AVG vs Avast!

I'm sure both AVG and Avast have been discussed many times here at Wilders, I'm looking for the latest opinions. Times change and so does software, some improve and some rest on their laurels.

I've noticed across the net in many Tech/Hardware forums that when the subject AV arises the word AVG seems most spoken, almost a parrots phrase.

Is AVG that good or is it because it's popular ? Is Avast not as good or not as popular ?

Have have both on seperate PC's, IMHO Avast is the better of the two, what's your honest (no Flaming) opinions ?

 

They both are good, I just feel Avast's feature of boot time scan gives it the edge where it can scan for infected system files which are usually locked by OS during while it is operating.

 

I use AVG Free 7.x
It works beautifully, very stable, hasn't crashed on me, regular and small updates. Very very reliable, before I became security geeky, it caught a severals instances of the same trojan (SD Bot or something) that I never knew was on the computer

I tried Avast, it's tray icon is annoying and just doesn't seem right.

I definitely recommended AVG out of the two!

 

AVG is good, I used to be the AVG user for a quite long time and it had never let me down, it's fast and stable.

But when considering to the whole package, in my humble opinion, for me even the Avast Home Edition (free version) is better than AVG 7 Pro (shareware). One thing that AVG seems to be better than Avast is that AVG doesn't impact system performance in real time on some machine/slow machine.

 

avast! is better than AVG, because have more protection features, is more configurable, better detection, but the new WebShield component have some incompabilites with some programs...

Maybe if you can test them, you can see what is more stable and what fits better on your system

 

I agree on that point also and Avast! WebShield is a big advantage, but lets put that aside and focus on the basic purpose of the program which is virus/trojan/malware detection. In most of the test I've read Avast usually scores better in detection or am I wrong ?

 

correct.

advice...
try both one by one. Use "total uninstall" to first install the AV, then uninstall once you've satisified yourself. Repeat for both. Use the one you like.

 

Avast! is available in my (Dutch) language right now, AVG planned for Q4
And graphics wise (both the scanner and the site) there's no no competition, a clear Avast! win

And as for the quality of the product? Not much between them. Pick whatever you prefer for an interface, update frequency, speed...

 

Big AVG dissadvantage is that it checks for updates only once per day,while avast! checks for them on established internet connection and every 4 hours after that (you can even tweak it with AEC to min. 2 hours).
Web Shield doesn't directly improve detction,but certanly helps for stuff that exploits browser. Network Shield is another thing that only avast! uses and it appears to be quiet effective.

 

Yes, as I said "when considering to the whole package" Avast is even better.

Avast Home Edition outstanding features

- complete auto-incremental updates
- Web Shield (HTTP scanner), content filtering
- Network Shield (IDS)
- Boot-time scan

When detection rates in the real world is directly related to response time and updating, as soon as you get updated then you're safer. so I can't imagine the BIG AVG dissadvantage is that it checks for updates only once per day.

 

my vote goes for avast,having used both for quite sometime..

 

Have not tried Avast gets high marks here at the Wilders. I do use AVG on my older compaq machine. Works like a charm, as for the updates gee once a day is plenty for most pc users how many new nasties can one encounter in a 24 hour or even 48 hour period. There maybe many reasons for using Avast over AVG, but imho this would not be one of them.

 

Why change? As long as you're happy, stay happy

 

Ok,i'll give you example.
Your AVG is scheduled for daily defs check at lets say 14:00 PM.
AVG checks at that time and nothing new,but actual defs are released hour later at 15:00 PM. Now you missed those defs and you need to wait till NEXT day at 14:00 PM. Long timeframe isn't it?

avast! on other hand could also miss 14:00 PM update,but it will check after 4 hours again (or even 2 hours if you tweak it) so it will check it at 18:00 PM again (or tweaked at 16:00 PM). When it will check again at this time,it will find new defs and update them. It's like ~20 hour difference compared to AVG.
Not such a small timeframe...

This is certanly very important,so you are up-to-date in matter of hours,not days.

 

Rejzor,
Understood. The occassional 48 hour turn around is fine for me. Also I keep up with things on a daily basis. I hang around here too. If there was a major out break I can manually update. The server would not stop me would it, just because it just checked an hour ago and there was no update. Then a big bad virus outbreak occurs, an I get Trend Micro email alert or someone makes a post here. I would know to check update manually frequently. Also go to their site for information.

Just me I guess? Keep in mind a like AVG and have nothing against Avast, again 24 to 48 hour window for the average user should be just fine imho. As long as something is working for me unless I get the itch I will not likely change.

 

"Ok,i'll give you example.
Your AVG is scheduled for daily defs check at lets say 14:00 PM.
AVG checks at that time and nothing new,but actual defs are released hour later at 15:00 PM. Now you missed those defs and you need to wait till NEXT day at 14:00 PM. Long timeframe isn't it?"

Not quite right. I'm using AVG free (again) and it checks every day when I turn on my computer. If nothing is available at that time, I'll just hit check for updates sometime later in the day and receive them. AVG free allows you one update a day. It will check once. You can check as often as needed to get that update, and it will update when it's available but it has to be done manually after the automatic update.

 

Chuck57,

Exactly!! And it is not a problem for me either.

Just to be clear there may be lots of reasons to do AVAST instead of AVG but the update issue should not be one of them. Nothing is perfect and I would recommend follow up manually from time to time just to make sure things are going as they should nothing like the human eye taking a look at things as they happen to make sure things are happening as they should. Creatures like Bellgammin likes to do all updates manually anyway, if I remember correctly. If I am correct, he would not likely care if his AV updates every 15 minutes.

I guess I better shut up now. No need to over state the issue.

 

another point is that the right click scans in avg if you find a virus you cant disinfect or delete it ..you need to do a full system scan..this is nt the case with avast..also the removal and cleaning for avast is overall much better than avg imho..

 

I have AVG7 free and that does a boot-time scan (on Win98SE anyway). I thought AVG6 did as well but I cannot remember. Maybe we are talking about different things here....

patermann

 

Well, it's the opposite of avast! which doesn't have a boot-time scanner for Win9x, but has a NT-based one (similar to what McAfee now started to develop: http://www.betanews.com/article/McAfee_Tests_Virus_Scans_During_Boot/1114190567 ).

 

Now there truely is a disadvantage. I agree with you on that one.

 

I had the free version AVG and it served me well, but heard so much talk on various forums about how much better Avast was that I decided to try the free version. Well, I was not happy with it. It slowed down my system, it was toooooo busy. You might say that being so busy is good, but no, it really isn't. It was busy when it wasn't necessary. It aslo could not be set up to scan automatically. Last , but not least, it is just plain ugly. Does not look professional not even with the other skins. I do not like it perod. I uninstalled this joker and reinstalled AVG which I will keep. AVG is just as good , if not better than Avast. What it really boils down to is , one's preference.

 

How do you define being busy when it shouldn't be? avast! checked all files that have been accessed at that time. If thats 130 files,thats what it will scan.
avast! checks files On-Access and On-Close,while AVG by default scanns only On-Access (On-Open if you want). And slowdowns are usually noticeable only on Win9x systems where Alwil couldn't use many scan optimisations.
If you don't like the skins,you're free to make you're own or simply use skinless.
If that doesn't look at least a bit professional,i can't help you

 

I have a Dell 4500 and Windows XP Home EditionSP2. And I wasn't looking for nor do I need help in making a choice between the two. I did that already from the experience of trying each one. I just merely stated my opinion to the first poster's question which was: Which is better Avast or AVG?

BTW. I don't know anything about making my own skins and don't care to learn. There were more issues with Avast than just the skins. No skins was the default media player look which was quite yucky. AARG!!

 

I switched from AVG to Avast after Avast found 50 infected files on my father-in-law's PC that AVG competely missed. This was before AVG 7 was released, so things may have improved. The only thing I missed from AVG that Avast Free didn't have was scheduled scans. However, after a bit of playing around I came up with a way to do scheduled scans with Avast. I posted them in the Avast forums. Here's a link if anyone is interested:

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=3796