An old fight : Avast! vs Antivir

[jwall]

What I didn't like about AntiVir aside from the updating:
 
It always left behind empty files in the windows\temp directory, so you had to go in and clean out once in awhile.  This was after it updated.

The resident scanner, Guard, when booting up would access my a: drive, which is normal, but when doing so, the a: drive would make a racket, clunk clunk clunk.  When I turned off the resident scanner, no more noise.  It's more annoying than anything else.  AVG did this also, but only one clunk.  Avast is also accessing the a: drive on boot up, but no noise, just the light on the a: drive on.  Other users reported a: access when using certain programs.

My biggest peeve about AntiVir is the lack of control over the resident scanner.  You can turn it off, but it doesn't stay off.  When you reboot, it's back on again.  I see the reasoning behind this, but there are times when I want it off.  The only solution to this was to not load it in the first place, or an AntiVir user offered a batch file fix, basically an on and off switch.  Another PITA and AntiVir's attitude of not listening and maybe changing this.  It was the same with the a: drive thing.  They don't say it's a bug.

Sorry to rant about AntiVir, this is an Avast forum after all
Just my newbie opinion and they are free after all.

[skysecret]

Avast and Antivir not conflict in the same computer but they need to set .
In my opinion, Antivir is good at kill virus and Avast is good at defend.
Heuristic scan is a trend in future .But now the technology is not mature.
Avast defend is great.
Block virus inbreak is better than kill virus after system infected.
I think Avast add a firewall and have a good custom in the internet,infect virus will  be very difficult. 

PS:I have delete Antivir because updates are a problem and i belive avast will protect my computer  forever 

[DavidR]

Sorry to say it but there are many documented occurrences of conflict between avast and antivir in the forums. The only way to achieve it is by hacking things so that antivir isn't resident, but this isn't something to undertake for your average user.

By all accounts If you have Vista it is a little more tolerant to two resident AVs, I don't have Vista so I can't confirm this.

[jwall]

DavidR,
Just to clear things up a bit.  I have XP SP2 and only run one AV at a time.  When I tried the AVs, I only ran one at a time.  AntiVir always say not to run two AVs
I was just trying to find the best one for me, which for now is avast.

Am I missing something?  How did this switch to running two AVs on one machine?

[DavidR]

Only running one at a time makes no difference, the critical action is 'having' two resident AVs installed at the same time. The nature of being resident loads virtual; drivers and services that even if you aren't actually running one those services and virtual device drivers may conflict with the other.

So Antivir is correct in saying not to run two AVs though it could have gone further in its explanation. There is nothing wrong in having an on-demand AV like BitDefender 'free' that is on-demand only as a back-up scanner.

My reply was to skysecret's post, directly before mine, had it been for someone else then I would have quoted their post.

The reply by skysecret's comment about there not being a conflict in having avast and antivir, that could be taken as good advice and some might follow that which could cause conflict and possibly leave you less protected. That is why I clarified that it shouldn't be done.

[jwall]

OK, thanks.
I should have been more accurate in saying that AntiVir does say not to run two resident scanners, just as you mentioned.
That's what I meant to say

[DavidR]

Your welcome.

[JerryM]

A couple of times I tried to use AVG with Avast Home. I disabled AVG as best I could, and ran Avast as the real time resident, but after a short time I could not get my email. Removing AVG solved the problem. As I stated I tried this twice.

I have not tried to have two AVs installed at the same time since. I know it is some trouble to install and uninstall several, but in the long run I am convinced that is the best way to determine what works best on a particular system.

Best,
Jerry

[Lisandro]

A couple of times I tried to use AVG with Avast Home. I disabled AVG as best I could, and ran Avast as the real time resident, but after a short time I could not get my email. Removing AVG solved the problem. As I stated I tried this twice.

I've follow the same way until I gave up and recognize AVG (on-demand) is not compatible with avast (on-access and on-demand).

I have not tried to have two AVs installed at the same time since. I know it is some trouble to install and uninstall several

Do you want to see a 'live' problem with two antivirus at the same time?
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=30203.msg249120#msg249120

[Jem]

For what it's worth, I never recommend to any of my customers that they take the risk of running 2 AV's at once. You might be lucky, but in my view it isn't worth the risk as the thread above might indicate. You could well have a problem that's harder to solve than having a virus...!