This is my first time to post here in the Forum of Avast. And I guess this happened after the bad update yesterday. It got me into thinking what are my best options. Sorry if I will be mentioning some products which are competitors of Avast in some respects. I am not yet all too familiar with the rules here (although this is not an excuse considering I am a moderator in my ISP's subscriber forum board). At any rate, I know the moderators will edit it as they please.
The bottom line: Avast still gives protection comparable to the paid AVs that we NET-izens should avail of and take advantage.
With the bad update, it got me to thinking what are my real alternatives to Avast. I can't compromise protection but neither should I pay for it since I don't use my PC for any money making endeavors. It is the home users that are the REAL victims here since we are caught in between the cross fire of people who make money over the web (which is a very good way to earn one's keep), and those who are after to steal money or simply to wreak havoc on everyone. Except for credit card info, email usernames and passwords, and other stuff, basically, most home users don't have anything worth to a cyber criminal (I guess some people are just born to cause headaches to other people). Yet we get viruses and bad software from the internet. Thanks to Avast for providing their software free for home users.
I can't compromise security. Thus, I checked what paid anti viruses offer that supposed Free AVs can't offer. ESET, Kaspersky, and many others do offer scanning of web pages, messaging, peer to peer connections scanning, and a whole lot more. However, among the top free AVs (Avira, Avast, and AVG) only Avast can cover almost everything. In fact the Free Version is ALMOST the same as the Pro. I would understand the difference since a business enterprise has more needs compared to a home user like me. I have tried Avira's Antivir Personal and I feel inadequate with the protection they provide. Not to mention that they have very slow update servers, which can come to a standing halt on hours, but I heard they fixed this already. I have seen how AVG failed in many Internet shops here that use their product, specially the free version. I don't own an internet cafe, but back when I didn't have a home internet connection and had to rely on net cafes, I did see a lot of PCs being infected by a lot of bad software (I know because a friend who owns one even asked my help to repair some of his PCs in his net cafe). This is not to put a bad name on AVG but it was just what I saw with their product.
And for a free AV, they were actually fast in coming up with an update that fixed the bad update.
After what happened with the bad update, I am still with Avast. It is still the most comprehensive AV protection that one can have. For a free product, it definitely tops the rest. Prevention is still best compared to curing it. And Avast covers that for a free product. I don't believe there is anything that is free. As free users do their share of submitting files reported as false positives, giving feedback, and this is what I do when I see problems with the free software that I use. But to short change them (for the free version) when the info provided works well for the company, I guess this is what made me believe in Avast. Their free product is as good as the Pro. And this is coming from someone who have tested the free AVs by experience. At least for me, this is what I have seen and experienced. Just sharing... I hope people won't mind.
Mikos