[nivek6230]

Hi all

I recently downloaded the free updated AVG 8.5 & after the installation I couldn't update or connect to internet.
So I uninstalled AVG and now my internet works.

Any ideas to fixing my problem or is Avast anti virus good enough to use.

I'm using ADSL connection.

Thanks

[Phantom010]

Personaly, I use a paid AV but if you must go free, I recommend Avira Antivir over the other two.

[Sasquatch]

Originally Posted by Phantom010

Personaly, I use a paid AV but if you must go free, I recommend Avira Antivir over the other two.

We've also been questioning whether AVG 8.5 was causing problems with my wife's laptop, particularly since many of the problems "coincidentally" went away when I uninstalled it. Not sure what to do now...

My question is whether AVG, avast!, or this Avira program are really any better vs. the others. Why do you recommend Avira? Where does avast! stand in the mix?

Thanks!

[Phantom010]

First of all, Avira comes highly recommended on TSG when it comes to free antivirus software.

Second, I see a lot less problems or malware related issues on this forum with Avira than with AVG and Avast.

I've read so many horror stories about AVG that I would never recommend it.

Personaly, I recommend paid over free any time. NOD32 and Kaspersky or on top of the list for me.

[Rich-M]

The basic difference between paid (and I am not referring to useless Norton, MacAfee or Pc Cillan), is approach to attack. Nod32, kaspersky and Bit defender repel at the gate. The free bunch let it in and then attempt to remove them for a variety of reasons. it shoudl be obvious which approach is better.

[nivek6230]

Thanks Phantom, I'll give it a try

[Phantom010]

You're welcome!

[perfume]

Originally Posted by Rich-M

The basic difference between paid (and I am not referring to useless Norton, MacAfee or Pc Cillan), is approach to attack. Nod32, kaspersky and Bit defender repel at the gate. The free bunch let it in and then attempt to remove them for a variety of reasons. it shoudl be obvious which approach is better.

Dear nivek 6230,
What phantom010 holds water too and as far as "free" A-Vs go Avira Antivir is excellent and has the additional benefit of catching spyware,which it did'nt have(Only the paid version had that) before! More importantly it's a lesser burden on your CPU than the other free ones! AVG had it's glory days and now is rapidly sliding downhill and if only you typed"AVG" in the Search box provided in the site, your question would have received the proper answer it demanded!! It's because AVG has become fodder to chew on, in this forum and the(near) Universal opinion is,leave AVG alone! You can download Avira Antivir from :http://www.free-av.com/
Avira Antivir is a class act, to put it mildly!

Now coming to Rich-M's reply, i completely agree with him! Given the option, one should choose a paid one and the choice is quite narrow! 1) ESET's smart security suite or the stand alone Nod32(from the same stable) and 2) Kaspersky Internet Security Suite2009( which incidentally i have). The difference between the free and bought A-Vs is "Pro-Active Defense" that is "stop at the gate" function! Everyday i get two or three intrusion warnings from KIS, informing me that the intrusion was blocked and the ip address was probably spoofed!

Six years back, when i was eleven years old, on the first anniversary of the detection of juvenile Diabetes in me, my maternal uncle presented to me an IBM desktop and installed McAfee security center and as a gesture of affection sat with me for two weeks teaching the rudiments of using a PC! Those were the glory days of McAfee and slowly but surely it too slid down the ladder! If i am right, Dell is promoting McAfee Security Center and that's what i call "hanging by the coat tails" of Dell to sell!! Best wishes.

[Gizzy]

I do agree that stopping it at the gate is better than letting it in which is why I use sandboxie....but we're talking AV's so I'll be quiet about that.

Anyway just to clear it up though that stopping at the gate isn't only in paid versions.

1. This stop at the gate protection in AV's is called a Web shield (HTTP scanner)
2. Avast! free has it

avira and avg also have it but it's only in the paid versions,
so it's not just bitdefender, kaspersky and nod32 that have it many AV's have it these days.

I think it's a nice added protection, though I have seen people debate whether or not they're worth running since some (not all but some) slow down your browsing speed and most good AV's will detect a malicious file when it attempts to run and stop it anyway before it can do any harm.

As I said in another thread though using free/paid is up to the user, I just wanted to point out that there's not really a difference between free and paid it's more of a difference between AV and AV.

[blitzkreig]

Dear Nivek6230,
I always recommend spending a little amount of money protecting your computer rather than spending a lot on getting a computer set right which is destroyed by malware

[perfume]

Dear Nivek6230,
Just saw your comp. specs. and you are running a tight ship with 480 MB Ram,if you need you can increase the Ram with no loss and everything to gain!

As you can see, this debate will rage on and on, so quickly choose which free A-V meets your requirements and mark the thread as "solved"!

Last year i've been to one of your adjacent countries (Horn of Africa,as they call it) to teach the rudiments of English (universal link language) and French and as a token of goodwill carried some "Malaria detection kits"!
I also presented a HP Desktop to the best student there, who incidentally was a girl and she was brilliant! I was cranking up those radio sets like mad, so that they can listen to "aunty (BBC-English)" to learn pronounciation! All this act was in the grass lands, and i was stunned and angry the way the rulers were denying the " poor"(sorry for the word) what was their due and the corruption was rampant and not even 1% of the World bank funds were reaching the village people i was staying with! I reported this back to my dad who's now in the EU and he said he knew what was going on, but was helpless! Now, i see the piracy on the high seas from Somalia!

[jrwestham]

I too downloaded AVG8.5 and originally got "Corrupt file" when I tried to run it. Have since removed and gone with Avira and fingers crossed everything is looking ok.

[golferbob]

i also gave up on avg about a month ago ,got tired of the update problems and a new program once a month you needed to download & install. i have swithed to comodo 3.8 free . i have used the firewall for years and just the last month with the antivirus. the program runs fine. i also use panda once a week to make sure. they are coming out next week with 3.9.

[Sasquatch]

FWIW, based on the above recommendations, I've moved 2 of our 3 PC's over to Avira from AVG 8.5 and am very happy thus far. Avira found 'Trojan' viruses in a file that's got to be from about 1999 and all programs since then have missed it... or Avira is too sensitive, not sure yet.

Now trying to decide what 'paid' program I should put on my wife's laptop since she's on Facebook constantly and that seems to draw Adware/Malware and viruses like "moths to a flame".

[perfume]

Originally Posted by srprashant

Dear Nivek6230,
I always recommend spending a little amount of money protecting your computer rather than spending a lot on getting a computer set right which is destroyed by malware

Dear srprashant,
You actually need not spend much money if you get a PC crash! If only you use a Backup & Restore using wonderful programs like Macrium Reflect or Paragon Backup Express (both free)and a DVD-RW and a good enough" External hard Drive", and follow those steps i outlined in another post started by jumbo 1.