Free Anti-vrus

suzanne

Hi All,
Just wondered if its ok to run Avira Free anti-virus and Avast! at the same time??
Cheers Suzanne

Hammyman

No. Apart from slowing your system down it can actually disable one or the other or both. Use one for realtime scanning and set the other to on demand only, manually running it periodically.

Anthonis

No. You have to have only one antivirus. You could try free Microsoft Security Essentials if you have genuine windows. Both Avira and Avast are good, but Avira is more simple and faster.

suzanne

Wow that was quick!!! Thanks
I thought I would use Avast! for realtime and Avira for weekly scan, But each time I have run avira it isnt registering and says my Pc is unprotected???
Any thoughts??
Cheers Suzanne

EchoLocation

You only need one AV. If you want to use Avast, then just uninstall Avira. If you want to have a 'backup' AV scanner then there are a few online scanners - Kaspersky, Trend Micro etc - that you can use weekly. You might also want to have something like MS Security Essentials and/or Spybot running as well.

closed

use avast and malwarebytes for backup

despr8

suzanne wrote: »

Wow that was quick!!! Thanks
I thought I would use Avast! for realtime and Avira for weekly scan, But each time I have run avira it isnt registering and says my Pc is unprotected???
Any thoughts??
Cheers Suzanne

Yes you only need 1 anti-virus program. As has been mentioned having more than 1 will cause the computer to slow down considerably - as basically they will fight one and other for control. Whichever one you decide on, be sure when removing the other to use their own uninstallers, to make sure all remnants have gone. Avast has an uninstall utility and Avira has a removal tool (available on their respective websites)

Which operating system do you use? (xp/vista/windows 7)
In my experience (too many years as a computer repair tech) Microsoft Security Essentials performs well on vista and windows 7 machines, whilst AVG2012 FREE works well on xp machines. But every person has their own preference of what works for them. Scheduled scans in both can be set to whatever interval you want as well.

Malwarebytes and Superantispyware free are both excellent too for weekly manual scanning and will not conflict with your installed anti-virus.

waddler_8

EchoLocation wrote: »

You only need one AV. If you want to use Avast, then just uninstall Avira. If you want to have a 'backup' AV scanner then there are a few online scanners - Kaspersky, Trend Micro etc - that you can use weekly. You might also want to have something like MS Security Essentials and/or Spybot running as well.

Not with Avast or Avira, MSE is an antivirus too.

EchoLocation

waddler_8 wrote: »

Not with Avast or Avira, MSE is an antivirus too.

Blimey that's a bit worrying! I meant to type Ad-Aware - although I notice now that that has some basic realtime protection as well. Can only assume I had Microsoft Security Essentials in my head from reading another post!?

waddler_8

Part of Ad-aware's realtime protection does now include an antivirus engine - Based on GData I think, which itself is (or at least was) made up of the Avast & BitDefender engines.

giraffe69

I personally keep away from free AV software you can pick them up dirt cheap with full operations.

Your privilege. I think many here think it is not only saving money but actually getting a better product. My personal view is that Avast(and MSE also) provides better performance for free than Mcafee, for example, does for the £29 or whatever it is per year.