I prefer AVG2014 over Avast and have for many yrs. on all of my PC's also Free

Some years ago I was using AVG on one of my PCs. One day while doing a scan, it decided to quarantine a critical Windows file. Bad idea, doing that prevented the PC from booting up the next day. That caused an unnecessary problem and inconvenience.

AVG? No thanks.

Looks like I can expect periodic ads to upgrade to paid avast!. Oh well...I guess that's to be expected. Reading posts in alt.comp.anti-virus today...avast! blocked Thunderbird from displaying 2 posts that it said contained a virus. That's something that MSE never did. Not sure I like the voice warnings whenever avast! blocks something. There's probably a setting somewhere for that...will look for it later.

Can't think of an AV which has never had some type of false positive maybe critical or maybe not.

I like many others started back in the Stone Age with McAfee Free as it came with my first system. As I learned and became aware of the need for more reliable protection I went to Norton Free. When Norton evolved into a resource hog I went to AVG Free. Been there ever since. I think it might be as long as a dozen years.

Yes there has been some bumps, but as I said they all have them. As long as a user installs one of the three free A's (AVG, Avast, Avira), keeps it updated, and subscribes to safe surfing they have no need to be alarmed. If commercial is a user's cup of tea then from my readings Kaspersky is the way to go.

If I was looking for paid AV, I'd be concentrating on Kaspersky and ESET. I used to use Avira and was happy until they started including the ASK toolbar and the workarounds to get rid of it were more than I wanted to deal with. Many years ago I had a less than positive experience with AVG but I was less knowledgeable and that was part of the problem. I would give AVG another try if ever the need arose. The one thing I do know is that nothing that comes from McAfee will ever be on a computer owned by me. If somehow I buy one with McAfee on it, that will be the first thing I get rid of.

Installed Avast yesterday. Only took an hour and 10 minutes including removing MSE with AppRemover and the 45 mile download from Avast.

They snuck the Google tool bar into IE. I didn't see an option on that. Don't use IE anyway but got it gone. As I recall once Avast install starts there is no stopping it.

mxyplx

Without knowing your download speed...that sounds like a very long time. My total switch time was not more than 8 min if that.

Dunno. It was over 10 maybe 12. Never thot to check the speed. Too busy wiping foam off the screen. I was full of anxiety and consternation.

Re-answering your post: the download of the Avast was 12-15 min. I think there were 30 parts. Downloading the Appremover took too long. Running Appremover took way too long. Getting rid of Google Toolbar took time. ETC. It all added up.

Now I remember the first install failed twice so I disabled my firewall which took some doing because I had trouble getting it to cough up its control panel.

I was reduced to uttering darn and fooy and similar forms of filthy vituperation.

This post was edited by mxyplx on Sun, Mar 16, 14 at 13:53

I used Avast for years on all my machines. It began to bog everything down and I was tired of all the requests to upgrade. I uninstalled and use MSE.

Now with two very healthy XP machines, I'll probably go back.

Would doing the 'custom install' help stop all the toolbars and Chrome?

Jane

Hi Jane,

Yes! Always do a custom install when you can, more importantly download free Avast from the link I have supplied.

Here is a link that might be useful: Free Avast

In recent months I have turned to the custom install to avoid possibly unwanted programs (PUPs) or other surprises. Check each window carefully during any install removing or adding check marks as needed.

As a followup this morning I discovered >search.conduitWell it installed only on IE which is the default browser but seldom used; not on 2 other browsers. I was able to defeat this bugger by deleting 3 data values in the registry and uncheck it in the msconfig services tab. There may be other files here and there but so far so good.

Are you saying that Avast put search.conduit on you computer during the install? Or are you saying that it failed to prevent some other action from installing it? If the former I am very much surprised. I did the express install and did not get it on either IE or Firefox.

I'm not expecting to miss MSE, while I use it I don't rely on it, it has never caught anything I'm aware of since the other stuff I use seems to have cleaned it before MSE gets around to being updated.

I'm a stickler for free software (and I don't mean cripple-ware ad-ware or spyware). I've been happy for years with just a couple things. I use Spybot S&D, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Clamwin for protection from viruses (virii?) and other unwanted intruders. For "optimization" such as is possible WinDirStat is pretty good and Defraggler is a MUCH better defrag than than one that ships with XP.

All of these have functional freeware versions and do what is needed.

Only downloads for one long time were:

About 03-10-14 a new version of Maxthon browser.
03-14-14 AppRemover to out the MSE.
03-14-14 Avast.

Doubt it came in with that browser.
Disabled MSE and Firewall to install - maybe it came in then? But from where?

That leaves Appremover and Avast. Avast snuck Google toolbar into IE. Their custom options were vague. Like in very. Easy to pass by. Maybe we had difrunt download sites?

"Maybe we had different download sites?"

That's possible. I downloaded directly from www.avast.com. If you did not, who knows what you actually downloaded. Could possibly have something to do with your very slow download also.

Some site say MSE will no longer update in XP ?? Where ?

According to Microsoft themselves those who have MSE installed will continue to get updates for the time being. See paragraph 2 in the linked article from Microsoft.

Yes - to be clear, the "updates" referred to are malware signature files for MSE use. All security programs have regular updates (most are daily) of this nature.

After April 8th as before, MSE remains a less than stellar choice.

I'm a stickler for using the best available software, whether free or not. While I've found a few of the free programs (like Malwarebytes) to be quite good, most others aren't worth any more than what you pay for them.

Thanks owbist ! Saved copy's of 64 & 32 bit mse for xp... for a while.

Azinoh

"Maybe we had different download sites?"
That's possible. I downloaded directly from www.avast.com. If you did not, who knows what you actually downloaded. Could possibly have something to do with your very slow download also.
==========================
Sunday 04-13:
My version is 2014.9.0.2013 and now there is a new; 2014.9.0.2016.

Well updating from the interface update just didn't seem to go so I went to the Avast.com site to download the dot.exe file. Clicking on download takes you to CNET. I now realize my original download was therefore thru CNET. So much for getting Avast from Avast.

From Google it would seem cnet hasn't got the best of reputations any more in fact lots of complaints about extra programs foisted off on ya. Guess so.

I went to File Hippo for the 84.55M file. Then googled that and there seems to be problems with the 2014.9.0.2016 version. So I'll skip it for now. Maybe let it age a bit.

FH seems to have a good rep but most mssgs I found about them were several years old.

Is there anything wrong with using ninite.com to obtain Avast?

I don't use Windows that often so don't have much experience with the site but the couple times I used it, it seemed fine to me.

Supposedly one of the advantages of using it is that it automatically says "no" to toolbars, foistware, etc. Does it always catch everything everytime? I can't say.

It does have an excellent "WOT reputation if that means anything.

I know nothing about ninite.com. I'm just in the habit of directing others to "get it from the source and nowhere else". I'm disappointed that avast auto-directs it's downloads to cnet. From now on, I'll direct folks directly to the avast download page which is this:

http://www.avast.com/en-us/download-software

Thanks azinoh.

I had looked for a direct download page on avast.com but hadn't located it.

I agree with "get it from the source", it's just that in this case, I thought ninite.com might be better than the cnet redirect. The direct download page avoids that problem. :)

It sure has everything I use in one spot with nothing in the way to finding it. I will try it when I need something down loaded. That is the best way to find out, unless someone here reports a negative response about it.

Yeah EmmaR, like I say, I haven't used it enough to recommend it, or not.

For what it's worth though, I learned of it in this forum, so a forum search might shed some light.

fwiw;
Microsoft will continue to provide updates to our antimalware signatures and engine for Windows XP users through July 14, 2015.

Microsoft's Security Products Will Block Adware By Default Starting On July 1

Here is a link that might be useful: These anti-virus programs will continue to support XP

This post was edited by mikie on Sun, Apr 13, 14 at 21:48

I absolutely could not get the Avast download page from the Avast.com site so typed >Avast Download Sitehttp://www.avast.com/en-us/download-softwareDefinitely a diffrunt URL. Who'd ever think to do that? Not me for sure. Must be a conspiracy.......with my name on it.