Antivirus Help Appreciated

sally0101

Hello

Please can someone help me with advice on free (trial) antivirus software? I have been using AVG but after several days I was almost ready to either cry or launch my PC out of the nearest window. It made it virtually impossible to do anything on my PC as it slowed things down so much. I also had the same problem with Avast.

I am using Windows XP and just want an antivirus that is free (until I can find out which one I want to buy) that will definately not slow down my PC.

45 minutes to open one email was beyond a joke. All advice greatly appreciated and many thanks in advance.

Sally:)

rrf494g

I've switched to "Avast" free anti-virus 'cos of the same problems.

macman

How much RAM do you have installed on your PC? Sounds like you have issues other than a resource-hogging AV program.
Try Avira, Avast or MSE instead-much better AV programs IMHO.
Or Kaspersky is free if you have Barclays online banking.

spud17

To add to macmans advice, if you've been trying AVs wily nilly as it were, have you been using their appropriate removal 'tool'? and not just un-installing.

By their nature such products leave remnants behind, which can interfere with subsequent AV installations.

AVG removal tool.

Avast removal tool.

Also any particular reason you have to buy one, plenty of free (and good) ones around.

Browntoa

moving to techie as I think you will get a better response there

closed

avast is the lightest of the free av's, it shouldn't slow your pc down noticeably unless you are running out of ram, what is your installed ram, commit charge, and peak commit from task manager/performance, post a hijackthis log.

sally0101

closed wrote: »

avast is the lightest of the free av's, it shouldn't slow your pc down noticeably unless you are running out of ram, what is your installed ram, commit charge, and peak commit from task manager/performance, post a hijackthis log.

Hello to all and thank you for all responses. I have no idea about technical stuff like ram. How do I find out?

Knarf44

To find out how much RAM you have Right Click the "My Computer" icon then click Properties. Under "Computer" it'll tell you how much is installed.

The figures Closed is referring to can be got by pressing CTRL-ALT-DELETE which opens the Windows Task Manager. Click the "Performance" tab and you'll see a box headed "Commit Charge" post the Total, Limit and Peak numbers from there.

macman

RAM: Go My Computer>Right Click>Properties>General Tab.
The RAM figure and other basic info about your machine (OS, CPU, etc) will be shown there.

aliEnRIK

Download HIJACK THIS (Make sure you click 'DOWNLOAD LATEST VERSION')
http://www.filehippo.com/download_hijackthis/
Click MAIN MENU then DO A SYSTEM SCAN AND SAVE A LOGFILE(Takes seconds) then post the log so we can see whats running
(do NOT do anything else with Hijack but scan and post the FULL log)
If you get a message that you cant write to the hosts file then Press the SHIFT key, and whilst holding it RIGHT CLICK and select RUN AS (admin)