Why AVG downloads are >> Avast?

[cimmind]

Hi..
The only AV products i have used myself are Norton and Avast, and i can say for sure Avast beats N hands down!

I am happy with my current use of Avast. But one thing puzzles me... virtually in all good download sites, AVG downloads are way way more than Avast.. Is it herd mentality or is AVG better than Avast.

I for myself chose Avast because i have a low-resource gig and research told me that Avast offered modular structure that could be used to optimize system usage.

What bothers me is that usually (most of the times, not invariably though!) the most downloaded software is usually the one best in their own category. Eg. IrfanView, Firefox, Revo uninstaller etc.   

Then why not Avast among the freeware AVs?

 

[onlysomeone]

Hi Cimmind!

First I can tell you that it was a good choice to use avast!

I don't know if this is the case this times, but often money is important in this business...
And with money I mean especialy advertisement (and a bit of corruption )...

Alwil doesn't spend much money in advertisement (at least I haven't seen any ads...), but in improving their products.
For other companies advertisement seems to be more important than a good product.

In the picture I added you can see the sponsored/paid links when you search for "antivirus"...

yours
onlysomeone

[Mr.Agent]

http://malwareresearchgroup.com/?page_id=2
http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_report21.pdf

For sure Avast! has done great.

Mr.Agent

[rdmaloyjr]

Hi..
The only AV products i have used myself are Norton and Avast, and i can say for sure Avast beats N hands down!

I am happy with my current use of Avast. But one thing puzzles me... virtually in all good download sites, AVG downloads are way way more than Avast.. Is it herd mentality or is AVG better than Avast.

I for myself chose Avast because i have a low-resource gig and research told me that Avast offered modular structure that could be used to optimize system usage.

What bothers me is that usually (most of the times, not invariably though!) the most downloaded software is usually the one best in their own category. Eg. IrfanView, Firefox, Revo uninstaller etc.   

Then why not Avast among the freeware AVs?

It's most likely herd mentality.   avast! & Opera are best in their categories.

Firefox pales in comparison with Opera.

[igor]

Well, maybe you see more downloads, but if you check AVG webpage, it says "AVG products are running on over 80 million computers worldwide."... which is about the same as the number of avast! users at the moment.

[cimmind]

Thanks for the replies..

@onlysomeone:
Hi.. i have seen AVG on many of my colleagues' PCs. Its interface does not seem to have too many ads? Are you referring to commercial software, as i specifically mentioned why Avast is not the top download among freeware AV programs. To the best of my knowledge, AVG is not adware.

A person always values his/her personal experience best. And i myself do not have a high opinion of AVG. I have personally seen two comps having AVG as antivirus, with their system tray icon grayed out rather than being green-yellow, and both severly infected. I used MBAM to remove tens and in the other one hundreds of malware from the infected machines! However, i dont recall the reason for the grayed out icon.

@Mr.Agent
I have not checked the link you have posted, but are you sure? I have directly seen the av-comparatives site and their recent tests have infact rated Avast as among the poorest performers among 16 brands.
There is an ongoing thread dedicated to the issue.  
  

[Mr.Agent]

Cimmind well On-Demand Avast! is better

Also AVG if im not wrong they didnt scan memory.

-------------------------------------------------

Avast! 5 will be a amazing release soon. And now i think the downloads will up more for Avast! if im not wrong.

Happy to see a reply from you igor.

Greets.

Mr.Agent

[Tarq57]

I think in large part "herd mentality" plays a part. And maybe a dash of ignorance. Can explain why programs like AdAware are still popular, despite not being all that effective. (But they find cookies, and MRU lists, which seems to impress some users, keen to know why their computers are slow. Cookies and MRU lists must be the reason!)
Inertia is a large part of it, too. The average user probably doesn't want to learn how to use a different security application. Heck, the average user doesn't want to have anything to do with the AV.

[Lisandro]

We can (must) change our minds from time to time, think out of the box. I'd like avast criticism if it improves avast
AVG and Ad-aware are some kind of advertisement cases

[cimmind]

I think in large part "herd mentality" plays a part. And maybe a dash of ignorance. Can explain why programs like AdAware are still popular, despite not being all that effective. (But they find cookies, and MRU lists, which seems to impress some users, keen to know why their computers are slow. Cookies and MRU lists must be the reason!)
Inertia is a large part of it, too. The average user probably doesn't want to learn how to use a different security application. Heck, the average user doesn't want to have anything to do with the AV.

LOL!
I was part of that herd. And i do smile everytime i see Lavasoft adaware so high on the download.com top freeware list!

But you cant blame the average user. We usually go by the instinct that if so many others are using it, it must be good.

Out of the 12 Firefox extensions i have, 10 were picked while browsing thru the 'most popular' list. Only two did i pick up by directly reaching the extension's page at mozilla.
  
 

[onlysomeone]

@onlysomeone:
Hi.. i have seen AVG on many of my colleagues' PCs. Its interface does not seem to have too many ads? Are you referring to commercial software, as i specifically mentioned why Avast is not the top download among freeware AV programs. To the best of my knowledge, AVG is not adware.

No, I'm sorry that I stated a bit fuzzy... but thats me

I meant that AVG possibly makes more advertisement on homepages... that means that they pay tenthousands of dollars/euros/... to for example "CNet" or any other popular homepage just to put there advertisement there...
Or they pay money that their antivirus program is the first one listed in search results...
(I don't know if AVG does this, but it would be possible... other antivirus vendors do...)

Have a look at the picture I added:
I typed only the two letters "av" into the search field of cnet.
From the suggested words there is 1 entry for avast, 1 entry for avira antivir and there are 6 entries for AVG...
and AVG is on the first place of the results although the alphabet would place avast first...
Now the question is why is it like it is?
Is it just like this because so many people usualy search for AVG or can money be a reason... we will never know...
(I sometimes am a conspiracy theoretician by the way )

yours
onlysomeone

[cimmind]

That could be part of the reason. But does it imply that AVG is by no means better than Avast?

I really liked Tech's quote that "criticism that helps improve avast is good". A person learns every day.. E.g. i just learnt that Paris Hilton has an IQ of 126. (http://www.kontraband.com/pics/17760/The-Truth-Even-When-It-Hurts/), Totally off-topic but could not resist posting it. Somehow i always had a hunch her IQ will be plus 100!
Of course, we are the people who believe everything on the Internet is true.
    

[rdmaloyjr]

I've seen AVG ads in magazines, but no avast! ads.

I've seen boxed AVG products for sale in stores, but no avast! for sale in stores.  Displays of products for sale in stores is a form of advertising.

Word of mouth is avast!'s main form of advertising.  Something more aggressive would be better than ads on the gui to get more downloads of Pro.

[Tarq57]

Something more aggressive would be better than ads on the gui to get more downloads of Pro.

That's actually a very good point, in that the folk who are reading the GUI banner are (in the main) already quite aware of how good the program is.

[Lisandro]

Something more aggressive would be better than ads on the gui to get more downloads of Pro.

I always post the same: the major competitor of avast Pro is avast Home. The home version is too good to be truth since I've found it 6 years ago... The pro features aren't enough to make user to move from home to pro. So, maybe, they could think in other features on Pro. Maybe the firewall and the anti-spam and other things will make the avast 5 suite more attractive to users of avast home. Who knows...