Should I Run AVG Anti-Virus Daily?

catlou

Previously on other versions of AVG Free anti-virus I have left it to run a daily scan as per the automatic settings. I have now installed AVG 8 and am finding that the daily scan now takes on average 2 hours and 45 minutes (think the others took less than an hour?) during this time my Pc is much slower.

Do any of you "experts!" think that it would be ok to maybe just run it once or twice a week?

Obviously I want to protect my Pc as best as I can but am finding it so slow it's really annoying me!! :eek:

Any feedback appreciated - Thanks!

espresso

catlou wrote: »

Previously on other versions of AVG anti-virus I have left it to run a daily scan as per the automatic settings. I have now installed AVG 8 and am finding that the daily scan now takes on average 2 hours and 45 minutes (think the others took less than an hour?) during this time my Pc is much slower.

Do any of you "experts!" think that it would be ok to maybe just run it once or twice a week?

Obviously I want to protect my Pc as best as I can but am finding it so slow it's really annoying me!! :eek:

Any feedback appreciated - Thanks!

Certainly no need to run it daily, probably once a month would be fine. It is protecting you in real time while you are using the PC.

isofa

As long as it's protecting with it's Resident Shield, then I'd say no. I tend to run a full scan once a month, and I've never had anything picked up, that wasn't already flagged up by the shield.

paddytehpyro

Do you have a Firewall and something ot detect spyware (spybot-search and destroy).

If you do then you could cut down on the number of scans to 3-4 times a month as the other software should keep alot of the bad stuff out. Of course it is best to scan your PC as often as possible.

Also it depends on the threats that AVG is detecting. Are you just getting tracer cookies or does it detect more serious threats?

I personally don't have AVG (although I will soon as the license on my McAfee is going to run out in a few days) but this information should be available by clicking a button at the end of a scan that says report or diagnosis if it doesnt show up automatticaly.

CHR15

I leave the resident shield running and only do a full scan if it picks anything up. I could go 6 Months without a full scan.

If you do want to be overcautious and run it weekly, run the scan manually before going to bed so it doesn't interfere with your work.

paddytehpyro

I personnaly have it scan on Sunday morning at 10am. So when I get up I turn the computer on before doing anything and it finishes before I need to do anything serious.

Another way is if your computer is set to go to sleep scan last thing at night as CHR15 suggests. I just dont do this personally as I dont want to leave my PC on overnight.

nikiyoung

You can get AVG to turn off your computer off when it has finished scaning. Go to "computer scanner", under "scan whole computer" click "change scan settings" then click on "additional scan settings" it will then ask you if it should "shut down the computer upon scan completion" tick the box and it will turn the computer off when it has finished. handy if your going to bed or off to work and want to leave the computer running its scan.
My last scan took 3 hours+! so I have changed it to scan once a week instead of once a day as it was set up! think I'll change it to once a month if you think that wil be ok.
Niki