A guy posted about using Avast! & Avira (I think) together...

He posted some months back about how he was running both, successfully by letting them do different monitoring. I am interested in that approach for one of my computers. Any idea how he did that ? I searched every way that I know how and I could not find his post. I knew that I should have bookmarked it then!

B.

 

If you are talking about the free versions then it could be considered beneficial to run the two together. Avira free only comes with the standard real time scanner where as Avast free has multiple scanners. One could install avira as real time file scanner then install avast for web/mail/p2p/im scanning.

 

Take a look at the following threads below,

Avast as a primary AV with Antivir as "on demand" possible?
How do I install AntiVir, AVG, and Avast as on-demand only?

thanatos

 

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=192411

post number 11 by Newby

 

Hi

I think Kees1958 said that he set up AntiVir free (scan when writing) and Avast free (some of the real-time shields off), for a friend.

 

BTW i woul not reccomand running two different av's even if they are monitoring different things. your asking for trouble.
choose the one you like best and then just run on demand scannners from time to time. look at the ones in my sig.

 

YEP, I tried the idea of Newby on a new (strong dual core) PC of a friend. Worked quiet well despite old mantra of not putting two AV's on same machine

Antivir:
- check at write only (real time shield)

Avast
- disable standaard (real time shield)
- use web/mail/p2p/network shield as inbound data checks

At the moment I install this combo for friends

ThreatFire free (also checks it AV data base after intrusion), with auto respond on red (know malware) and grey alerts (PUA), pop-up only at yellow alert and a create restore point before auto quarantaine.

Avast in above setup, with load Avast delayed (see trouble shooting screen), because windows update sometimes conflicts (svchost using nearly 100% CPU usage). I keep the boot up rootkit scan (only it starts a little later).

When they are willing to pay money, I advice DefenseWall otherwise I install GeSWall free for webbrowser only.


Regards Kees

 

Thanks guys.

 

Why would a combination of two AVs be better than one of the top applications?
I fail to see any advantage to running a combination Avira and Avast regardless of how configured.

Does anyone have data that indicates the combination is better than one alone, or something such as Kaspersky?

Regards,
Jerry

 

The top ones are not free. There is no advantage that I can think of over the "top" one$. However, If Avira does anything better than Avast! or vice versa and the strengths of the two can somehow be combined then for the same nice price of free - one has a better AV protection than one would have by running either alone.

 

Note I now install a Combo of TF and Avast (without standard shield to prevent overlap with TF), but the original idea of Newby was

a) To use inbound data checking (so P2P, Webbrowser, E-mail, simple NIDS of Network module) features of Avast which are missing in the free version of Antivir

b) to use Antivir as the last defense (at write only for increased speed and since incomming data streams were already checked)

Newby argued that since Avast did the incoming data streams and Antivir the writes to disk he had the same CPU load with better features than one freeware product. He also argued that an AV with 5 engines seemed to perform better than others (I forgot the name of the product), being Newby and not brainwashed with prejudgements (do not install two AV's), he simply tried it. I have to admitt the 2 worked flawlessly together.

Downside of not performing execution control and realtime read of files, is that once a zero-day threat is in your system, it is very hard to discover it.

Better altrnative of TF + Avast against 0-day threats

That is why the combo ThreatFire with Avast is a better one. Incoming data streams are checked by Avast, when a zero day threat is written to disk and stays in dormant status it is not discovered (no software will, only policy sandboxes will keep it caged in the limited user environment).

When 0-day becomes active, TF will notice any bad behaviour, with luck the AV-data base of TF will be updated and it will be recognised as a malware(red or grey box), in the worst situation it will only warn you with a yellow box and you have to decide for yourself.

Regards

 

Hi

Well, wouldn't AntiVir and Avast and ThreatFire be better than Avast and ThreatFire? Except maybe for the resource usage.

 

Why don't you try it (reduce Avira to check at write only), combining three engines Antivir (the best), Avast and Virusbuster (which TF uses to check after an intrusion) looks a bit over th etop, but then a again a commercial product offers five and realises good detection rates.

Post your experiences (be sure to make an image backup before trying, just to be safe).

Regards K

 

I'm not sure. My laptop's only 512 RAM and 1.73GHz. I'm currently using AntiVir free and ThreatFire free as my real time. I remember a few months back I did tried AntiVir with Avast with ThreatFire for a few days together but my laptop was noticeably slower, so I got rid of Avast.
Anyway, I don't think it'll increase my protection since I also use Sandboxie.