AutoHotkey Community

jballi · Joined: 01 Oct 2005 Posts: 337 Location: Texas, USA

After reading that AVG 7.5 Users Must Upgrade To 8.0 By May 31, 2008, I spent a few hours this afternoon upgrading to v8.01. The new version replaces the old version of AVG Free AntiVirus as well as AVG Anti-Spyware and AVG Anti-Rootkit.

The good news is that the new version is chocked full of new features. The bad news is that the new version ate my 4-year old P4 1G computer alive! Anytime I wanted to even look at an executable, the CPU would skyrocket to 100%. Compiling an AutoHotkey script usually failed on the first try because the virus scanner wasn't done working on the executable when the compile routine was ready to update it.

It took me about 40 minutes to figure out that the new version of AVG Free AntiVirus was unacceptable. I just wanted a small and unobtrusive antivirus program but the new version appears to try to do too much. Can you say "Bloaty bloppity bloatware?"

I recently read a good review on Avira AntiVir Personal Edition so I uninstalled AVG Free AntiVirus v8.01 and downloaded and installed the latest version of Avira AntiVir Personal Edition. Although I've only been using for a few hours, I'm fairly sure that I've found my new anti-virus software. It's going to be a few days of tinkering and testing to be sure but the performance of my machine has skyrocketed back to a "just like new" level. If Avira AntiVir Personal Edition doesn't work out, I'll give Avast! a try.

Them be my experiences. Your thoughts and comments are welcome!

Guest

...one bad thing is when Avira AntiVir Personal Edition updates you get an annoying popup...but you won't notice that for another 12-24 hours...

...I REALLY can't wait until ClamWin has an on-access scan!...

PhiLho · Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 11:53 am Post subject:

I understood that the new version displays ads now, or something like that.
I switched from AVG to avast! 4 family edition, and I am happy with that.
I also replaced the Norton AV coming with the computer of my wife with avast, despite her worrying about using a free software instead of payware (we bought one year sub of Norton).
Same for the Vista powered laptop we bought for her business.
The only very minor drawback is that it wants us to do a license request once a year (or every few months, I don't recall exactly), which is free and quite fast, so not a problem.
Good interface, not in the way, quite lightweight, a pleasure.
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vPhiLho := RegExReplace("Philippe Lhoste", "^(\w{3})\w*\s+\b(\w{3})\w*$", "$1$2")

Guest · Posted: Wed May 21, 2008 1:38 pm Post subject:

Icarus · Joined: 24 Nov 2005 Posts: 439

corrupt · Joined: 29 Dec 2004 Posts: 2393

In case anyone is interested... I've been using PC Tools AntiVirus (free version) as an alternative for a while now without any issues... Smile

Guest · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 8:38 am Post subject:

Oberon · Joined: 18 Feb 2008 Posts: 458

Guest

AVG is not *owned* by Intel, any more than Kaspersky Lab is *owned* by HP.

Intel made a minority investment in AVG Technologies (formerly, Grisoft) two years ago because they are very impressed by the AVG team's key engineers. Intel has added financing since then in the form of subordinated debt so that AVG can continue to expand at the exponential rate in sales growth they've been experiencing since the total networking and internet security industry in was basically *put in play* four years ago when Microsoft announced their intention to enter the industry.

BTW I'm sick and tired of hearing this nonsense about AVG 8.0 being bloatware. The plain fact is that is isn't. It's done something that the rest of the industry will do as johnny-come-latelies within the coming couple of years. AVG 8.0 merged three huge database engines into one: their former Anti-Spyware + their former Anti-Virus + their former Anti-Rootkit.

The addition of these three AVG programs last they were separated a few months ago was a lean 120MB. The new combined AVG 8.0 comes in at 1/3 that size. Next time you want to discuss "bloatware" in the context of security software, head over to Mozilla Firefox (or just look in your own system) or to your Sun Micro Java Runtime program or to your OpenOffice.org Suite - the results might shock all of these *enemies of bloatware* lol.

It ain't bloatware if it's mission-critically required stuff on your system.

My biggest bloatware (speaking personally) puts all of the above to shame - Crysis which I cannot do without! :P

neXt · Joined: 19 Mar 2007 Posts: 461

@Guest, FYI free products make money of enterprise editions and free versions for regular users is just a very clever way of marketing their product. But hey, if you wish to pay for something that can be obtained for free, go for it.
I already fell for this "paid AV is better" once, after all those great reviews and advises from IT specialists on Trend Microsystems i bought it, and guess what? All those employees with their servers failed big time in protecting my PC.
Ok, so i found NOD32 to be a good paid AV, but then just felt like this is ridiculous to always crack their program and look for free update servers when there are free antiviruses. Long story short, i installed Avast and i'm very happy that i did, because it already proved to me that it can detect and protect my PC from viruses.

corrupt · Joined: 29 Dec 2004 Posts: 2393

jballi · Joined: 01 Oct 2005 Posts: 337 Location: Texas, USA

If you still haven't decided which antivirus program to go with, Lifehacker just posted a new article on the Five Best Antivirus Applications. It includes a poll so you can vote on your favorite. If you have time, read the Comments at the bottom.

corrupt · Joined: 29 Dec 2004 Posts: 2393

Guest · Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2008 7:19 am Post subject:

Avir has been working ok for me. AVG has not only grown big and clumsy, it doesn't detect viruses near as well as it used to. It’s dropped to the bottom of every poll I’ve seen.

I think Norton quit making virus scanners a year or two ago. I have had two people bring me computers that were too bogged down to function, both of them were only a few months into a 360 subscription. Norton did a great job of not letting any other scanners operate. Once I was able to remove Norton I cleaned more than 60 infections from each of them. With that bad a failure rate I can’t figure out what 360 does scan for.

Here’s something everyone should think about when considering new virus detection software, especially those who are afraid to try free versions...

***The virus problem will never get any better as long as there is so much money to be made selling anti-virus software!***

If you don’t believe Norton is responsible for a large part of the viruses out there your just being naive.

Red Hat Boy · Joined: 10 Apr 2008 Posts: 113

For two years I ran McAfee...I'm much happier with the free ones. They do a better job. Besides, running McAfee on a non-internet pc is a real pain. It not only asks for an update...it demands it. Piece of crap I will never install again.
Since I frequently reinstall XP (due to issues with it messing up my bootloader or the registry just being too bogged down...currently I get a blue screen of death 1/10th of the time when I turn on my pc) I've ended up trying all three top freeware antivirus progs. AVG (pre-8.0) was not so great. I've used avast before, and it's okay, but last time it nagged me for about two months to register with them or something, which I had previously done. (Also, you must register again after about a year?). Fortunately, near the end of the two-month period, I was due for a reinstall.
Avira Antivir is the flavor of the day, and I think it's my favorite.
All three of them have now "fixed" the issue with me being able to kill their processes from the task manager, meaning I can no longer free up memory and precious resources when playing Vampire: TMB. How sad.
I also tried scanning with Clamwin (Portable) on my dad's pc, which was infected. It didn't help much. I tried installing Avira, for that matter, (along with Spybot S&D) and the problem still didn't go away completely. One of them did point me to the malicious file, though, and I had to boot it into safe mode to erase the little bastard.
Whew. Well, there's my puny two cents.
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