I found out about Avast! by watching Avast! vs Malware on youtube. The videos are:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhv53ayzyIs (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRrL_tw7NQM (Part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WanT3d3TYE (Part 3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPFVKbqFODg (Part 4)
How did you find out about Avast?
An internet search of available free av solutions done about 6 years ago.
When AVG 7.5 started to recommend 8.0 and I found out how big it had become I looked around and found avast! was recommended quite a bit so here I am.
This forum is a pleasure to be in unlike the AVG forum where users were treated like misbehaving children at best or imbeciles that should not own a computer at worst.
AVG’s freeforum looks horible. ;D
From a computer magazine, review of free programs
It’s been that many years that I don’t remember. ( Perhaps I’m getting too old… 
)
What I remember very well was that in that period of time Avast! was only free in the US
and UK. The reason was some sort of a distrbution agreement.
At last Avast! free got free in the rest of Europe too.
Regards
HL
A few years ago, I got tired of paying each year for Norton Antivirus, and when Norton decided that I had to pay separately for each computer I put their system on, I looked for another option. After looking for antivirus applications recommended on the internet, Avast was one of my first choices, and even then the forum was one reason I stayed with it. Now I wouldn’t do without Avast and have recommended it to all my friends.
Ro Ro 8) 8)
I just remember a little over five years ago I finally got fed up with AVG and went looking, I think it was a google search, followed up with some more googling for reviews, etc. and found the forums too. The rest as they say is history, I have been a happy avast user who hasn’t looked back ever since.
I started with a computer running '98 on 16Mb of RAM. I knew nothing about security programs or computers and my web-sense was commensurate with that. I used Avira (Antivir as it was then) for quite a time, but the updates on dial up got a bit tiresome. And I thought I needed an email scanner. I tried Avast then but couldn’t get it to download, probably because of my feeble connection rather than anything else. So I moved to AVG. Several trojans later, and a new computer, having looked at many reviews I re-tried Avast. This was about 6 years ago. Haven’t seriously looked for anything else since realizing how good it is.
I can’t belive you could be on a PC like that. :o
Yep. I needed to learn pretty fast how to optimize its working, too.
Back then, though,typical light program demands were more often of the order of 4MB than the 16-60 you tend to see today.
I saw your other thread about your poor performance. You simply have far too much crap running at startup.
…but it wasn’t me… it was the program’s fault… they told my OS to run at startup… and… its horible… 
…
Oh, stop being pathetic.
Go to the program settings and stop it. If it can’t be stopped, uninstall it. If it’s needed, put up with it.
Huh?
Most programs that run at startup are either necessary for the OS to function, ie: part of it, or have been installed by a user. If the latter is the case, find the options in every program you have ever installed (apart from essentials like security programs) and disable it from running at start.
QT task, for example, or JQstarter. You should Google these program file names, find out just how important they are to be run.
In many cases you can check for updates to applications manually, as part of normal maintenance and housecleaning, rather than having a programs own updater running 24/7.
About 25 years ago, I had an Apple Macintosh which was supposed to be user friendly with floppy disks. That was before connecting to the internet so no security was needed. I always called it my glorified typewriter. Eventually I purchased a computer with Windows 95 and only 4MB of RAM as I remember. At that time I think that was the most you could get, and a gig of hard drive was not possible. I can’t believe that was 14 years ago. How computers have changed.
I know that doesn’t really answer the question, but it made me nostalgic.
RoRo
When I bought my laptop it had Norton pre -installed.My brother who has been using computers for years unlike me said you are better of getting rid of that has after ninety days they start charging you and its not that great anyway so get Avast instead.So I got rid of Norton and Avast is the only av I have ever used and based on its performance to date it may well be the only one I will ever use.
I started using a PC in '82 that had 16K RAM that ran DOS 1.1 with a 13in 640x408 CGA green screen that sort of looked like the screen in The Matrix with the characters all over the screen.
Was at the Lincoln County School of Technology and the Network Admin for the school system had it on his personal laptop (this was back in the Avast32 3.0 days for those that remember) And he showed it to me. T
I can’t belive that…