AVG Anti-Virus Interest

Greets!

Have been a fairly long time loyal patriot of Grisoft AVG AV. It is served to my own expectations and better yet operated for the most part without any serious issue.

Now that HIPS programs have fully arrived, they have for me anyway, taken front stage & center as opposed to Anti-Virus, however they are for no means intended to replace but better compliment an Anti-Virus as an additional layer of security/prevention from forced internet/programs intrusion.

I recently took AVAST, BitDefender, and AntiVir Free thru paces on some of my units over the weeks only to discover that each one of those 3 created or developed issues that affected normal system stability on XP Pro in my case.

I see where AVG AS Free is a 17.4 install set that i only just D/L'd to make yet another attempt to attach a stable AV to this system i work most with.

Does anyone foresee or can anticipate based on this current build (free), any problems such as "slow system reaction"? Is the free an "On-Demand Only? If so fine. The others i tried with "Resident" protection active seem to make for some noticable drag in regular operation or else delayed my boot-up start or in some instances loaded up my running processes with all types of additionals that seem unwarranted to me.

Am no Anti-Virus engineer or researcher of the same, only test virus/malware with appropriate counter-measures in place, but am becoming concerned that perhaps some Anti-Virus products can introduce disturbing limitations in normal performance when combined with say only a few HIPS?

Any pointers you can pass along would be welcome. I want to believe that AVG Anti-Virus can meld with this system without experiencing any or all the issues already encountered from those aforementioned.

By the way, as pertains to AVG Anti-SpyWare, that "GUARD" is, for me anyway, the "BEST" designed of that method and works flawlessly in the background effectively disabling certain "badwares" from even starting, even when clicked on akin to an AV one might say.

Thanks EASTER

 

AVG Anti-Virus (free) is quite light and it does have realtime protection. i dont know of any conflicts with AVG but i dont rele use it either.

 

AVG antispyware free starts out as the full version with real time scanner, after 30 days it switches to free mode and on demand scanning only. Using avg AV real time with avg as as on demand should work well.

 

Easter.2010. I know of your interest with using Cyberhawk as well, and can tell you I have ran the current version with AVG 7.5 with no problems, and at times ran both with other programs too. For example Comodo Firewall Pro (currently) and of course AVG AS. I even had Spyware Terminator running with AVG 7.5, Comod, and CH with no apparent slow downs. I only have 512MB of RAM and have noticed slight slowdowns with Avast when I used that . None with Antivir, but that whole Guard problem recently and the Notifier popping up, was enough to convince me to stay with AVG. I was given AVG Internet Security Suite as a gift and have experimented by replacing the Firewall and Spyware Component with other security softwares over the last several months. All I can say is I have obviously kept AVG 7.5 and am satisfied with it. That along with Comodo and CH, seems fine. I may after reading what you said about the AVG Anti-Spyware Guard keeping out malware, reinstall it back into the AVG Suite. Did you test AVG AS? And do you think the Guard is better than Spyware Terminator's protection?

 

Easter, if I understood your questions/statements right, here's my experiences:

I used AVG Free (antivirus only) for 2 years with very little start up delay, very little noticeable email scanning delay, nor compatibility probs with various other apps. A HIPS app wasn't used.

I bought AVG 7.5 IS about three months ago, and it slows my Startup by about 12 secs. But it really slowed my email reception by about 3X compared to AVG Free active scanning, why I don't know, to approx 15 seconds to receive eight emails. (I'd previously used Norton suite and ZAP for about two years each.)

I haven't had any conflicts between AVG 7.5 and SuperAntiSpyware, Startup Monitor, CCleaner, JV16 Power Tools, AdAware Pro, Spybot, or Spyware Blaster. Haven't used a HIPS app, though will soon have to.

 

I'm using AVG IS 7.5. So far no conflicts with SSM, GeSWall and CyberHawk.

But there's one with Sandboxie. You can read it here: http://sandboxie.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=686

 

I'm a little in the dark on AVG since it's been awhile but from reading that link am i to understand that AVG (free) AV also incorporates a firewall? or did i read into that differently than intended?

At any rate, i become extremely cautious now that i tried other AV's that most say runs pretty well on their boxes but mine seem to suffer from issues, and i know this unit is in premium shape because after uninstalling them my system returned to top notch form again. I understand AV's need to cover the entire file system spectrum/memory w/ unpacking archives etc. and some the boot up, but the "drain" or "drag" on the system was a very disappointing discovery i didn't expect of them.

Now with Grisoft AVG for me in the past, it's performed very well and detections were ACCEPTABLY within my own expectations even minus the heuristics back then and i don't recall having any serious issue with only a minor exception occasionally suffered from an update that resolved itself with either a simple reboot or re-install. I can live with those little inconveniences given the protection and stability.

No i not yet installed (them) just yet, but i have D/L'd both free programs last evening in order to see how they'll fair in comparison.

I do offer my personal thanks for members above who weighed in with their experiences and encouragements.

 

AVG free does not include a firewall

 

I sincerely wouldn't think it would so thanks for that. The article was probably referring to one actively working w/ the AV and i just misinterpreted the statement.

I grabbed a couple of downloaders tonight while examining one site suggested and another one from a freeware site. This is another purpose AV is important for me, they can be fast to catch those type attempts, but it was System Safety Monitor that intercepted the drops into the C:\ (ROOT) folder.
I jotti scanned them. Downloaders to be sure.
C:\fff.exe & C:\command.exe

Snatched them both for research: Now to set up Shielding to activate the buzzards and see what they want to introduce this time.

Another question please:

Does AVG AV allow user to select to "ignore" or "report" only even with resident guard active. This is important because of course as researcher i prefer to "capture" them alive and not have them dispensed away as would be normal expected action for security.

Thanks