So is it time to ditch AVG ?

AirCooledHeaven

I've used AVG free for a long time and never had a single problem with it, and I've been happy to recommend it to anyone who asks. But for the last 2 weeks I've been plagued by unsolicited popups nagging me to upgrade to AVG 9, two or three a day, and usually when I'm doing something I don't want interrupting. I'm also hearing a lot of stories about AVG 9 crashing people's machines, hogging resources, just the stuff that you don't want from AV software.

I know there are a lot of AVG detractors on this forum but now I'm ready to listen! I need something that's free, that uses minimum resources, updates automatically, and generally doesn't hassle me unless it finds a virus.

So what's it to be??

aliEnRIK

Why not give 9 a go? You might be one of the lucky ones

kwikbreaks

If you are annoyed about nagging to upgrade then you'd best give Avira a miss too (at least I think so).

I use Avast and it doesn't nag although you do need to get a (free) registration key each year (or maybe two - I forget)

Several people are recommending Microsoft Security Essentials but it would be a cold day in hell before I'd trust Redmond to produce anything secure.

Leopard

AirCooledHeaven wrote: »

I know there are a lot of AVG detractors on this forum but now I'm ready to listen! I need something that's free, that uses minimum resources, updates automatically, and generally doesn't hassle me unless it finds a virus.

So what's it to be??

Apple does a free anti-virus.

[Deleted User]

Let's look at what's most important with an anti-virus - it's detection rates:

Avira 99.4%
Avast 98%
AVG 94%

Source - http://www.av-comparatives.org/

kwikbreaks wrote: »

If you are annoyed about nagging to upgrade then you'd best give Avira a miss too (at least I think so).

http://www.elitekiller.com/files/disable_antivir_nag.htm

AirCooledHeaven

kwikbreaks wrote: »

If you are annoyed about nagging to upgrade then you'd best give Avira a miss too (at least I think so).

I use Avast and it doesn't nag although you do need to get a (free) registration key each year (or maybe two - I forget)

I appreciate I'm using free software so I'm happy to accept the occasional nag or even a bit of advertising, but three times a day is a bit much I think...

AirCooledHeaven

aliEnRIK wrote: »

Why not give 9 a go? You might be one of the lucky ones

Even if I'm getting it free I don't want to be a beta tester, life's too short to debug other people's software.

kwikbreaks

Deleted_User wrote: »

Let's look at what's most important with an anti-virus - it's detection rates:

Avira 99.4%
Avast 98%
AVG 94%

The reason I don't use Avira is nothing to do with nagging to upgrade - it gives a false positive on piece of software I use daily on every machine I own and I couldn't see any way to stop it whinging about it permanently.

The best AV software is encased in bone. The stuff installed on PCs is just a fallback safety mechanism.

isofa

The Avira nag screen is very simple to disable, just google it...

aliEnRIK

Well Avast is an 'all in one' that has email scannijg, no nag screen but definitely runs slower than Avira
Avira is the quickest and lightest with no email scanning and one nag screen whenever you update (daily I think default is)
The nag screen in Avira CAN be removed if you google for it

[Deleted User]

kwikbreaks wrote: »

The reason I don't use Avira is nothing to do with nagging to upgrade - it gives a false positive on piece of software I use daily on every machine I own and I couldn't see any way to stop it whinging about it permanently.

May I suggest you simply upload the file? I've done this once in the past and they replied within a few hours and the next update included my false-positive find. Other than it not happening, you can't ask for more than that!

http://analysis.avira.com/samples/

isofa wrote: »

The Avira nag screen is very simple to disable, just google it...

aliEnRIK wrote: »

The nag screen in Avira CAN be removed if you google for it

I've given the link above...