Avast Home or AVG Free

Well you have shitty firewall. Sorry. Are you maybe a Kerio user? I have ICF and i use avast! and all ports are Stealthed no matter what i do. Port 135 is a DCOM service port. Hope you have fully patched system...

 

I don't follow you on these comments now.

I said (in my edit after doing the probe test) I was fully stealthed on port 135 if I allowed DCOM (RPCSS) net access and server rights or not... I do not normally enter into confusion in my posts and I thought I made my situation very clear here.

I am using ZA free version 4.5 and I have all updates in place for my WINME system which is very clean and very stable... I take a lot of time ensuring it stays that way.

Now there is no problem here as far as I can see.

I apologise if my earlier comments were made in haste... I admit they were... but then again I am very glad you and vlk came here to assure that all is ok with Avast and I have just done more tests in checks in the running process list and can confirm that Avast starts RPCSS going and then the firewall picks up the server being started before even connecting to the net... so this I now see as normal, and all that needs to be done is to block net access and just allow Avast to use this service for it's chest function... nothing to do with updates in anyway... to be honest... I feel the thread over on the Avast board is actually quite confused... but after reading again and doing my own tests here... I'm happy to continue using it for a while longer.

As regards your comments squash...

Well each to his own and you prefer AVG... that's fine too, and what's makes this whole relative experience of choice in this world work and be worthwhile.

Ok... I'm out of here for an hour or two now.

 

Since I've already started monitoring this thread...

You can turn the animation off.

If you don't like the skins, you can turn them off in the upcoming avast 4.5.

avast's updates are of maginitude smaller than those of AVG - I'd say one of the smallest on the market. The frequency is about the same in avast and AVG.

You can always fill in stuff like blablablabla if you're uncomfortable with filling of your personal data...

Too bad you don't have access to the magazine. You'd know why avast failed the last test...

There's no significant speed difference in avast and AVG.

Nope.

But again, it's your decision. E.g. for older machines, AVG can really be a more apropriate choice...


Take care,
Vlk

 

avast! uses around 12MB of RAM. Thats something near NOD32 (maybe a bit more).

 

You can't tell how an AV will impact your system just by how much ram it uses. Panda uses the same as NOD32 but it definitely made my PC more sluggish.

 

Also depends on your hard disk performance. Back when i was using 5400RPM 2MB cache disk,scanning was slow like hell no matter which AV i used,now i have 7200RPM and 8MB cache and its like i don't have antivirus.

 

Let me start by saying that I have no idea which one protects better. I can however say which one is eaiser to use and maintain, that would be AVG. I have tried both, I found AVAST to be somewhat cumbersum and a little difficult to maintain. AVAST also placed files in my TEMP directory that were somewhat difficult to delete. I have stuck with AVG. I think both are good products, but for me AVG is the easier one to use.

Thanks
Wildman

 

I don't go by what the VB and other tests say on AVs becuase if I';m not mistaken they use certain viruses and test them on the AV's. I'm I'm wrong here please someone put me in my place. Plus I would rather take the word on an AV by people that use the porgram everyday.

------------------------------------------------

There is value in both types of input. While it is true you certainly can't rely on everything that comes down the pike claiming to be a valid virus test (some definitely have an agenda), there are some organizations such as VB who do actually attempt to conduct a controlled test using particular criteria and test methods they are willing to disclose. There is also value in the experiences of everyday users. The problem in general with that is the variation in users and their particular experience. Some folks simply have more credibility than others, and there is a vast difference in the particular installations on PCs, as well as considerably different circumstances in which different folks have to even try to evaluate their AV programs (some have very few instances of virus protection needed, some have many... and even each of those involves varying types of 'nasties'). Makes it very difficult to always compare 'apples to apples'. Best method is probably do some research involving both types of input and go with what eventually 'feels' best for your particular situation.

Take care... Quinn

 

How come i browsed through the settings in the main program and see no option to freeze the animation...

and entering blahblahblah doesn't make a person feel good - it's like betraying the registration system.

 

To disable "a" ball animation,use my avast! External Control tweak tool.
You can get it here: www.security-ops.tk

The tweak is under avast! Tweaker function.
There are also other tweaks for various hidden settings in avast!

 

Despite being able to stop the avast icon, i still like AVG because the interface is more simple and i think has less false positives then avast

 

avast! doesn't have false positives that you should be concirned about. Where did you hear that? Even if it does its usually solved in 6 hours. These false positives are usually when new generic trojan signatures are added,but its not necesary that FP are present when such update is done.

 

On a p-2 450 pentium with 127 meg ram. would this be an instance where
avg would be a better choice? Or woud Avast not slow it down too much?

 

The only way to know for sure is to install avast & see how it runs with avast.

 

Well as i have seen on my machine,avast! gets turbo when you have a 7200RPM (or maybe even 10k RPM) disk with 8MB internal cache. RAM quantity was the same in both cases (512MB).

 

I 'heard' about False detection from the wilders.org free tools page...

 

Well apperantly the page was not update for very loooong. There is avast32 listed in downloads section. The engine has changed very much since then and v4.5 is closing in. I admit there still might be false positives as in any other AV,but for avast! such FP mean just better generic Trojan detection (very strong) And if you submit the sample or source of FP they will fix it in 6 hours (my experience).

From my point of view,its better to have one false positive then real malware passing by. Exclusions can be always used for FP while waiting for the fix,but you cannot do the same when you get trojan installed on your machine...

 

Hi Guys

Just read this entire thread for the very first time. This is my experience on a new pc (since Jan 2004) (Celeron 2.4ghz/512mb ram with XP Home 2003):

McAfee Internet Security Suite 6.00 2004 with McAfee VirusScan 8.00 as the ACTIVE RESIDENT anti-virus scanner.

- Works fantastically for me with absolutely no problems at all (though admittedly the scan time is quite long), it's user friendly and highly configurable. It's detected many trojan/virus/dialers in web surfing, emails and IM file sharing.

AVG Free & H&Bdev AntiVir 6.00 as BACK UP on demand scanners.

- Both of these work fine for me, both having updates at least twice a week (AntiVir 3-4 times!!!!) and they're easy to use. However, probably because of McAfee, weekly full scans with AVG & AntiVir have NEVER found a single infection.

Bearing in mind I have 7 pretty active email addresses, use AOL, MSN & Yahoo! IM (including file sharing) regularly and use WinMx and Shareaza for music downloading and file sharing, I think this is pretty amazing!

Is this because McAfee is so good? Well, it certainly means I'm a pretty happy and contented bunny! Either pre or post WinXP SP2 installation, I've had not a single problem with any of the McAfee IS Suite components - unlike what I read with Norton, Zone Alarms, AVG 7.0 and a host of other software.

As far as AVG v Avast! is concerned, I can only comment on AVG and then only as a BACK-UP on demand scanner. For me, along with H&Bdev's AntiVir 6.0, it's been fine. However, as the AVG Free won't support my Mozilla Thunderbird mail client for email scanning I'd never make it the active program anyway. And, finally, my experience of McAfee is such that wild horses wouldn't drag me away from using it as the first line of defence.

Steve

NB: I do also have SpyBotS&D, AdAwareSE, SpywareBlaster, SpyWareGuard along with WinPatrol, xp-antispy, Bug Off XPIE and PivX's 'QwikFix Pro for Windows and IE' (an excellent free-for-personal-use Host-Based Intrusion Prevention program) so my pc is something of a fortress!!! (Plus Mozilla Firefox 0.9.3 & Mozilla Thunderbird 0.7.3 are my DEFAULT browser/email clients)

I did make what I now believe to be a mistake BUYING a Pest Patrol full license - It's now CRAP. It has NEVER found anything genuine the above freeware didn't, just a whole load of weekly false positives that PP NEVER get back to me about, however many times I email them!