Is more than one program to scan computer necessary or helpful?

I currently have Avira AntiVir Personal but would like to scan my computer with something else in the hope that it may weed out something Avira is missing.

Yesterday my computer froze after rebooting...an Adobe Updater screen appeared and seemed to immobilize everything. I could not even get Windows Task Manager to function properly. After rebooting several times, I was finally able to close the Adobe Updater and run an Avira scan and it found nothing new though I noticed it scanned my computer exceptionally slowly.

I have been downloading a lot of PDFs lately and I wonder if I didn't somehow infect an Adobe product--so I uninstalled all of them, whether that's helpful or not I don't know. Before I download Adobe Acrobat again, I would like to scan my system again, as it still seems to be running slowly.

Is it reasonable to hope that another program might find something Avira won't, while not conflicting with Avira's performance? If so, what comes highly recommended?

 

Are you a college student by any chance? Academic institutions commonly offer free licenses for commercial AV programs; for example, my university (here in Canada) offers Symantec Corporate AV 10.2.

 

Download superantispyware. It's a great on-demand scanner that is able to run alongside avira.

 

I am curious - why didn't you just let Adobe finish installing.
If the computer was installing & scanning at the same time it would have been slow...
And by he way, in the recent anti virus comparison Avira scored very high...

 

Bog: Thanks. Unfortunately I am not a college student.

McGrady: Thanks. I will look into superantispyware.

DetlevCM: The Adobe Updater is the first thing I saw once XP had booted. But I had no control of it, since I couldn't even use my cursor properly to click "Okay" or "Cancel." I'd wait like fifteen minutes and nothing would happen. Only after eventually rebooting several times and disabling my wireless, was I able to navigate away from it and close it. My computer acted strange after that, though...it wasn't just Avira. Opening a MyDocuments folder, for example, would take a very long time as would simply moving the cursor across the screen. It's back to normal now, it seems, but I fear something pernicious might still be in my system.

 

That is strange...

But Adobe Updater starting by itself isn't uncommon, it does that if it started previous to the reboot...

But the slow movements do sound suspicious...

 

I do the same thing Works awesome


Cin

 

update the installed anti virus software. than try to scan the computer .

otherwise download the another anti virus software and remove the avira from the computer . because two anti virus software slow down the performance of the computer.

remove all the unwanted software's from the add and the remove programs .
scan the computer after that again download the adobe flash .

 

I'm aware of this potential conflict, but it seems others have some success with Avira plus at least one other program.

Perhaps to avoid such conflict or slowing down of the computer, it is important that a secondary program runs on-demand/passively rather than all the time?

 

^While running two AV's with real-time protection is a bad idea, you can run multiple security programs with real-time protection, like a combination of Avira AV and a paid version of SUPERAntispyware or Malwarebytes' Antimalware.
Check the respective fora (from Avira, SAS and/or MBAM) to see if users experience any issues with the specific combination you have in mind.
Cheers.

 

^
There are reports of SAS causing slower browsing speeds with Avira's webguard.

 

avira catches like.. 99.9% of stuff.. even if you install another AV, what's the chance that you actually have a virus in that 0.1% that avira missed.. and what's the chance that the other AV will actually catch what avira missed?