AVG antivirus, reviews of it?

Stressica

Is this free antivirus software reliable and hassle free for those who have it?

http://free.avg.com/ie-en/homepage

Thanks

Duggy747

For the past 2 months I've had a lot of people come to me with "User Profile cannot be loaded" error when they try to log in, essentially blocking them from their machine if it was Windows 7.

The main culprit has been AVG with it happening as soon as people either installed or updated it.

Even on top of that, I'm not a fan of AVG as it's resource hungry and has a knack for altering settings without letting you know.

Stressica

what would you recommend avast or avira? or are there other free ones

yoyo

Stressica wrote: »

what would you recommend avast or avira? or are there other free ones

Avast or Microsoft Security Essentials, either I'd recommend

Nick

200motels

Panda is an excellent free anti virus.

youllneverknow

I prefer to use Avira, its user friendly and simple to use. its also very secure which is most important.
AVG is hit and miss it can us be great on some updates then the next one might be crap crap.

Mr. G

Microsoft security essentials and avg free should be fine for the average user. That's what I'd recommend.

Avast is good too.

Boom_Bap

Microsoft Security Essentials is my recommend.

AVG is pretty good, but I found it gets fairly resource heavy after a while, and the reminders to renew or to purchase a full version can get a bit annoying.

mondeo

AVG unfortunately is really heavy these days and truly slows my machine down quite abit. I'm researching a nice light weight anti virus program. AVG free is full of ads to.

Bog Standard User

avg has had it's day... it used to be good but these days its so full of bloatware it is not very good anymore.

i use avast... have done for years. cant fault it.

MSE is good but i prefer Avast

yoyo

Mr. G wrote: »

Microsoft security essentials and avg free should be fine for the average user. That's what I'd recommend.

Avast is good too.

Just to point out you should only ever have one anti virus program installed at once. This doesn't apply to anti malware products generally

Nick

Duggy747

I generally find MSE + Adblock Plus to be a good pair which should keep the average person safe, especially on low-end machines.

Stressica

hmm confusing stuff, especially since I'm not a techy person, all this malware stuff is like Dutch to me? im deciding between the Microsoft one and avast, which one gives more protection?

yoyo

Stressica wrote: »

hmm confusing stuff, especially since I'm not a techy person, all this malware stuff is like Dutch to me? im deciding between the Microsoft one and avast, which one gives more protection?

Choose one of them only, both provide sufficient protection. Avast has more frequent updates, but that doesn't mean it will protect you 100% either (no anti virus program can claim this).

Nick

Skill Magill

The Garda virus got through my avast protected laptop, it was an avg boot disc that got rid of it

Stressica

going to go with avast I think... just due to general reviews online... just don't want one that slows laptop down???

Skill Magill

Stressica wrote: »

going to go with avast I think... just due to general reviews online... just don't want one that slows laptop down???

I still use avast though, it has an option of a boot time scan which I use now n then

Stressica

downloading AVAST now... predicted time to download shows over 4 hours waah

Freddy Smelly

Skill Magill wrote: »

The Garda virus got through my avast protected laptop, it was an avg boot disc that got rid of it

avast blocked garda virus for me

i am using the latest build of avast

quaidox

Bog Standard User wrote: »

avg has had it's day... it used to be good but these days its so full of bloatware it is not very good anymore.

i use avast... have done for years. cant fault it.

MSE is good but i prefer Avast

eh.......bloatware???? please elaborate.....i use avg free, and would love to know the bloatware you are referring to here, cheers.

Mr. G

Antivirus is only as good as its user. Just because you have antivirus does not mean you will not get a virus. You still need to do scans (or schedule them), and you should not cancel the scans "just because it slows down your pc". You should do a boot time virus scan every once in a while also.

You should scan unknown usb sticks before using them. Some software automatically scans through them before allowing you to use them, thus helping prevent worms getting on your computer.

These small steps can help a lot from preventing a virus getting on your computer. Of course there are times when even an advanced user will get a virus, but just installing an antivirus on your computer and not using it will not protect you.

anncoates

I'm using Windows 8 and also finding AVG an irritant. Was going to switch to Avast.

Does anybody recommend Windows Defender seeing as I can't use MSE?

yoyo

anncoates wrote: »

I'm using Windows 8 and also finding AVG an irritant. Was going to switch to Avast.

Does anybody recommend Windows Defender seeing as I can't use MSE?

Defender is the new name for MSE in Windows 8. It's basically the same product. Honestly Defender in 8/8.1 and MSE for others is fine for most. Avast does get more frequent updates, but nothing will protect against unknown 0 day exploits, the common cause of most infections.
Also it's crucial to keep Java/Flash/browsers etc. up to date as most exploits commonly use browser plugins or out dated browsers. Keeping the OS up to date is also important

Nick

CreepingDeath

Skill Magill wrote: »

The Garda virus got through my avast protected laptop, it was an avg boot disc that got rid of it

AVG (free version) caught and stopped a Garda virus attempt recently.

Although I installed Avast on another machine and was impressed that it performed an update check on my software for the latest patches, eg. Adobe products, FoxIT, Java etc.

anncoates wrote: »

Does anybody recommend Windows Defender seeing as I can't use MSE?

No.

I used to use Microsoft Security Essentials, but will be moving away after this article http://www.howtogeek.com/173291/goodbye-microsoft-security-essentials-microsoft-now-recommends-you-use-a-third-party-antivirus/