I have been using the free edition of avast for just over a year now and thought it was working pretty well until yesterday. I tried to email a file to someone and it was rejected because there was a Trojan (Tool Win32:LamBot) attached to the file. I thought "How could that be?...I have avast and it's been installed on this brand new machine since day one with auto updates working." In fact as I pondered this it auto updated right then.
So I scanned the file with avast and nothing. Scanned the entire folder, nothing. Scanned the entire hard drive, nothing. Scanned my entire system, nothing. After that I went and did an on line scan with...well let's just say another brand and they found some 30 viruses and Trojans that avast had failed to protect me from.
So what's the deal? Is it that you only get real protection if you buy the full version? Or is it that avast just can't get the job done, not to be rude about it, but seriously I can't go into battle with a paper shield and think it's made of the finest hardened steel. Hope you understand my point. Sure I know it's free, but if it's not going to afford me the same protection as the paid version you should call it "The free but useless version that will only stop a few viruses...maybe" or something like that, because right now I'm not very inclined to purchase the paid version if it's just a more colorful and costly paper shield.