Your opinion about running 2 AV program?

For years, I only installed ESET for my home PC.

Recently I am considering install an anti-malware program to double protect my PC.

What's your opinion, is it necessary to install 2 AV program?

If it's necessary, any recommendation?

 

Anti-virus program != anti-malware program

As long as the two maintain separate functionality, there's generally no program running both. Many folks here will run Microsoft Security Essentials for AV and Malwarebytes for anti-malware. The latter is used more in an on-demand capacity, rather than in real time.

 

Never run 2 AV on the same machine, its like mixing oil and fire.

 

Mixing 2 AV does not offer you 2x the protection, it actually offers you less protection than 1 anti-virus and can drastically slow down your system to a crawl.

Therefore, installing only one is the way to go.

However, installing something like Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is totally ok and recommended.

 

Opinions are plentiful, you would do well to research the info after receiving answers of course.

In regards to having 2 AV's... speaking from personal experience (and observation of others), having 2 AV's on a system is unnecessary.
It is accurate to claim that you don't gain 2x protection with both running at the same time... and as for clashes between the scanning engines between the two - people were running multiple AV's on a single computer with all of them having active protection turned on without ill-effects (there were cases though when 'clashes' did occur) - however, I didn't notice any advantages to the configuration, and of course the computer was consuming a lot of resources which resulted in inefficient use.

1 quality free AV should be enough. Couple it with a free anti malware such as MBAM (to be run on-demand of course) and you have yourself a decent enough protection setup.

 

I say two is better than one, but it depends on how tough your real-time protection mode works. It also depends on who you made mad as you attack each antivirus differently... but that is neither here nor there. For normal use I agree with the comments above. If you play with fire a lot then two is better than one.

 

I will keep my ESET, and no any other anti-malware program.

I am searching for a system optimization tool.

One of my friend recommends me the program called " Cloud System Booster".

I found it at cnet.
Cloud System Booster - CNET Download.com

Do you have ever installed this program?

 

As others have said, having two AVs at the same time is a big no no in terms of real time protection. However,t here is nothing wrong with using another anti-malware program like malwarebytes as an on-demand scanner.

Just that in the description throws me off. I have not used that program, but i'm always wary of that kind of utility.

I have no qualms about cleaning left over temp files and such and i use CCleaner to do that. However when it comes down to "optimizing" the system as in turning windows features on or off, it's not something that you should leave to a program that does it in one click. It's something you should read carefully about each feature/service that would be disabled so you can decide what you need and what you don't. For example, i've seen plenty of tweak guides suggesting disabling indexing and superfetch which is something that honestly shouldn't be done for most users. Personally, i don't believe in doing that kind of "optimizing", but if you want to go farther than cleaning up left over temp files, take the time to learn what you need to know before doing any of that and make a backup of your configuration before you do anything.

 

I tried Avira and Norton at the same time on a whim.
My computer started doing "magical" things.
So user beware. Heh.

 

tijo has a better answer than me. I meant it as on demand, but forgot to clarify...

 

Thanks very much for your suggestion.

 

As stated, 2 active AV programs will cause issues, your machine can lock up, slow down, as well as refuse to boot (2 AV programs fight for control of the computer). I've seen ANY combination cause your OS not to boot, you'll just get 7B BSOD. Anti-malware works different, in fact I highly recommend Malwarebytes and an AV.

 

But even for Malwarebytes Pro (active protection as opposed to the free version) you have to makes exclusion in combo wth some AV programs.
See their forum: FAQ - Common Issues, Questions, and their Solutions - Malwarebytes Forum
Highly recommend Malwarebytes and Hitmanpro as second opinion scanner.
Malwarebytes : Free anti-malware, anti-virus and spyware removal download
Hitman Pro 3 - SurfRight

 

Yes, correctly, one anti-virus program and anti-malware program with no real-time protection.

 

I used to run Microsoft Security Essentials with Spyware Doctor from the Google Pack. It served me well, but now I'm running MSE by itself.

 

No problems running MSE and Malwarebytes (the non-real-time version). No problems.

 

Sorry, late to the party here - there's a difference between a product like Malwarebytes and, say MSE or Norton. MWB (free edition) doesn't hook into the OS kernel and doesn't intercept system calls like "traditional" antimalware software. That's why you can have, say, Norton Internet Security and MalwareBytes installed on a machine at the same time. My guess is the paid MWB probably adds more traditional detection methods into the mix (realtime scanning), which will cause issues with other security software.

TLDR: never ever ever install two antimalware products that have realtime scanning. Bad juju.