system
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But the option is not between getting an infection and putting up with spamware. If nothing else, I went for years (not overexaggerating) without any anti virus program at all (not even windows defender) and never got any viruses. And I’m a heavy downloader of software and media. How do I know I didn’t have viruses unnoticed? Well, obviously there is no way to be absolutely sure but I installed avast and scan came up with no threats, and I never had any problems. I take precautions like actually reading the comments of things I download, and not downloading anything from sites I don’t trust. It goes a long way. If you also have a secure browser with little userbase (like opera), that helps too. Obviously I have firewalls, both hard- and software.
Does AVG have popup ads? Somewhat inferior protection doesn’t bother me. The risk of an infection is so low if you know what you are doing, the difference must be microscopic. It is well worth taking imo.
Many infections spam you with popup windows, so in some sense, avast IS an infection even though a very small one. Atleast, it displays the behavior of adware. Having a slightly less good defence and a lot less spammy behavior is black numbers in my books.
I have no problems with the ads. The spammy popup ads, however.