Diff between Free and Pro versions

I just downloaded avast home free edition, and want to know what the main diff is between pro and free. I have a standard computer with windowns vista, Compaq with amd… i am getting my email hijacked and some clown changed my aol pw which is why i needed this program. is the free one sufficient or do i need to upgrade. I cannot find ANY topics that address this question, strange

oh, also do i need to uninstall norton? or does it make a difference at all

Avast Home V Avast Pro differences http://www.avast.com/eng/av4_version_comp.html

You absolutely need to uninstall Norton and it can be a real pig to remove, even after an uninstall there are frequently remnants left (as topics in these forums attest).

A link worth looking at, which is a program removal tool that can remove the remnants of a number of different Norton Programs:
Removing your Norton program using SymNRT

Obviously before doing this download and save the avast version so you don’t go on-line unprotected. You could download the Pro version and use it in trial mode for up to 60 days unrestricted use before making a decision to purchase or just downgrade to the free Home version.

Since you may already have some malware issues:
If you haven’t already got this software (freeware), download, install, update and run it and report the findings (it should product a log file).

Thanks david, I uninstalled Norton, but I found I had no problem with my Vista program uninstall…it said it was completely removed, am i going to find a surprise later?

No problem, glad I could help.

Personally I wouldn’t wait for any surprise later and use the tool as a matter of course, there are too many tails of remnants on the forums relating to this. Others too felt there was no problem with the uninstall but experienced weird issues, that would seem unrelated, but were resolved after running the tool.

Welcome to the forums.


You must use the Norton ininstall tool or, sooner or later, you will have problems.

Avoid the problems by using the uninstall tool now.


i am getting my email hijacked and some clown changed my aol pw which is why i needed this program

Just a side note, just because someone changed your “aol” password, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a “virus” on your computer did it. You could have had a weak password, where someone had guessed it, or used a program to find out and change the password. This can be done via AOL’s website, so your computer might not have even been on when this happened.

Just remember to use a strong password on your accounts, for example “password” is not strong, but “p@$$W0rD” is.

I just wanted to tell you that just because you have an Anti-virus program on your computer, it doesn’t mean that someone can’t “guess” your password and do whatever they want once they have access to your account.