getting ready to download avast home edition....

and I have a few questions…

first, I had norton, on my first laptop, it died, so know I have a new laptop, and the norton is about to expire, ive been reading about antivirus programs online and found avast, which seems pretty amazing…

my questions are these…

Im running windows vista basic…and i believe internet explorer 8

as did the last laptop, and norton shutdown the default windows firewall and defender

now is it safe to just run the windows firewall and defender with avast? or do I need to upgrade? and turn them off?
thank you for any help you can give
Saty

Hi Saty!

Its a good decision to use avast! :wink:

Basically the Windows firewall and Windows Defender are good partners for avast! and deliver a good level of protection for the average computer user if you keep them and your OS up-to-date… (in my opinion… i also only use Windows firewall and Windows Defender besides avast!)
I’m quiet sure that some other users will also post their opinions :slight_smile:

What is important in your case is, that you completely remove Norton!
Therefor first uninstall it via the control panel → add/remove programs; and then run the Norton removal tool.
If you don’t run the removal tool there can easily appear problems…

If you have any more questions or need some assistance simply ask!

kind regards
onlysomeone

onlysomeone…

thank you for your reply, I was hopeful that would be the answer I recieved, Ill keep checking back to see if any other members have the same or different opinions.

Ive seen in other threads the mention of the norton removal tool, but have never heard of it or used it(this being My second computer) I thought it was a simple unistall, guess now I know huh…Im guessing it wipes all traces of norton??

maybe I should do that to the laptop that crashed with norton…I was told by friends it has corrupt files but who knows lol…I just know I dont like norton

thanks again

Saty

Yes, exactly…
Norton often leaves something behind on the computer although it already is uninstalled… therefore we suggest to run the removal tool…

You’re welcome!

I also used Norton before and when it ran out I switched to Avast. In my opinion even the free version of Avast is superior to Norton in many respects. It was a little tricky at first learning how to use it but once you get past that it’s smooth sailing, it has been for me anyway.

I use Vista Home Basic, Windows Firewall, Defender and the latest version of Avast 4.8 Home. I have a Toshiba laptop and they work together seamlessly on it and have provided adequate protection.

hey norel,

thank you for your reply, so far it seems im on the right track with wanting windows firewall, defender and avast.

hmm avast is a lil tricky huh? is it safe to say that everything runs at a default setting once downloaded? and you can tweek adjustments if you wish? or does a user tweek things from the beginning?

Saty

I only had one real problem. When you first download, it’s set by default to scan your memory when Avast opens. For some reason it caused instability and I had to disable it to get Avast to work right. After a couple of days when things had stabilized I turned it back on and everything worked fine. Actually, most of the default settings seem pretty good. I did tweak a couple of things but nothing major.

The language is different from other products I’ve used; for example “Resident Protection” rather than real-time protection and “Virus Chest” instead of quarantine. There’s a pretty good user’s guide that explains a lot of it. There’s also an installation guide.

ahhh I see norel, that seems pretty basic and straightforward, which i was hoping for…

and thank you for the user guide link, ill definitly be reading it

Saty