Avast Free Anti-Virus - Comments Page 1

For several years, I have used Avast! on both a laptop and on one of my two desktop PCs. I find it easy to deal with, totally effective, and much less obtrusive than the apparently equally effective McAfee software I have on my other desktop. I can get McAfee for free from Comcast, my ISP. Thus I could install McAfee on all three machines for nothing, but being not just satisfied but highly pleased with Avast! I have no reason to do so. As a bruised and bedraggled survivor of wars with the rapacious Symantec over its Norton programs, I am grateful to Alwil for providing such fine software for free.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I always advise people to shun bloatware packages like McAfee, Norton, etc. The collateral damage they cause is just not worth the price. And the freebies are SO good, why bother?

I have a couple of XP machines connected by a cross-over ethernet cable and AVG would not install on the main machine. Kept getting errors, so gave up and used Avast on that one and it seems to do the job. One minor quirk was that it kept denying me access to a couple of perfectly safe .exe files (no-install programs) when I wanted to use them. A Windows (not Avast) box came up saying that I didn`t have permission to access and the short-cut icons kept changing to the generic Windows ones. Took me a while to realise that it was actually Avast`s resident protection that was causing it and I had to disable it to rustle up the programs. The only clue I have is that they were originally downloaded into my "Downloads" folder but subsequently moved to the "programs" folder and a short-cut created and I vaguely seem to remember reading somewhere that Avast regards the files as suspicious because they have come from elsewhere. Could that be the case?

Yes, I swear by Avast too ! (I'm using it for 5 - 9 years now...) After (many) friends complained about their (PAID!) Nortons, McAffees, Pandas etc., I installed for them the free Avast AV. They ALL agreed that Avast is Ffffffantastic and much easier, smoother, nothing-to-worry-about...

Especially McAffee and Norton kinda "take over" your system, while Avast is just sitting there nice and quietly and only comes to action when it's needed.

Thumbs up for Avast !

So far i had no problem with useing AVG-- but a first i did not like the new format-- adding spyware to a anti vius-- but now im sort of use to it. to each his own i guess.

I wouldn't have or own a computer without Avast in control. Just install it and let it do it's thing. You'll love it.

I used Kaspersky for a while, and setting it up just gives me a headache. Now? Avast runs nice and replys to what I ever demand. Wise choice, I'd say.

I would not go past Avast. It is better than a whole lot of paid antivirus solutions and has never let me down. I have managed to get my family and friends to change to Avast and everybody has been very happy with it. It just goes to show that there is a free alternative for all sorts of software - which works very well.

Avast is indeed a friendly and reliable anti-virus program. However, I noticed that on the machines I have Avast installed, downloads occasionally "stop", meaning, download data (speed, estimated time, progress bar, etc...) won't update. When I disable several providers, it doesn't happen at all.

Been using Avast for years, have installed it on many others machines after their purchesed big name programs were infected. M%f^e and N@r^#n were a couple that I've seen miss infections caught by Avast. Great program, the price is right and auto updates!

We've used and loved Avast! for several years now. When we were using McAfee, a virus got through & crashed our system. A "geek support" guy cleaned it up for us and brought it back with Avast! installed.

We've been completely virus free for the entire time we've used it, with only one exception. About a year ago the Pakes virus somehow got past it and infected our laptop. Hopefully they have updated it by now though to catch Pakes. Still, you can't beat Avast!, and I wouldn't use anything else.

Another cool thing I recently discovered: I bought a SanDisk Cruzer micro thumb drive, and found that a free trial of Avast! came with it! So, wherever I take my thumb drive, on whatever computer I plug it into, Avast will check that computer system to make sure it's infection free and to protect the thumb drive from being corrupted. After the free trial ends, it still works but no longer updates automatically when you plug in the thumb drive. I believe the purchase cost is about $20.

I go back and forth using AVG and Avast!. I love the automatic updates with Avast!, but, must mention, Avast! can be a problem to uninstall or remove from your computer. I installed it on a friend's computer and she had issues with Avast! and Zone Alarm. Believe me, Zone Alarm is not very friendly with many Anti-Virus programs. I told her to simply uninstall Avast! and re-install AVG. Next day, she called me and told me, she couldn't get Avast! to uninstall. I quickly got to the Avast! website and found that they have a small program for removing the Avast! program. I must admit, that bothered me. Earlier versions of Avast! didn't have this problem, so why with the latest versions? It was easy to remove, once you used their removal program, but, I say, how many people will go back to the original website and look for stuff, like this? Geeks will, but not the average computer user, who hasn't a clue about what they are doing, in the first place. I am only mentioning this, to make others aware of an important issue about Avast!. Overall, Avast! is a wonderful product and does a jam-up job of it!!!

Sorry, forgot to mention a couple of things in my earlier post.

For those who are use to AVG with their schedule capabilities, Avast! doesn't have that feature. In other words, you must manually do a complete scan, to complete the virus protection. AVG will do this daily, if, you schedule it to do so. I think, a complete scan once a week is quite ok, UNLESS, you are constantly on the Internet, on a daily basis, then you should do a complete scan every other day or so.

But, Avast! really does a jam-up job, overall. I have also found, that Avast! seems to take less resources when running in the background and a GOOD Anti-Virus program needs to be running in the background, for your protection.

been using Avast for at least 4 years, have nothing but praise for it, and it`s free

Thanks Bob, for the heads up on the anti-virus software. I have been using the Grisoft AVG free for about 6 years, and have only had one virus problem. It could have been my fault, but I digress.

When I up-graded to the latest version, I have had trouble enabling the auto-updates. It seems that every time I selected the automatic mode, the program would reset to a mode that would not work. This resulted in my having to have to go through the update process manually. Hassle!

Through your newsletter, I discovered the Avast. I am not sure about its effectiveness yet, but I like the way that it shows me that it is working by the message display at the bottom of my screen. That is a reassurance that it is on the job. Keep up the good work!

Over the last 25+ years I've used quite a number of fee and free anti-virus solutions but always found a reason to change to something 'better'. For the last several years I've exclusively used the home avast! and have remained very pleased with this solution.

Very useful files search engine. indexoffiles.com is a search engine designed to search files in various file sharing and uploading sites.

I use Avast free AV, and it has not let me down. It runs smooth, and it knocks out spyware, adware, and viruses as it detects them.

I've been using avast! for a long time as previously commented here. However the superset function of Windows Defender as replaced in the new Microsoft Security Essentials convinced me to uninstall avast! and try MSE available at http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/ . I was surprised MSE found one virus and one Trojan on my Vista Business x64 PC that avast! had missed ( both products run with a full scan, not partial or quick scan). Research proved these detections were real and not false positives. So I'm pleased with MSE.

I have never used avast due to the really weird interface. I use AVG 8.5 Free and was going to upgrade to version 9 but after what I read it is not that good. I might go for avast now or avira.

I've been using Avast since Norton and McAfee became bloatwares. Love it, esp version 5 where you can now schedule autoscan (To MmeMoxie: checkout version 5).

AVG is s-l-o-w but packs a decent punch too. I may try Norton again since it received high praises. But man, did I hate it 10 years ago when it starts slowing down the computer and messed around with everything including your file explorer. Then uninstalling it was a nightmare.

Kudos to Avast. As computer consultant, I continue to recommend it.