Is Avast Anti-Virus software that good, or am I doing something wrong?

I downloaded the free version (V4.6 Home) and:

Everytime I run a scan, it comes up with no viruses found-NONE, NADA, ZILCH, NEVER, GOOSE EGGS, ZERO, etc.

My last thorough scan, which took 2 1/2 hours, showed it scanned 19.8 gigs with no viruses found.

My harddrive is only 14 gigs.

So, is Avast that good, or am I doing something wrong?

 

"Anything free will cost more and take a lot more to fix in the long run than buying an accredited product with support ever would have. We take shortcuts to find the long way around..."


(QUOTE ME!!!)

 

I'd try housecall.antivirus.com and AVG (free) to verify your findings

 

I have tried many...Panda, Norton, AVG (free), MS Beta (free).

They all appear to work, and they all appear to find things the others have missed.....go figure.

Try running AVG along with Ad-Aware and Spybot....a combination that seems to work for me.

 

I also run Ad-Aware and Spybot. They do at times find "stuff".

Oh yeah! I had McAfee Virus Scan Security Suite V.4.5.1B; and it failed miseribly.

It's now a coaster; a $175.00 coaster.

I guess you get what you pay for.

 

I have run the AVG before and was quite happy with it. I have also run Spybot and Adware and they seem to do something but the best I have that is also a freeware is Crap Cleaner. You will need to set it up the first time before running it but it certainly keeps things clean. Right now I am running Computer Assoc anti-virus and it hasn't let me get in trouble-yet. Might want to look at Crap Cleaner, darn sure can't beat the price for keeping out the spyware, spam generators, etc.

 

AVG and Ad-ware here, I have more faith in them then Norton. Get the trial of AVG and see what it says. Ad-ware has a free download that works great.

 

I personally love my Norton Internet Security Suite. You can pick it up for like 20-50. Its virus scan, firewall, intrusion detection, and has settings for privacy control, ad-blocking, anti-spam, and some parental controls. Ive used it on many computers through the years, and its the best Ive found.

 

I use Avast on all my computers and ones I've built for friends. It does infact find Viruses and trojans no problems. I like the auto virus updates and Program updates.

I have had problems with Norton in the past and replace it Avast. Whatever antivirus you choose only run one antivirus program on your computer, they will conflict with each other.
Antispyware programs are different, you want to run two or three programs to catch all the different spyware.

 

I have used AVG in the past and it worked good. I used McAfee and it was basically a joke, McAfee would find no problems when AVG would find the problems. I tried Norton Internet Securities but that was the biggest mistake I ever made. It disabled my notebooks touch pad and it would not allow me to go to any website that you had to log into.

- Chris

 

We have Nortons full firewall, antivirus, spam blocker, symantec package and like it . When we discovered my wife's 15 year old grandson was going to **** sites on our pc while we were not around , I tried to block the nudity sites by using the security level on our PC. It did just like yours did , it blocked ALL my net sites, even FTE . It mentioned something about the sites needing a "rating" so the blocker could decipher what to block. I do not how to do that needless to say,

 

I have Norton Internet Security Suite and I have their firewall turned off and went back to ZoneAlarm. Seems Norton's is not friendly with some web sites and thus returns a garbled screen.

In reading reviews of anti-virus, anti-spam programs in PC Magazine, all of them are not perfect by any means. Some anti-spy programs miss where others pick up the one's they miss.

But in the end...they always rate Norton's Anti-Virus...the best. That's anti-virus....alone.

 

When I ran Windows, I had AVG loaded, and Ad aware, and Spybot search. As a backup (I have seen av programs get infected) I used Housecall, online.

As for the AV seeing more then your Drive size, I have never seen a 15gb drive, are you sure it's not a 20gb drive, with a hidden Restore partition, that the av is scaning?

 

CheapRanger, check it out:

http://www.epinions.com/Sony_VAIO_FX...ay_~full_specs

 

Don't worry, if Avast AVG didn't find anything, you are fairly safe. If you were on the net in the early to late 90's you saw your share of viruses, in fact, it had been very difficult to wander the net ( i.e. searching, surfing, opening blind links, opening strange e-mail, ****) until the last year or two. Most people expected that they would have a lock-up, pop-up or plain old crash in the earlier days.
Example:I had a PC, circa 1998 sitting in the corner unplugged, unused, and it was a win98 Operating system. I recently pulled it out and started it up. It ran slow and locked up as usual. It had the latest Norton security on it as well, when it was put aside. I decided to download the latest free antivirus/spyware programs that I currently use on my new computer and I ran them all to see what bugs were inside the old PC. I found 364 viruses and bugs, I deleted them all, defragged the harddrive,updated my win 98 and other programs, and re-booted. The old girl now runs well, I thought that win 98 was a lousey program! It was OK, it just couldn't handle all the hidden crap that was trying to happen in the background.

The anti-spyware/virus people have really done a good job keeping up with the hackers. I am running /MS anti-spyware Beta 1 /Lavasoft Ad-Aware SE personal 1.06r1/ Spybot Search and destroy 1.4/ Grisoft AVG free edition for windows/ Javacoolsoftware Spywareblaster ver 3.4/ and I just downloaded Ewido Anti-malware 3.5 version 1620....It actually found a few a few more things that I didn't expect to find; I can'y reccommend Ewido just yet, I just started it.
I update the computer daily, I have high-speed cable so it only takes 2 minutes to check all programs on tgheis PC for updates.
You must set Windows updates to auto!! It is the Microsft software that is being attacked, and I believe MS is doing a good job trying to beat up the intruders and seal off the vulnerabilities.

By all means...download the Grisoft AVG for Windows....It does work, it has stopped a few trojans for me in the last two years.