast has the boot-time scan, which is an awesome feature.  I use Eset NOD32 Anti-virus (for pay) and it has a boot-time utility, but it's on a bootable CD-ROM.  Avast's is built-in and works like a chkdsk /f or /r.