Avast excrutionalingly slow

Hi,
A few months ago I had to de-install Avast Internet Security (pro) because it conflicted with MSFT Family Safety and caused kernal crashes.
I used Microsoft Defender instead.
Yesterday I got rid of Family Safety and re-installed Avast but now the pc is unbelievably slow. Particularly when I use a Web browser (any). CPU is at 90% and RAM 65% even when I’m not doing anything.

On another PC the speed is ok so I reckon Avast must be conflicting with something else. Before I give up and go back to Windows Defender does anyone have any tips that I could follow to identify what combination is causing this problem with Avast?
Alan

  • Which version of AIS…?
  • OS…? (32/64 Bit…? - which SP…?)
  • Other security related software installed…?
  • Which AV(s) did you use before Avast…?

Alan,

Avast have recently released a new version of their software that goes under the 2015 name. I installed this earlier this week on my XP SP3 computer. Even since then my computer has also been excrutionaly slow. I have visited these boards where I have seen that many others are having similar problems, and I’ve posted my own observations. I was asked to reinstall AVast, which I have done twice, all to no avail.

Some responders to these complaints appear to think that we should be pleased that AVast is burning nearly all our cpu cycles in order to keep us safe. I don’t really go along with this. Does this mean that Avast was not keeping us safe in previous versions? I would guess that the company have made a mistake, and hope that they are working on the problem.

I had the same experience a few months ago with Avast Free 2014, so bad that I replaced it with AVG Free for a while. Since I reinstalled 2014 and updated it to 2015, I have had no repeat of this.

I have been experiencing major slowness with 2014. Then I upgraded to 2015 (windows 7) thinking that would fix things and it became excruciatingly slow. I upgraded everything with no fixes. “disabling” avast makes no difference. Productivity was ridiculous. In some areas of the file system it was horrible, in others it seemed normal. I could not update windows until I uninstalled Avast (was running for several hours). I had no choice but to uninstall it. As a replacement I installed AVG. Things work incredibly fast. Prior to this I uninstalled Avast, reinstalled, and did this again with no change. Also removed every module except for the bare essentials.

I love the features of Avast but you recently introduced some major bugs or you conflict with the OS in a bad way. If someone could tell me when this gets fixed I might return to Avast, but at this point I cannot recommend it. On a laptop it works faster, but it’s still slower than it should be (Windows 8.1).

Sounds like youse all have been having “NG” problems, it’s the Virtual Box used for Sandboxing etc. Just search for “virtualisation” and stuff.

Gordon.

hi Gordon451, Asyn,
Sorry - I missed your posts.
It’s particularly slow when surfing. The fan get’s really loud.

I use Avast Internet Security 2015.10.0.2208 on Windows 8.1 64 bit.
I used Avira before Avast but deinstalled it completely using the software suggested by a post in a malware thread.

I searched for “virtualisation” but couldn’t find anything applicable in the forum and couldn’t work out how to search in the Avast help. Nor could I find a setting in avast that deals with this.

Try the latest beta: https://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=165749.0

hi Asyn,
thanks for the suggestion but I can’t install beta software on this pc. It’s been bad since I installed Avast in November and the last update from Avast didn’t help.