Hi all,
Sorry to scratch open an old wound here, but I would like to add my view on this.
I believe strongly in test results, especially if they are from reliable sources.
In the AV tests (av-comparatives/Avtest.org) I can see avast is not doing so well, but then we must keep things in perspective!
first we ignore the paid Av's because we are getting Avast for FREE and that's a big +1 for me!
Second we look at the main contenders here Avira and AVG.
Avira is consistently scoring much higher than Avast, but then you must remember that the free Avira Does not scan E-mail, does not check sites, Does not check Scripts! it's basically only a scanner and file shield! (Don't forget their Horrifically aggressive intrusive advertising campaign)
AVG offers a little more than Avira and it consistently scores lower than Avast, AVG was never very good.
Here's a link to AV comparatives 2011 comparison. -
http://chart.av-comparatives.org/chart2.php(Set it from Jan to Dec and sort via detection rates and notice Avast had a bad year and still Owned 5 other products, plus a 95.6% detection rate is still very good!