Avast Free - safe for banking/shopping or not please?

[sams_mum]

Can you help with the following query please? Have tried searching the forum (including FAQs) to see if this has previously been covered but if so could not find, so apologies if it is there somewhere...

Have recently installed Avast free edition for my retired parents because the Virgin PC Guard was pretty much killing their PC. Am now considering moving to it myself when my free trial of McAfee (which came with the PC) comes to an end.

However, I'm confused as to whether the free version of Avast is safe for internet banking and shopping. Some reviews suggest it is and that the bought versions of Avast are only really needed for unusual usage such as small business use. However, much of the wording on the Avast home site suggest it is not.

Don't want to do anything dodgy, just buy manage accounts with the big high street banks and buy from major online traders (Amazon, M&S, etc), who mostly have secure transactions (which I would look for before a trade).

I'd like a definitive answer please, and if banking and shopping are not secure for the bog-standard home user (with Avast Free) then some understanding of why not.

All help very much appreciated.

[DavidR]

I have been using the free version of avast in various product versions for almost 6 years and no problems.

Your AV is one element of your overall security, your firewall is another and perhaps an other anti-spyware as a compliment to avast, check my signature.

[PTRPRO]

Be sure the URL is https. The S is for secure. Also be aware, and instruct your parents about phishing.

[MikeBCda]

I've used avast (free versions, like David) for a number of years and have had no problems with my bank, PayPal, etc.  My bank may or may not be unusual, in that their entire site is HTTPS, so I'm on a secure connection even if just viewing their public news and notices, hints & tips, etc., and not logged in to my own account.

[bob3160]

Same goes for me. 

[ardvark]

Hi...

There is a component of AVG that can work either with AVG Antivirus (integrated) or as a standalone product that will work with other AV's called AVG Identity Protection that addresses the issue you've written about. I purchased a copy it a while back for my laptop and it has run well beside Avira AV and can run in 32 or 64 bit versions of Windows.

Hope this helps...

God bless

[jeffj4873]

I have been online banking with AVAST for years. And almost all Banks have you logon Https rather than http.
Ardvark - the Lord must bless you for real using AVG. I would never use that software for a secure transaction.

[ardvark]

Ardvark - the Lord must bless you for real using AVG. I would never use that software for a secure transaction.

Hi...

Is AVG that bad? The ID component actually blocked a download I was attempting to obtain a while back because of how the program was attempting to execute.

God bless

[jeffj4873]

It didn't protect mycomputer at all. Worst case of malware and trojan attack I'd ever seen. No other antivirus projam had ever been that slack. Not Avast or Norton's. It took Avast to kill the Trojan and 3 different Malware programs to clean the pc. Since I have been with Avast, I don't experience Malware attacks anymore either. You like AVG, more power to ya, me I consider it the toy that you give your child so that he can mimic what you do. Sorry Brother. God Bless

[MikeBCda]

Slightly off-topic, but ... one of the biggest advantages of using your bank's online services is that it makes it much more convenient to monitor your accounts to spot any unexpected or unauthorized activity.  Better still if, like me, you also have Visa (or whatever) from the same bank, then you can check that too at the same time.

[OrangeCrate]

Slightly off-topic, but ... one of the biggest advantages of using your bank's online services is that it makes it much more convenient to monitor your accounts to spot any unexpected or unauthorized activity.  Better still if, like me, you also have Visa (or whatever) from the same bank, then you can check that too at the same time.

+1

Though I'm on Linux most of the time, I don't worry about using online banking on Windows, for the reasons already mentioned (keep everything updated, and don't do anything stupid).

And, like Mike, I try to do everything online. It's much easier to keep track of what's going on that way.

[ardvark]

It didn't protect mycomputer at all. Worst case of malware and trojan attack I'd ever seen. No other antivirus projam had ever been that slack. Not Avast or Norton's. It took Avast to kill the Trojan and 3 different Malware programs to clean the pc. Since I have been with Avast, I don't experience Malware attacks anymore either. You like AVG, more power to ya, me I consider it the toy that you give your child so that he can mimic what you do. Sorry Brother. God Bless

Hi...

You have to pay for the ID Protection component so I'm not sure if you had that installed or not. However, I can certainly understand how your experience could leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth concerning AVG's detection capabilities.

May God bless you as well

[Chris Thomas]

Avast is much better than AVG !

[cod head]

Reading ardvark's post I do not think he is promoting AVG anti virus he is talking about AVG Identity protection Program that will work alongside other A.V.software as I understand.ardvark is as we know a Avast user.Its not something I would use but if ardvark likes it in his layered protection its his choice.

[Shiw Liang]

Even it is not better than avast we should get respect to it right?
Because a program cannot be done just like this by everyone and they are offering virus and spyware protection.It is now up to users for which av they will choose