AVG no longer our friend?

[tec0]

Yes AVG free Edition was always considered our friend, you can get it for free and mostly the updates weren’t that big. But all of that is gone now. When I upgraded to AVG 2011 it took in total about 300MB from my 3G’s 1 GB cap and then it continued with 33.8Mb updates along with a few others.

Now as we all know our internet service providers are greedy selfish maggots that feed on the poor South African by forcing them to pay R300 more or less for 1GB of data. In that regard the old AVG was golden it didn’t eat as much.

But all of that is gone now... the New AVG is hungry and its updates just made it unusable to the general public. I say this because the 33mb update fails halfway and then it restarts and it fails and it restarts eating away at your cap. In one night I have used 600MB on AVG? That is just messed up!!!!

So are there any recommendations on other free antivirus software or is disconnecting from the net and using VR computers our only option?

[KimH]

I would highly recommend Microsoft Security Essentials - free to download and free updates for home users.

Here's the link - http://microsoft-security-essentials.en.softonic.com/
for downloads and you can read user reviews as well.

File size12.5MB

[Mark Atkinson]

I use Avast! anti-virus (free edition) and have had absolutely no issues. The file size is around 45mb. Updates are small, quick and efficient.

I'm really happy with it and changed from AVG to Avast! because I found AVG was slowing down my system tremendously and not even picking up everything.

[garthu]

With Mark on this as well. Changed from AVG to avast, still use avast on wifes machine.Would go so far as to recommend it!

[AndyD]

The free AVG 2011 has been revamped from the ground up. There's 2 ways to install, online installation and offline installation. If you install online you first download the bootstrap application which then oversees the rest of the online installation. Note if you just have one pc the the online installation would be more bandwidth economical.

Off line installation is by a standalone application which is 135mb. It seems to come compiled with all the language options, virus signatures and runtime libraries contained within. This makes it a little larger than the online install which obviously selects appropriately and doesn't download anything unnecessary. The offline installer can be used on multiple pc's in which case it would be a big bandwidth saver.

The first update after I installed it was fairly small at 12mb and just contained very recent virus definitions.

The first scan took quite a while, nearly 20 mins was 'optimizing' and the remaining 40 mins was scanning. The pc I tested it on is my backup server which is fairly hefty with several terabytes of mixed date across 8 drives so I was expecting to be in for the long haul when it came to scan time.

It found several false positives which I was expecting and excepted from further scans. I planted a couple of examples of suspicious files and the second scan in all fairness took around half the time and it found them all.

It doesn't seem particularly resource heavy in real time use or during scheduled scans but it did clash with my spybotSD teatimer which I've had to disable for now. I submitted a bug report and they replied that it's a known issue which is being addressed.

I'm happy to run it for a few weeks and if no problems become evident I'll probably install it across the board.

[tec0]

But you didn’t download any updates for it did you?

These updates are very useful because it allows you to reinstall updates in “offline” mode and when you update it doesn’t eat as much. But after all this was done there was a 33.5Mb update that stopped at 22Mb and then the server pinged out. Try it for yourself...

[irneb]

I would highly recommend Microsoft Security Essentials - free to download and free updates for home users.

Here's the link - http://microsoft-security-essentials.en.softonic.com/
for downloads and you can read user reviews as well.

File size12.5MB

Better!

I use Avast! anti-virus (free edition) and have had absolutely no issues. The file size is around 45mb. Updates are small, quick and efficient.

I'm really happy with it and changed from AVG to Avast! because I found AVG was slowing down my system tremendously and not even picking up everything.

Best!!!!!

I've moved away from AVG myself, but for different reasons. See this thread: http://www.theforumsa.co.za/forums/s...ead.php?t=7675

At present I'm using Avast! It's small, updates are miniscule and non-invasive, works like a dream, doesn't kill your PC's performance (like AVG did for me), and most wonderfully it PICKED UP stuff none of the others I've tried did (AVG, MS Sec Ess, ClamWin, Comodo AV).

As a side note, MS-SE is also quite small (about 10MB for installer download - don't know how much it used thereafter). But I've since un-installed it - it's doing the same thing as AVG did on my Laptop & work PC (i.e. using up +30% of CPU while any program launches) ... and yes I've set it to exclude the most common progs from its real-time scan ... has no effect whatsoever. I think that exclusion page is a placebo!

AVG always used 50% of the dual core CPU during program load-up and using inordinate amounts of RAM, causing some programs to start in minutes rather than seconds. Even though I've excluded them in AVG's real-time scan as well. With Avast! I've never seen task-manager show Avast! using more than 5% during any program's load-up (usually hovers around 1 to 2%), and I haven't excluded anything in its settings at all!

Can't remember exactly, but my AVG tended to use in the order of 100MB for its background process. Clamwin (which I'd not advise as an AV really) used extremely little, but did little as well (not worth the effort) - IMO they can drop that particular Open Source AV, unless they want to turn it into something more than just a file checker. MS-SE was using about 50MB of RAM, but I'd also not advise it as the only thing you've got. It doesn't catch everything at all, it's more like a stop-gap solution to make Windowze less security lacking.

Avast!'s using a whopping 25MB at this very moment. I've just started my PC and after logging into the domain, I had Thunderbird (145MB), Firefox (152MB) & AutoCAD (325MB) running and responsive within 1 minute. And its updates are rarely more than 500kb per day. The original download was 52MB.

If you're really security conscious, then I'd advise something like Comodo Firewall as well. But be warned that uses the same type of RAM & CPU as AVG, but blows anything wanting to connect to the internet (including itself, windows, any AV, or whatever) unless you allow it.

[wynn]

I found the 'free AVG' was slowing my internet connection down as it filtered everything all the time, I thought by buying the real version it would help but it didn't.
I have been using 'Avast free' for the last year and find it much better.

[solweb]

Avast

I moved to Avast a while ago and have no problems, in fact Avast Free has picked up problems that other (Paid) Antit Virus have overlooked.

A good place to get information is http://www.techsupportalert.com/

[tec0]

Well AVG 2011 is running at the moment but I am not happy with the big updates. So I will stick to my guns AVG WAS good until it started to cost me more then what it is worth.

Spending half a GB on updates alone is madness. It is a shame because I liked AVG a lot, it used to be small the updates used to be small but now it is just another 1 ton application slowing down my internet and feeding on my bandwidth.

Avast is about the get another customer.

[Dave A]

I found the 'free AVG' was slowing my internet connection down as it filtered everything all the time, I thought by buying the real version it would help but it didn't.

If you're not a reckless browser wandering around hairy parts of the internet, disable the link scanner to get rid of that problem.

[irneb]

I found the 'free AVG' was slowing my internet connection down as it filtered everything all the time, I thought by buying the real version it would help but it didn't.
I have been using 'Avast free' for the last year and find it much better.

If you check the thread linked to in my previous post, you'll note I had the enterprise edition AVG for all the PC in our office. At least then we could get the updates onto our own server and have the PCs update from there (instead of doing 60+ updates each over our broadband). But even the paid-for (R29000 / year) Enterprise Edition AVG was not catching everything Avast! did, and it was not catching everything while hogging the PC's RAM & CPU as well as the internet connection.

I moved to Avast a while ago and have no problems, in fact Avast Free has picked up problems that other (Paid) Antit Virus have overlooked.

A good place to get information is http://www.techsupportalert.com/

Exactly! That's one of my major reasons for loving it!

If you're not a reckless browser wandering around hairy parts of the internet, disable the link scanner to get rid of that problem.

Why should you need to do that? Don't you usually install an AV because you want to be protected? To install something, simply to disable it because it's overly hogging your system is defeating its purpose isn't it?

Avast! catches the same stuff (if not more) than AVG's internet connection snooping. It also pops up displaying stuff like untrusted (or un-recommended) web sites, same as AVG's bull-dog used to do. Only it doesn't kill your connection like AVG did.

I'm of the opinion that these AV's become bloated after a few years. For whatever reason, their creators start focussing on stuff like look and feel, making "pretty" dialogs, etc. Instead of focusing on making the program run as unobtrusively as possible and catching as many mal-items as they can. It's a dammed background-process dammit! Not a game, not an AV (as in Audio Visual app), not a graphics editor, it's something in the order of a service. It should run with absolute minimal UI (only the needed message boxes to display information when there's something WRONG!). The settings should be done through a minimal dialog - maybe even something directly inside the Control Panel. The UI shouldn't be the biggest portion of the program. And AVG is a perfect example of the UI becoming much more important to the programmers than the actual purpose of the program itself.

Yet even Avast! has a skinned look-n-feel (like AVG does), only they've been able to do so using a lot less resources. I'd have liked to see something like Clamwin (with a truly minimalist UI) be capable of a true AV/Anti Malware/Anti Spam/etc. like these other AV's. That would make for an AV which is focused on being an AV, not a pretty picture! Otherwise you end up with these scenarios where you have to turn stuff off simply to make the thing work decently.

So I'm even scared that Avast!'s moving towards this bloated UI-driven AV - if you look at its UI you see a lot of design's gone into it. That only means to me that the programmers' have spent a lot of their time making pretty pictures instead of making the program as robust and efficient as possible. At least Avast!'s not reached AVG's level of bloat (yet)! Maybe in a year or two they'll become the bloated box of useless, I hope not though! They've been in business for quite a while now, so maybe they're not moving to that particular nettle of thorns, one can hope

[Dave A]

If you're not a reckless browser wandering around hairy parts of the internet, disable the link scanner to get rid of that problem.

Why should you need to do that? Don't you usually install an AV because you want to be protected? To install something, simply to disable it because it's overly hogging your system is defeating its purpose isn't it?

It's not hogging resources on your PC - it's the check-with-AVG-server-for-a-scan-on-the-fly result time for the specific URL that causes the delay. If you look at all the steps in that, and the number of trips up and down our wonderful international connections, little wonder response is slow.

I'm of the opinion that these AV's become bloated after a few years.

Yeah - I agree. Remember when AVG was saving us from the bloat of Norton's...

So I'm even scared that Avast!'s moving towards this bloated UI-driven AV

Based on track record of all the others, probably

[SilverNodashi]

Yes AVG free Edition was always considered our friend, you can get it for free and mostly the updates weren’t that big. But all of that is gone now. When I upgraded to AVG 2011 it took in total about 300MB from my 3G’s 1 GB cap and then it continued with 33.8Mb updates along with a few others.

Now as we all know our internet service providers are greedy selfish maggots that feed on the poor South African by forcing them to pay R300 more or less for 1GB of data. In that regard the old AVG was golden it didn’t eat as much.

But all of that is gone now... the New AVG is hungry and its updates just made it unusable to the general public. I say this because the 33mb update fails halfway and then it restarts and it fails and it restarts eating away at your cap. In one night I have used 600MB on AVG? That is just messed up!!!!

So are there any recommendations on other free antivirus software or is disconnecting from the net and using VR computers our only option?

so is it the ISP's fault that AVG is now not an option for you anymore?
Why don't you use ADSL / iBurst / Neotel / etc?

And, Vodadom has (had?) a nightowl thing where if you purchased 1GB, you get 1GB free after hours - which is perfect for updates and stuff

[Cream]

This has been an interesting read, I have been looking for an upgrade from AVG and here it is. Our team has suggested doing research of their own on AVG and Avast, we may just publish there findings on our new forum.