I recently installed the latest version of avast! after I saw it was rated pretty high in a Consumer Reports magazine, and also because I had no antivirus protection. But when I installed it, it slowed down my cpu a LOT! I couldn’t even use the internet because it was so slow, but when i stopped avast! and ended all of the processes related to it, it is working tons faster.
I want to still use the on-access protection, but could someone help me fix this problem.
Have you changed any of the default settings, especially the sensitivity settings as the default should provide a good compromise between performance and protection.
What other security based software do you have that might have an effect, e.g. other resident scanners Spybot S&D (TeaTimer), AdAware (AdWatch), SpySweeper, PrevX, WinPatrol, ProcessGuard, etc. ?
What is your firewall ?
The usual response is that after uninstalling their existing AV and installing avast people find things run quicker. However, if you never ever had an AV installed you would certainly notice a difference. If you have never had an AV installed there is every likelihood you have malware on your system also, it may be seriously compromised.
If you haven’t already got this software (freeware), download, install, update and run it, preferably in safe mode.
Besides David’s questions about the sensitivity level, can you post how much RAM memory do you have in your computer?
Did you install any other antivirus in this computer in the past?
I have been using Ad-aware for awhile and I started using Spybot S&D, and am using windows defender (beta 2). I just uninstalled McAfee couple days ago but that wasn’t doing anything as far as protecting my computer since it was out of date and the free trial was out of date. I have no real-time protection, i don’t think tea timer is running from Spybot, and I have free version of Ad-aware.
I am not that knowledgable about computers so I don’t know how to post my RAM.
To remove McAfee you need to do via Add/Remove and then the manual removal of the registry keys left behind with their on-line instructions.
They’ve released VSCleanupTool to do that either, just go to http://www.us.mcafee.com and click the Tech Support tab (provide your version number in Step 1 and select install/uninstall in Step 2). You can go to their user forum at http://www.forums.mcafeehelp.com if you should have problems or questions.
Check http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=20560.msg172602#msg172602 also.
Whilst the windows XP firewall is usually good at keeping your ports stealthed (hidden) it provides no outbound protection and you should consider a third party firewall.
Any malware that manages to get past your defences will have free reign to connect to the internet to either download more of the same, pass your personal data (user names, passwords, keylogger retrieved data, etc.) or open a backdoor to your computer, so outbound protection is essential.
The only other provider I would say you should have running is the Internet Mail provider. Any other avast providers are based on your specific requirements, if you don’t use P2P or IM programs you don’t need those providers, if you don’t use MS Outlook (not express) you don’t need the Outlook/Exchange provider (which is usually disabled by default).
What email program do you use and how do you read your email, e.g. do you use your browser to connect and read (web based email) or download with your email program and read it with that (pop3 email) ?
I ran the vscleanup tool but it didn’t work, it said it couldn’t find the file.
When I uninstalled McAfee, I did it after I installed avast!, so should I try uninstalling, then reinstalling it? If so, should I do the full or minimum install?
I’m not sure the problem is on McAfee… I won’t install it again to avoid even more messing in your computer.
It’s difficult to troubleshoot a computer at distance… maybe you should see if into Windows Events (Control Panel > Adminstrative Tools > Events) there are some errors or further info to help us to help you…
Could someone tell me how to manualy erase the McAfee registry, or does anyone know a better way becausee the McAfee tool said it didn’t find anything.