My AVG free version is going to end Jan. 18th(i think)Does anyone have a replacement to suggest?

Go here

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

They are just discontinuing support of 7.1....AVG has a new free version.

Just download and install. You'll be good.

Yup

Ditto :D

Thanks!

:agree:

I also use Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Classic. Seems to be a good back-up to AVG. Its free too.

Linky...http://www.free-av.com/

You're not using both AVG and Antivir at the same time, are you? That's really, really not a good idea. Should really only run one A/V app at a time.

Antivir typically rates much higher in comparison shootouts than AVG. It's a good choice.

Nope...I've been trying the AnitVir as it seems to tie up fewer resources on this less-than-state-of-the-art computer. I only run 1 A/V at a time.

I do like to run a scan with different ones occasionally, (I also have McAfee which came with my AOL account) as I know these bugs can be sneaky. I'm anal about viri, and spyware, as I've been infected before. Reformatting is no fun.

Wait, I think you might misunderstand what I mean.

It is a very bad idea in general to have more than one antivirus installed on your computer at any time. Almost all antivirus software has a service that runs in the background at startup. I know McAfee typically has two specific services running at all times.

Most antivirus does realtime scanning. A typical role of antivirus software is "realtime scanning", in a nutshell, basically any time you open a file, antivirus scanner scans it. I don't know a single antivirus out there which doesn't install and enable this by default.

Why would it matter? Well, think about it like this - three antivirus apps installed. All are real-time scanning and all of them have services running in the background. Each service eats up your memory and CPU time. Every time you open a file, three different programs are fighting to scan it first. They're not going to play nice, all of them are going to fight to see who gets it first. After one scans it, the other might see that as the file being opened and scan it again. I've seen crazier things happen :)

Sorry if you know all of this already. The "multiple antivirus on one computer" thing is something I see often out in the field, and 9 times out of 10 it causes more problems than it helps.

There are so many reputable antivirus companies out there who will scan your computer for viruses, trojans and adware free at their website (example: http://housecall.trendmicro.com ) that it's almost silly to have two antivirus apps on one computer anymore.

Is this the case even if the other A/V apps are disabled or set to manual in control panel/admin. tools/services? As I understand, when as long as they are not set to auto, they should not run in background until I enable them?

I am not sure, and have not really gotten a good answer to this before.

I doubt anyone could give you a definite answer, as I'm sure every a/v app operates in its own way. Some programs like Symantec/Norton a/v have a single background process like ccApp.exe that is run via registry startup, and it has one or two additional services to go along with it.

Basically, you would need to crack open the registry, look at all processes running, decide if that process is actually doing any realtime scanning and go from there.

Easiest way to determine what is running would be getting a program like HijackThis, scan and save the logfile and either browse the 'O4' startup and Global Startup sections to look for a/v processes, research what each one does, then look at the 'O21' services section and find how many services are running and set those respective services to 'disable'.

Sounds like a lot of trouble though, and what happens if you have it disabled and a virus actually hits your system and kills your antivirus while it isn't running, so it never actually updates or runs right again?

The bonus to using web-based secondary a/v scanner is ... no viruses local to your system can do anything to fight off detection from a web scanner ;)

Shifty,

Thanks for your advice. I've run HiJackThis, and it DID show both AVG and AntiVir as running process at start-up. Based on that, I'm going to un-install AVG Anti-virus, and keep my AntiVir active (my non-conformist streak :hm: ).

Now I've got to do research on this McAfee stuff that AOL has apparently installed :crazy: .

I'm assuming at this point that the above recommendation for installing only 1 A/V app. does NOT neccesarily apply to anti-spyware programs. Again, I have multiple programs...
AVG Anti-spyware
Spybot
Ad-Aware
Windows Defender
SpywareBlaster...

but only run one at a time.

Antivir is rated as a better product than AVG at most sites who run stats and gauge them, so in this case non-conformant might be safer ;)

With regard to anti-spyware, the more the merrier, just be aware whether the application enables realtime scanning on the system! Realtime scanners are what bog you down. One is fine, but start delving in to 2-3 realtime scanners active on the same system at the same time, and you can really slow stuff down or cause massive problems.

AVG Antispyware apparently is the successor to Ewido. I have heard from Liz here at the forum that Trend Micro's new spyware scanner is supposed to kick some serious ass.