How does this compare with Avast Home Edition or AVG free Edition? Just curious!
Their are three different types of software you are speaking of.
AVG…PCTools and avast!
You may consider doing a search on each one of them…it’s easier for you to see the differences this way.
I just did a search through Yahoo and Google. You may want to consider visiting their websites to see what they each have to offer.
Each one of them has a free version…and one you pay for.
Each of them is a different software within themselves offering different types of protection.
Hopefully you will find the answers you are looking for.
Hope this Helps. Welcome to the forums.
PC Tools antivirus uses the Virus Buster antivirus engine if I remember correctly.
IMO it’s not as good as Avast or AVG.
Any scanner tests that I have seen online with Virus Buster listed don’t rank it very high at all.
avast better than AVG better than PCTools.
PCTools is really a ‘new’ one… needs maturity.
Short answer, If you qualify as a “Home User”, Avast! has less impact on the performance of your PC, is generally easier too live with in every other aspect, is highly configurable, and unlike PC Tools Antivirus, has never caused BSOD/memory dumps following a failed update, on any of my machines. >:(
However! If you’re not a “Home User” and for whatever reason, can’t-afford/choose-not to pay for AV protection, ‘PC Tools Antivirus Free Edition’ is free for any use (by my reading of the EULA), is quick to install/uninstall & update, and does actually work most of the time.
Hope they do not change this in the future. I hate freeware becoming shareware, or the freeware being just a non-complete protection solution.
IMO, avast! is the best among them.
PC Tools AV: high resource usage and weak security. Hope improvement will happen in the near future
AVG Free: very low resource usage! But you cannot exclude FP from its monitor