Avast & Avira

[SafeSurf]

dogdog,

Welcome to the forum. 

We have helped many people here because they have had other resident AV's on their system, or remnants of other resident AV's thus causing problems.  Please listen to the previous posts about having not having more than one resident AV on your machine.  Granted, you have been very lucky so far, but how long will your luck last?

[Gargamel360]

My luck lasted about a month, when I first installed Avast! on top of the McAfee that came bundled with my pc.
Seemed logical, turning McAfee off, keeping it for on-demand purposes.  But logic is only sound when you see the whole picture, which I did not.  

Hindsight came in the form of many BSOD's.  

I wasn't unlucky enough to get a reboot-loop or anything that nasty, but still unpleasant and potentially damaging.
Save yourself the headache.  Layer different forums of protection, not the same.

[SafeSurf]

I agree with layering your security lines of defense.  This along with safe browsing practice, common sense, and keeping your software up to date are are few more good practices.

[Lisandro]

avast has a better update scheme (servers), is much more configurable and could fit the users needs, do not have the stupid annoying popups that Avira insist to give to their users.
avast is very good on infected websites detection (Avira let this only for the paid version) and also for pdf exploits, scripts, etc.
Avira has a good heuristic detection and also file detection is, generally, at higher rates that avast.

[gautam7]

Hi, dogdog,

If u want to use two AV then u should use MSE and Avast. they are compatible read here http://blog.avast.com/2009/08/28/greetings-from-redmond/ but i dont think its advisible. There is no point using two AV, instead u can use Avast with MBAM or SAS, as a on demand scaner these two are probably the best out there.

[ravi16aug]

Just install avast! first with at-least file shield. This will act as your resident AV. Now install Antivir via a custom install without the guard component. This will act as an on-demand scanner.

[DavidR]

Hi, dogdog,

If u want to use two AV then u should use MSE and Avast. they are compatible read here http://blog.avast.com/2009/08/28/greetings-from-redmond/ but i dont think its advisible. There is no point using two AV, instead u can use Avast with MBAM or SAS, as a on demand scaner these two are probably the best out there.

No you shouldn't use MSE and avast either as MSE is also a resident AV, you can disable its resident function, but some have reported a) heavier resource usage and b) still some conflict between the two.

[DavidR]

Just install avast! first with at-least file shield. This will act as your resident AV. Now install Antivir via a custom install without the guard component. This will act as an on-demand scanner.

The same rules apply, sooner or later the low level drivers are going to bite you in the ass.

[gautam7]

Hi David,

After reading that avast blog i contacted the avast support team asking for clarrification on using MSE and Avast together. i got a reply from avast saying i can use them both but this is not advisible. I m just giving the info. i m not in a mood to try this for sure.

[DavidR]

The problem is that the blog isn't really showing real life experiences that are reported in the forums.

[Gopher John]

I have ClamWin AV http://www.clamwin.com/ installed.  The scanner is not memory resident, but a ClamTray.exe sits in the system tray.  ClamFresh component downloads signature updates in the background.  I use it's right click context menu in Windows Explorer as a second opinion for downloads, along with the other programs in my signature.  There is no conflict.  I've been using it with Avast for a few years, AVG before that.

[Lisandro]

No you shouldn't use MSE and avast either as MSE is also a resident AV, you can disable its resident function, but some have reported a) heavier resource usage and b) still some conflict between the two.

+1

[dogdog]

dogdog,

If you want to use two av's, use:

http://www.clamav.net/about/win32/

or

http://www.immunet.com/main/index.html

or

http://www.cloudantivirus.com/en/

with avast! or Avira or ZASS or any other av.

Why wouldn't these 3 conflict with the base AV (be it Avast, Avira etc) for the reasons stated by DavidR??

[Lisandro]

http://www.clamav.net/about/win32/

It could be installed as non-resident, only on-demand. So, no conflict.

http://www.immunet.com/main/index.html

It's a cloud antivirus and not a local file one. So, no conflict (yet).

http://www.cloudantivirus.com/en/

Panda cloud antivirus is not compatible with avast (or it wasn't compatible...).

[dogdog]

Thanks.

What is a "Cloud Anti Virus"??

ClamAV's web site claims that ClamAV is compatible with other anti virus software (including Avast, Avira and others) - see:
http://www.clamav.net/about/win32/


PS for Tech: As a separate matter - I see that you use Comodo Time Machine and TrueCrypt. I have seen posts that suggest compatibility problems with these two products. What is your experience?? Are you using TrueCrypt just for volumes or are you encrypting partitions??