I have paid versions of both avast! and Avira (antivirus only). Both are great products, but at this point I have to say I like avast! better. Main reason is avast! has way better self-defence than the current build of Avira.
About a month ago, I was planning to trial a software before I purchased it. Because some features are not available in the trial version, I decided to grab a key from the internet (very bad habit I admit
). I downloaded a keygen from p2p, which turned out to be a nasty file. I scanned it on my workstation which was protected by Avira at that time. Everything seemed clean. So I ran it. A strange window popped up which looked no way like a keygen. So I turned it off immediately. I rebooted the pc only to find avira was killed, and a bunch of nasty network processes were running. Tried to repair, but even the safe mode was broken (BSODs). Not blaming Avira here coz it's my bad. But if I had been using avast!, at least I would have been prompted for immediate action if its executables were being modified. (I always have its behavior blocker on.)
Another example is you can delete the whole profile folder of Avira 8 without warning. (I actually accidentally did this a few weeks ago and lost all my settings including protection password.) If you have used avast!, you'll know you won't be able to tamper its files so easily.
That said, Avira still has its advantages eg in detection rate. So if you're a safe surfer, I guess both would fit your requirements well.
