Avast says No, Norton says Yes! What's going on?

[Radioman1017]

I have both Avast and Norton on my system.  I'm a fan of Avast but my wife installed software that put Norton on.  Prior to removing it, it ran and came up with some viruses.  I sent Avast after them and thought that was the end.  However, Norton ran again about a week later and found two more viruses.  Again, I set Avast on them but nothing came up.  I even went as far as trying to target the files.  Nothing. 

So now I'm stuck.  My faith is Avast is shaken.  However, I wouldn't put it past Norton to fake viruses to get people to upgrade.  (Sorry Symantec, but with what it takes to remove your software, I don't put anything past you.)

What's going on?  Why is Avast not seeing these? 

[sded]

Try sending the viruses to Virus Total at http://www.virustotal.com/ .  It will scan them with a whole bunch of AVs and give you whatever new information is available.

[micky77]

I have both Avast and Norton on my system.  I'm a fan of Avast but my wife installed software that put Norton on.  Prior to removing it, it ran and came up with some viruses.  I sent Avast after them and thought that was the end.  However, Norton ran again about a week later and found two more viruses.  Again, I set Avast on them but nothing came up.  I even went as far as trying to target the files.  Nothing. 

So now I'm stuck.  My faith is Avast is shaken.  However, I wouldn't put it past Norton to fake viruses to get people to upgrade.  (Sorry Symantec, but with what it takes to remove your software, I don't put anything past you.)

What's going on?  Why is Avast not seeing these? 

What are the names of the viruses,the names and locations of the infected files. Running two AV's on one machine is ridiculous ( especially Norton )

[Tarq57]

What micky77 said: Names/paths of detections, please.

Norton will not deliberately fake a detection. (Like any AV, it might have the occasional FP.) There is a name for any security application faking a detection:rogue.
Really serious label. Not one casually stooped to.

Could be that Norton has found something that isn't in Avasts' database - (tomorrow it could be the other way around), or it may be that Norton has captured and killed something truly terrifying, like a feral tracking cookie. 

[polonus]

Hi Radioman 1017,

It is never a good thing to put two resident av-programs onto one computer. It is like putting two guard dogs in front of a house, and then in stead of guarding the house they start a fight among each other for their signature files, so the one finds up the other's signatures (while it is not on the machine), it is hampering security in stead of enhancing it. So either use only avast or use just norton. You can combine a resident together with a non-resident av solution 'though (but not all work fine together, e.g. Panda non-resident and avast),

polonus

[DavidR]

Over and above what has already been said, no one program is going to provide 100% protection and on the other hand there is also no guarantee that what has been found is valid.

Which is why our questions about what was found (malware name) in what file name and location, helps us to see why it might have happened. Having Norton on a system with avast, you may find that some avast elements will have been disabled to avoid a conflict, so avast may not have been running fully.

You should check the offending/suspect file at virustotal.com and report the findings here the URL in the Address bar of the VT results page as sded suggests.

[Lisandro]

How did you manage to have Norton and avast in the same computer at the same time? Are you using Vista?

[.: L' arc :.]

My computer couldn't handle Norton and Avast together.. I tried running both but since then, I have to reformat my pc.. Same thing for NOD32+Avast

[DavidR]

Having two resident scanners installed is not recommended as rather than provide twice the protection it can cause conflicts that could leave you more vulnerable.

[antonpaco]

dear friend, the first thing you MUST do is decide between norton and avast, to keep both is a very bed mistake and pc can be worse the performance.

[Mr.Agent]

I would choice Avast because Norton i had it for my first pc and norton screwed it up so i installed mcafee he screwed up too then kaspersky too so now i buyed a new 10000000000x better pc and i installed avast and i never had problem with the product so i recommand you Avast! for his awesome protection,scan,script block and mush more features really good.

[Omid Farhang]

My computer couldn't handle Norton and Avast together.. I tried running both but since then, I have to reformat my pc.. Same thing for NOD32+Avast

They can work, I had both them for a month and I can say not any conflict, just lost about 20% of my system performance...
you would not have any problem if you Excluse them in each-other setting for real-time scanning, I had Norton 2009+avast! 4.8 Pro

dear friend, the first thing you MUST do is decide between norton and avast, to keep both is a very bed mistake and pc can be worse the performance.

Yes, you would loose your system performance if use this 2 AV beside each other, both are lighe and minor slow down your PC, but when come with each other they can slow down your PC (depending on your Hardware)

I would choice Avast because Norton i had it for my first pc and norton screwed it up so i installed mcafee he screwed up too then kaspersky too so now i buyed a new 10000000000x better pc and i installed avast and i never had problem with the product so i recommand you Avast! for his awesome protection,scan,script block and mush more features really good.

Yes! I had Norton for a limited of time and I had problem with missed Virus/Spyware and false positives detection... I LOVE avast! AV!!!

How did you manage to have Norton and avast in the same computer at the same time? Are you using Vista?

Tech, I had both of them in my Windows Vista, they work beside each-other, they would work without any problem specially if you set the settings to exculde each-other from real time scannin options

[DavidR]

There really is no 'they can work together,' yes you might have got away with it for a month without anything more than a degradation of performance. That however, is more luck than judgement, the problem is low level drivers if they do conflict it can at best cause duplicate scanning and duplicate alerts and at worst lock your system.

This locking can happen effectively at any time and it isn't unusual to see this happen on boot as the many topics attest to being locked out of their systems at boot. If you are able to boot into safe mode you can uninstall one AV and guess what the system boots normally when the conflict is removed.

So the safest advice is not to have two resident AVs installed at the same time.

[Lisandro]

Vista could handle them... but it's a very dangerous configuration, not recommended. One antivirus will fight with the other for the control over the files and virus... You could have low level conflicts and BSODs.

[Omid Farhang]

@DavidR: as always I should say you right, just I said yes about that if they work.

@Tech: I had not BSOD, just the problems DavidR noticed were mine too...