Avast free; now with antispyware & antirootkit protection

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thanks. i'm surprised avast didn't surprise with this update.

 

Wow... I don't know... Should I switch from Avira and SUPERantispyware to this?

 

cool.. trying it now..lets c how improved it is.. thanx for the info..

 

Arjunned... Report back with your findings.

 

Nice! Always liked Avast, but its a performance hit.

 

I'll test it out too since I run avast for active protection. Though it is a resource hog.

Leon: I'd keep those two programs and use avast as your active protection & secondary scanner.

Edit: Going solely off of task manager, avast is definitely using fewer resources for me. I'll run a thorough scan sometime and see if they sped it up.

Edit 2: Scanning speed is still slow.

 

How would Avast compare to AOL/McAfee VirusScan Free in terms of finding viruses. I use AVG now but am wondering if I should switch, because McAfee comes with a two-way firewall.

EDIT: Looks like I'll stick with what I got McAfee's firewall stinks according to PC Mag.

 

why do peeps keep thinking avast is a resource hog? it's not the least intensive, but it's far better than the commercial av programs.

 

Better than the latest version of NOD32?

 

supposedly nod32, avira, kaspersky use less resources. these i haven't tried, but the general consensus is they use the least amount of resources. norton and mcafee use alot of resources and i agree.

 

Oh, when you said "far better than the commercial av programs" i thought you were referring to them all.

 

Because it IS intensive. Every time that 'a' logo rotates, I can always feel the performance hit.

And better than commercial av programs? It couldn't catch what Avira could, and Avira is free. Based on my experience, at least, I can say that Avast wouldn't be better than commercial antivirus solutions.

Anyway, didn't AVG also upgrade into a sort of all-in-one-ish approach? All the anti-'s combined? It's nice to see these improvements in free products, but I'd like them to concentrate on improving their Anti-virus too. They shouldn't lose focus on the main purpose [or at least in the view of the consumer] of their products.

 

Well when I had the old version, all of its processes combined for ~75000 K of mem usage which I think is excessive. Still I think it's active protection is supposed to be better than Avira's. Does anyone know about which is better?

scythie: You should change generate VRDB so it only does it on idle. Right click the i in the task bar to find the option

 

i haven't had any performance hits. the way i look at it, less resources possibly mean less protection. more resources, mean poor programming and/or performance hit as you say. my last laptop had an amd 1.6 turionx2 and i didn't notice a performance hit then either unless i did a virus scan and used my computer at the same time. everybody will attest that x program is better than y program when it comes to catching viruses. so be it. i always use an online scanner and/or download another av program about every 3 months to double check. i like avast's on-access protection. it's caught 4 different types of intrusion in ~ the last 6 months. the av scanner has caught 2 viruses but they were in files i hadn't opened yet. i'm not saying one program is better than the other, but to say avast is intense when it comes to resources is bogus. maybe if you're running 512/1gig of ram, maybe. but 2 gigs and up and a fairly modern comp and you shouldn't notice.

 

ook i have to say resource-wise.. avast has definitely improved!.. but on demand scanning is still slow..
also cpu usage goes up a few notch's wen the avast icon rotates..
but definitely an improvement from 4.7..

one more thing.. is there a way to check whether anti-spyware and anti-rootkit scanning is on or not?? i cant seem to find those options anywhr.. or is it on by default and cant be changed??

 

It's not VRDB. It's whenever I open a File or Program, the avast logo on the taskbar rotates. It's the on-access protection, if I remember correctly.

I'm done with avast, unfortunately.

BTW, You asked if which one's better: Avast or Avira? Well, based on my experience, Avira. Took care of my nasty USB that Avast couldn't. In fact, Avast completely ignored the virus altogether -- or rather, it only detected it on a scan, but couldn't block it from automatically executing when plugging it [I know, I should have AutoPlay disabled, but I didn't know then ]. While Avira [together with Online Armor I might add] blocked and blocked and cleaned [quarantined or healed] every USB drive and SD card I was afraid of plugging in before [because of Avast ignoring the virus in that one USB drive I always use -- the virus made it impossible to Open my C: from My Computer, I might add. Minor, but a pain in the a** nonetheless].

Avira also barely uses resources. It has a really slow scanner, though. But I do complete scans when I'm asleep so no biggy.

 

All I can say is Avast Home is better than the McAfee I paid for and it does not really seem to slow me down much at all. I also really appreciate email scanning (I live in Outlook!) and Avira does not do that for me.

 

hi all , here in India i purchased bittdefender antivirus from www.bitdefenderasia.com for 600 indian rupees approximately 15 us dollars $.
The product is excellent value for money . All my virus n malware related probs were solved

 

hi all , here in India i purchased bittdefender antivirus from www.bitdefenderasia.com for 600 indian rupees approximately 15 us dollars $.
The product is excellent value for money . All my virus n malware related probs were solved

 

Although Bitdefender is pretty alright, if you're paying i suggest you get something like NOD32 instead. I'm not exactly sure how it compares to free AV's though.