irregularjoe Posted May 28, 2009 Report Share Posted May 28, 2009 I've been using AVG free for many years. They threatened to stop updates for v. 7.5 about a year ago to encourage people to upgrade to v.8. However the updates continued until just recently. I read some bad reviews about v. 8 last year and kept from upgrading as long as possible. In fact I installed Avast on my desktop which I am happy with. But on my laptop (where I still had AVG 7.5) I just installed AVG 8.5 build 3.something.Has anybody else used this AV recently? I'm wondering if there are any shortcomings.ThanksJoe Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MrBill Posted May 28, 2009 Report Share Posted May 28, 2009 Got it on all 4 of my PC's and the rest of the family and friends and the Local Fire Dept. does also. I have never had it let me down in the 6 or 7 years that I have been using it. It is still supported. They just stop supporting older versions of it and basicly re write the program to the next version. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pete_C Posted May 29, 2009 Report Share Posted May 29, 2009 I find that AVG is not something I would recommend. First off is the history of bungled updates and false positives. Some of these could result in a non bootable system.What I really dislike about version 8 is the new stuff like the link scanner which really bog things down and do not allow for simple uninstall or disabling. Many of the new "features" wind up requiring you to do a complete uninstall and then custom install being very careful what you let it install if you do not want it running and bogging things down. And the poor performance at catching and blocking malware and removing infections, as well as the false positives continue.Read some reviews; and most important check out some of the pro and con reports from usershttp://download.cnet.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Fr...4-10320142.htmlhttp://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1864594,00.asphttp://antivirus.about.com/od/antivirussof.../gr/avgfree.htmUnable to see the scanning progress while on computer scanning.If I set it to do it's thing at 2:00AM and the 'puter is not turned on till 6:00AM, it will start to do it's thing at 6:00 AM. Why can't it start when it's supposed to!Burderns outweigh the benefits, I miss the days of companies like spybot when they made simple spyware, instead of this bloated stuff that automatically shows up in your computer tray, regardless of disabling different things.Control Center configuration screen is awkward. Least successful of the three against spyware. Scheduling limited to daily full scan and daily update.I just dumped AVG and my previously slow computer now screams, especially at boot up. Bye bye to version 8!slowed down puter a LOT. put valid emails in my DELETED folder (not a spam folder) & without warning. seemed a huge file/took forever to installAlthough AVG used to make a great product freely available, sadly with the newest "free" update as of April 2008 they have chosen to turn AVG antivirus into a VIRUS itself with the addition of a "feature" which randomly fires up your PC's web browser WITHOUT WARNING AND WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION taking you to AVG's website to ADVERTISE for their version 8 product suite. Limited support for compressed/archive typesHigher than average rate of false positives"After installing AVG, my Lenovo's internet Access Connection cannot work properly. It will wait for over 10 minutes to get the wireless connected.After turning off the so called Resident Shield, everything back to normal." Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MrBill Posted May 29, 2009 Report Share Posted May 29, 2009 (edited) Not everything you posted is right Pete. The scan is set to scan say at 10 and if the PC is off, it won't scan when it is turned on. It will wait till 10 to do so. Now if it is supposed to check for updates at say 9 and the PC is off at 9, it will check when the PC is turned on. I have NEVER had and e-mail deleted and have NEVER had a false positive with it. I have NEVER had it burn me, but have had Norton and McCrappy both burn me and a couple of friends. Reviews are good to a certain point, but when MY real world is OK, I trust MY real world. I have 4 PC's and several friends who have PC's and also the local Fire Dept that all use AVG and I maintain them for them and have never had this problem To me that is the REAL world. I hope that you don't think that I am argueing with you or calling you a liar, because I am not. This is just my honest opinion. Edited June 14, 2009 by MrBill Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Matt Posted May 29, 2009 Report Share Posted May 29, 2009 I use AVG over Avast for a couple of reasone:1. I hate Avast's UI. I find AVG is much simpler2. AVG is usually excellent at updates. I've scanned many files--that I knew were malwawre/infections--which AVG could pick up but many others couldn't.I've never had an issue with the scheduled scan. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Honda_Boy Posted May 30, 2009 Report Share Posted May 30, 2009 The problem I had with 8 is that it turned into a resource hog like norton and was killing my system's performance. If 8.5 has corrected that, I'd like to try them again. I've since switched to avast. It's interface is a little irritating but it does it's job like a champ without hurting my system's performance. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MrBill Posted May 30, 2009 Report Share Posted May 30, 2009 The problem I had with 8 is that it turned into a resource hog like norton and was killing my system's performance. If 8.5 has corrected that, I'd like to try them again. I've since switched to avast. It's interface is a little irritating but it does it's job like a champ without hurting my system's performance.Never have I had it a resource hog. None of the versions have done this or let me down. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Honda_Boy Posted May 31, 2009 Report Share Posted May 31, 2009 it crippled my system bad and slowed down a friends new laptop (I had originally installed 7.5 or whatever on t for him). I had him switch to avast and he reported that it was faster.My main problem was navigating my folders and a few other little things. It took forever for it to show files (it would take upwards to 20 seconds to show any files when I opened up a folder) and load image previews. I checked my task manager and spotted something chewing up power. It looked like something part of AVG. It had RS in the name. I turned off the Resident Shield and the speed came back for the most part. Removed AVG and installed avast and I've never since had a problem. BTW, this was on an Athlon X2 6000+ with 4GB of RAM in XP. I've long since switched to Vista and have no idea how it perform in it but my friend's laptop that had problems with AVG 8 was Vista. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 when you open folders it is scanning for bad files in that directory Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Honda_Boy Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 when you open folders it is scanning for bad files in that directory I know this but there's no reason for it take anywhere near as long as it did. avast is able to scan files in the background without the slowdown. AVG just made it ludicrously slow. There's no excuse to cause as much of a slowdown as it did on a system with that much power and resources to play with. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 We recommend avg free to most our clients(we just bought some oem norton 2009 av), mainly because it has most all features needed and it is an easy quick install. I am not convinced the paid products are much if any better, they all suck. I have not noticed any issues with AVG till today. We had AVG 8.5 installed with Vista Premium Sp1. While running a scan using mbam the computer was really unresponsive. I noticed the AVG resident shield process that you mentioned was pegging the cpu. I'm sure this was because every file the mbam was scanning was being also scanned in real time using AVG. I made a point of watching the process manager while clicking in directories, I noticed the avg resident shield process is kind of a cpu hog(as you stated). I am not sure that is such a horrible thing. Most of the time on the computer we are not running multiple scans or bouncing around in different directories. My opinion on it is in the middle, I don't know :-| Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Honda_Boy Posted June 2, 2009 Report Share Posted June 2, 2009 avast does the exact same thing without the slowdown. I had installed avast and MBAM on a system for a friend and ran an MBAM scan. Avast was scanning all the files MBAM was accessing. I could tell cause while MBAM was scanning avast virus warnings kept popping up. However, it wasn't slowing the system down like AVG. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
irregularjoe Posted June 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Thanks for the replies.I haven't noticed any problems with 8.5 yet. It's been running for about a week. I have not seen any nag screens relating to upgrating to the paid version. I think they might have changed that from 8.0.I does seem to be using more cpu than it should. I think I'll go back to Avast.The thing I like about AVG is it's ability to schedule scans. Avast free can't do that. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pete_C Posted June 6, 2009 Report Share Posted June 6, 2009 Well Avast can be set to schedule a boot time scan which is far more effective (just click the menu and choose schedule a boot scan.)And the Resident scanner scans things all the time as they are accessed. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
irregularjoe Posted June 7, 2009 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2009 Well Avast can be set to schedule a boot time scan which is far more effective (just click the menu and choose schedule a boot scan.)And the Resident scanner scans things all the time as they are accessed.I didn't know that. Thanks for the info. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MrBill Posted June 14, 2009 Report Share Posted June 14, 2009 Another thing that I like about AVG is when you GOOGLE somthing, it lets you know if it is Safe with a GREEN star and a CHECK mark in it. It tells you what time and also the link to the page and more stuff. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
YoKenny Posted June 15, 2009 Report Share Posted June 15, 2009 avast does the exact same thing without the slowdown. I had installed avast and MBAM on a system for a friend and ran an MBAM scan. Avast was scanning all the files MBAM was accessing. I could tell cause while MBAM was scanning avast virus warnings kept popping up. However, it wasn't slowing the system down like AVG.I switched to avast! ages ago when AVG started to nag me about upgrading to V8.0 that I found to be too slow on my system at the time but maybe its better now. Looking forward to avast! V5. Finjan SecureBrowsing works great on XP:http://securebrowsing.finjan.com Browser Defender™ works great on Windows 7:http://www.browserdefender.com Quote Link to post Share on other sites
casper0191 Posted June 23, 2009 Report Share Posted June 23, 2009 Well people just wanted to always be updated on what they use. So thats why they always thinking new is the best. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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