I've always used Avast and never had any problems with it. But the best antivirus is to get rid of Windows anyway.

If you're not on Windows 8, just use Microsoft Security Essentials. It's free and works well. If you're on 8, it's built in! \o/

Always remember to only have one antivirus running at a time. (MSE will disable itself on 8 if you install something else, IIRC, but other ones won't. Two AVs are NOT better than one.)

If you're not on Windows 8, just use Microsoft Security Essentials. It's free and works well. If you're on 8, it's built in! \o/

Always remember to only have one antivirus running at a time. (MSE will disable itself on 8 if you install something else, IIRC, but other ones won't. Two AVs are NOT better than one.)

Does this also apply to stuff like Ad-Aware or Spybot that are specialized in removing adware/spyware rather than malware? In many occasions in the past, I noticed that Avast and other programs would not detect some adware, so I often had to also install Spybot side by side with Avast.

Some decades ago when I was still using windows, I used avira and never had a virus.
However, avast is total crap and useless. It's really annoying, its default settings are stupid, it sometimes crashes, is awfully bloated and SLOW AS HELL.
Some, even newer PCs with SSD have slowed down to almost pre-2000 speeds.

I never had problems with Avast other than the stuff I mentionned in my last two posts. I disabled every default option that arrived after 2013 or so and the only time I ever had Avast crashing was after a system restore, which was fixed by a reboot. Speed-wise, the only time Avast caused me speed problems was on my Pentium II 350 MHz years ago. MY Intel Celeron ran fine, same for this i7.

Quote from: bb010g on May 15, 2014, 09:26:33 am

If you're not on Windows 8, just use Microsoft Security Essentials. It's free and works well. If you're on 8, it's built in! \o/

Always remember to only have one antivirus running at a time. (MSE will disable itself on 8 if you install something else, IIRC, but other ones won't. Two AVs are NOT better than one.)

Does this also apply to stuff like Ad-Aware or Spybot that are specialized in removing adware/spyware rather than malware? In many occasions in the past, I noticed that Avast and other programs would not detect some adware, so I often had to also install Spybot side by side with Avast.

When I was still using windows, the guys at the microsoft community told me that most programs consider virusses (software that allows hackers to enter your computer, or use your computer's computing power for DDoS attacks, or can destroy your computer etc) as a completely different thing as malware (software that in most cases shows tons of ads, but it can also include other bloatware). Therefore, many antivirus programs will not protect you from malware, and most malware scanners will not protect you from virusses. So having one of either is in most cases a good idea, or at least that what has been told to me.
As an antivirus, I've always used the free edition of AVG, and for malware, I've used MalwareBytes. They didn't automatically scan everything I downloaded, but it's easy to scan any files that may be suspicious manually, since both support scanning individual files. And while I used them, I didn't notice a significant drop in performance of my computer.
But after all, the best thing to protect you from virusses and pograms is common sense. Only download things from sites that look relyable, and if you're not absolutely sure, scan the file.
If you really need something that can only be downloaded from a site that doesn't look relyable (For example if you want to download not so legal stuff), first try to download and install it in a virtual machine. And if a virus scan of that virtual machine is negative, and there is no mallware (you uusually notice this witouth a scan) then you can put it on your actual computer.
And as a general download rule: If you're not downloading a program, don't thrust .exe files. While they do often contain the thing you want (or a link to that) as well, they're often filled with malware too.

My dad is a Microsoft SBS MVP, and he just uses it standalone; it should cover everything you need (along with Defender in Vista/7). (He normally deploys Trend Micro at client sites, but you have to pay for it.)