Spyware, viruses, & security forum: AVG vs AVAST

You are correct, there have been a number of discussions about this. This thread is one of the longer ones with a variety of opinions but maybe it will help you out a little.
http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-6132-0.html?forumID=32&threadID=51272&messageID=610557

By v.8x it had become a huge program (extra functions) but sucked far too much resources and with the inclusion (now a separate option) of the link scanner, slowed browsing to a crawl and with the other anti-malware features added it became subject to (IMHO) excessive false positives & other glitches. Since I have other protections, only really needing
A/V with real time protection, I went w/ Anti-Vir which has very small footprint and has allowed nothing in so far.

For many other of my readers, who aren't security comfortable, I recommended Avast as it has many other included features (like AVG) but seemed less problematical for average users without any technical skills who needed a more or less "all in one" type set-up.

I won't be trying AVG's new 9 for some time but am anxiously awaiting real world results & user comments & any problems requiring help.

For AVG free users, tech help was basically hopeless but perhaps
will be more accessible & useful with there being the new AVG forum here. We'll see.

Tried it,and found a virus that it wouldn`t delete.Went back to Avast.

Avast has changed its "Full Scan". Now you are not allowed to actually "Scan all files" My system has a good 300k files + and Avast scans 64k of them.

This is one of those mistakes a company can make, that will cost them their customers for good. People won't come back for years.

Even the trial of Avast Pro is the same thing. The only difference between the paid version and the free version (Trial vs free) is 2 new shields.

Realtime protection is cosmetic, the most powerful and most important thing of any anti virus, is scanning.

People with Avast (Trial or free version) are at risk. Because it does not fully scan all files.

AVG has updated their program. They have given the same engine into their free program as in there paid version. Very good move on their part.

Now with AVG and Avast, Cnet download count alone, AVG is twice as many downloaded than Avast.

How many currently using each program is unknown.

As for me, i am on a balancing beam, not knowing which side to take.

On one hand Avast has really good all around security. But not being able to scan "All files" is the biggest mistake any anti virus program can make.

Even though a 1 time 30 day trial of any program, would NOT make any company lose any money, but gain money. Another huge mistakes is Avast trial being as limited as the free version.

Now for AVG, they have MANY new features. And AVG has made small mistakes, but it does no in any way exceed the biggest mistake a anti virus program can make. (As in not being able to "Scan all files".

Realtime shields are NOT very effective, in any security software. Its all about the scan!

I am on the trial of Avast pro, i will be going back to AVG very soon.

I was planning on buying Avast pro, but not being able to see if it is worth it or better than free version, it is Avast's fault.

One mistake can ruin a company, and when people find out, and notice their system is not being full scanned, they will change to AVG.

And with the recent downloads of AVG being so high in a few months, it has already begun.

AVG downloads were a few 100 thousand more than Avast 6 months ago. But AVG has now doubled Avast downloads, and Avast downloads are almost at a stand still.

Switching from Avast to AVG now is what i will be doing. Because you cannot scan all files. So you really don't know if your infected until you can scan all files.

If Avast changes back to being able to scan all files in free version & trial version, i may consider going back to Avast.

Because realtime shields are the bonus, and not what fully protects a system (Anti virus wise) Scans are what truly finds infections not realtime shields.

The above poster is correct. Using the 'custom scan' option, on the next dialog, there is a checkbox for "scan all files". Very simple.

And to the others in this thread, I had Kaspersky for many years, it was terrific, but they changed 'something' and it eventually brought my IE to a near crawl. Links wouldn't open without clicking a dozen times. I suffered with it for quite a while, then switched to Avast couple months back.

Avast works fine. I'm very pleased. Highly recommended.