A Look At The Competition and Some Questions?

[Dch48]

I thought he was bragging on Avast, you seem a little harsh on him

I don't know if this was directly at me, if so, no I don't think it harsh as it really has nothing to do with the avast! Free/Pro/Suite forum, e.g. how other AVs deal with updates and scanning, etc.

As you can see from the other posts above it rapidly deteriorated into a tell me your story waffle, which again really shouldn't be in the avast! Free/Pro/Suite forum.

I don't think it "deteriorated" at all and I also think it is appropritae for where it was posted. It was meant ,in my view, to promote Avast! by comparing it to other offerings and pointing out it's strong points compared to those other products. People new to Avast! could find some of the information given to be useful. Just because we already know these things doesn't mean everybody does.

[DraKuL]

I thought he was bragging on Avast, you seem a little harsh on him

I don't know if this was directly at me, if so, no I don't think it harsh as it really has nothing to do with the avast! Free/Pro/Suite forum, e.g. how other AVs deal with updates and scanning, etc.

As you can see from the other posts above it rapidly deteriorated into a tell me your story waffle, which again really shouldn't be in the avast! Free/Pro/Suite forum.

I don't think it "deteriorated" at all and I also think it is appropritae for where it was posted. It was meant ,in my view, to promote Avast! by comparing it to other offerings and pointing out it's strong points compared to those other products. People new to Avast! could find some of the information given to be useful. Just because we already know these things doesn't mean everybody does.

Agreed. Its not totally inappropriate although SOME replies are a bit off topic.. Before purchasing a software, especially a security suite, some people tend to check out the forums/ ask others, do online searches about the software, and if they look around Avast! forums they will come straight to this section.. its good as long as you stick to the topic

[DraKuL]

I was using Norton Antivirus from the time I started using a computer and once I got to know about how it uses up system resources I checked the other best AVs available at the time, and if I'm correct Kaspersky and Bitdefender were on top at the time. I tried out both, but bit defender gave me so much trouble that I had to format my computer a several times and then I realized Bit Defender was the cause of it. It had a huge incompatibility with the system I had, or with the windows version I had at the time.

 Then I went on with Kaspersky till the begining of last year. Had a huge issue with it, whenever it was updating it used up my processor 100% ( I had another laptop at the time, not the one mentioned in my signature, it had similar specs but the processor was a centrino2 core2duo)

So the system started to freeze everytime it was updating, and then it was not only when KIS was updating, it started happening very frequenty which got terribly annoying and no matter how many times I contacted the KIS support, they couldnt identify the problem. Then Avast was recommended by a friend and I was reluctant to try it out at first, but I installed the free version and was fully satisfied, it speeded up my computer greatly! I finally decided to purchase the Internet Security later on, and I have to say, I'm thoroughly satisfied with this product and would fully recommend it to ANYONE!

Also there was a recent experience I'd like to share, I had a malware attack and Avast kept detecting it as a network threat but couldnt pin point to the cause of it. Then with every scan it said I had threats in my memory modules - programs that was running, Skype, chrome and several others. I wanted to see if Kaspersky would detect it so I removed Avast and installed the trial version of KIS 2011, updated it fully and scanned the computer, it didnt detect anything! I was really happy that Avast atleast DETECTED there was a suspicious activity! Then the forum moderators/ senior members  of Avast! informed me about Malwarebyte's antimalware (MBAM) and it got rid of  the problem for me and everythings back to normal! Avast IS + MBAM pro = the best protection you can get IMO I also have SAS pro but disabled the real time protection as 3 resident programs would cause a conflict ( I had them installed for a couple of days but nothing went wrong, still better stick with 2..) PC performance also increased significantly after removing the threats with MBAM.

[avoidz]

I kicked off with McAfee VirusScan in the late 1990s, which seemed like a pretty good product at the time. Then I had Norton Antivirus 2002 for a couple of years; that was also a good product (until recent versions). In about 2004 I downloaded avast! 4 and have been using and installing it on my own and other's PCs since then. It's a good piece of software for novices, as it has minimal pop-ups and requests for user interaction.

Version 6 is a nice upgrade, though I hope it doesn't become too bloated like a lot of once-good software has done over the years (Nero, PowerDVD, etc.). I'd like to see less prominent nags for upgrades to premium versions in the UI, and the sandbox mode doesn't really work for me. Scanning exe files also seems to take a lot longer than it used to; perhaps it's being more thorough?

Cheers