Avast and AntiVir together?

I use Avast Home as a real-time anti-virus and now have just installed AntiVir as an on-demand back-up virus scanner. I didn't installed the AntiVir Guard and even deletes its AV Guard On Access scanner entry on its directory to make it compatible w my Avast.

I'd like to ask something here if somebody out there already used this two together without any problems encountered in your machine. Avast as real-time and AntiVir as on-demand scanner only?

 

Not recommend. Don't mess with two antivirus programs on your computer.

 

I never had a problem using Antivir on-demand with all of my other av's I have tried, including avast!, nod, kav, bitdefender, and many more.

Right now, I am only using antivir without any other av. By far my preferred free av, especially since I got rid of the nag screen, and have it update every 2 hours, which is frequent enough for me.

Cheers,
Alphalutra1

 

I don,t know why one will need Avast and Antivir together. There is not such a big difference between the two. Not a good idea in my opinion. Either one will suffice in my opinion.

 

I would have to agree with the rest even though AntiVir and avast! would make a good combination. 2 Antiviruses are not a good idea even though they might seem to act fine. I have avast! home too and I myself was a bit concerned about its complete lack of heuristics, but instead of installing another AV for that, I used some other programs, like Anti-trojans, which are just as good IMO. Right now I use avast! with a-squared and ewido for on-demand scanning, and it works great! You should try it sometime.

 

Actually, it does not completely lack.

Although avast! Home/Pro has no heuristic (like NOD32, BitDefender) and it heavily relies on virus signature but avast! also has another proactive detections, it has generic detections in its on-demand/on-access scaner and also has so-called heuristic module in its e-mail scanner for detecting mass-mailing worms.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=20895.0

 

Yes, I already understand that, sorry for the wording there. The main reason why I said "completely lack" is because although generic detections may seem great and unique for avast!, almost every good AV already has that already, and email scanning is not as important if you use a web-based email opposed to Outlook Express.

I know this issue has already been brought up in the avast! forums, but not much has been said. I still find it awkward why they look at heuristics so negatively when it's been proven to provide better detection rates compared to signatures alone, I mean it's impossible to have every single signature for all viruses out there in the world. Heuristics have already shown its might with NOD32 and in all the past AV comparitive results, and the whole issue with false positives is something every company eventually endures. No offense, I like avast! and it's support & staff a lot, but it seems like they're a bit afraid to approach the task of expanding their heuristics from just their email scanner to their entire program. I know they're great for providing high quality, free security software, but IMHO without the implementation of heuristics, it will not go too far in terms of detection and will require backup programs to aide users in their protection.

Whoa got a bit side-tracked there! Couldn't help myself---it's information I kept inside that jumped out from the opportunity. Anyway, my point is I really wish they'd add it in eventually, it just seems so odd to leave something so important out of the big picture. With just plainly decent heuristics, avast! would certainly improve in its detection.

edit: P.S Sorry if it sounded like flaming, I was just simply expressing my opinion. I'm still happy with avast! and have no intention of changing so far.

 

@ SwordOfSecurity

Yes, I think so about heuristics.

 

Good to know there are supporters of that idea.

 

Who's looking at it "so negatively", exactly?


The situation with malware has changed a lot, though. What would be a decent heuristics engine couple of years ago is now almost unusable. The reason is the magic word *unpacking*.

 

I installed AntiVir, without its Guard and still Avast gives me this warning pop-up after I restart pc.

 

Then after that I check AntiVir directory and deleted its AV Guard On-Access engine, and after re-boot all is fine and Avast was just ok. But then, after I do the updates of AntiVir then I reboot my pc Avast again pop-ups the same warning and I check the directory again of AntiVir and to my dismay the AV Guard On-Access module was there again it returns back.

Why is it that even if I didn't installs the AntiVir Guard and its not active still it affects the Avast on access scanner?

What should I do then to make AntiVir as an On-demand scanner only and will not affect Avast resident shield?

 

Try running services.msc and either deactivate AntiVir's on-access service or try setting it to manual. That way it won't start with Windows. This is assuming you are using an NT-based OS of course. If you are still running 9.x try killing it off with msconfig.

 

I would suggest you use ONLY antivirus
Avast , for example
Avast 4.7 Home edition free

BitDefender free edition has only on-demand scanner for back-up.

Also , there are varietly of online scanners you can use

 

Concerning running Avast and Antivir together.

If you want to run them together, do the following.

If you've been playing with these two antivirus packages, it might be a good idea right after the uninstalls to clean out the previous entries for them in the Registry. Since I don't know much, I wont expatiate on how to do that.

Install Avast! first. It doesn't much matter whether you install all the providers, or just the web-related ones, for reasons you will see below. Of course, you will have to update Avast! and register it.

Next install in a normal way Antivir (now from Avira and not from H+BEDV). Install it including the Guard.

What happens next is that Avast's program has 'fail-safe' code which interrogates the Registry for certain known anti-virus packages. The presence in the Registry of the H+BEDV (Avira) folder is what triggers, it seems, the log-on time screen that is shown on an earlier post that Avast has disabled it's on-line providers. Even if you have installed only the web-scanning providers at Avast! installation time you're going to get this message. And you're going to get it every time you log-on. And you're going to get it even if you've installed BitDefender in a form which has no on-line providers. You have to live with clicking OK each time you log on.

Now you have Antivir as both an on-line scanner (the Guard) and as an on-demand package for general scans. You also have Avast only for the four web-related providers (email, internet, messenger, outlook express) and for general on-demand scans. So you have a combo of Anti-Vir and Avast, sharing the on-line workload. I have been doing this for several years. I once came across a post on some site or other where another fellow said that he had been doing it for years without problem. Now, someone might object that this violates canon 3 or something that you can't have two on-line antivirus scanners installed. Now canon 3 or something is quite true, and woe is you if you violate it. But the trick is the Avast fail-safe code which prevents Avast!'s on-line scanners from loading at all if you have traces of certain other anti-virus products in your Registry. Hence, you never do have two on-line scanners operating when you load Avast with Antivir. Now I found this by trial and error because I have a conflict between the on-line scanners of Avast and a certain other applications package, and I can't have the Avast on-line scanner running. So the Antivir scanner does the on-line scanning, and prevents the conflict between Avast and the third package.

Now SHOULD you do this? I kind of like the idea of running Antivir and Avast in tandem. I think I'm closing ever so slightly the gap between 99% coverage and full coverage. It's a bit of engineering redundancy.

Someone might say, perhaps correctly, that given the great functional similarity in the two packages, I'm not accomplishing much (except solving my Avast! -- other software package conflict). Let each man choose for himself.

In order to get the great functionality of the heuristics of BitDefender, I also have that installed as an on-demand scanner, and I sometimes do run it as an on-demand scan. This is when I really want to sweep the computer. Of course, when you start doing on-demand scans with non-Avira products, you're going to have to deactivate the Guard first, otherwise you will be simultaneously scanning with the Guard.

Incidentally, although I didn't follow the thread carefully enough to understand exactly what is being said about Avast! and heuristics, as far as I know, Avast! does have heuristics. You just have to go to On-Access Protection Control by right-clicking on the 'a' globe in the systray and going to 'more detail'. Then for each of the providers you have running go to 'customize' and look at the options. You have to do this under an administrator account for the changes to 'stick'.

George75