I have a stable Windows 7 SP1 32 bit computer, 2.8GHz Processor, 4 GB Ram (3.34 Usable), and I clean my PC everyday with malwarebytes and other cleaning software. Is Avast! good as IS or equal? Or Is it good enough to protect my computer?
Good morning, hello, and welcome to Avast Forum I<3Avast
I have been using Avast Free Edition since the release of version 7 and till now using it. I won’t let go of Avast Free Antivirus every again :). I can tell you from past experience it is the BEST free antivirus out here. It really works well with computer using less system resources, lightweight, and the list goes on and on. Just remember NO antivirus is 100% in detecting malware the best way is to use other malware protection such as Malwarebytes Antimalware.
If you need support for your Avast Antivirus Free Edition you can post them here and it’s all for FREE 
+ support from here is one of the BEST support you will ever receive
It is really good that you use Malwarebytes. Do you use SuperAntispyware Free Edition as well? May I ask what other cleaning software do you use?
If i remeber correct bob3160 and DavidR have used the free version for years and never got infected … if that means anything to you
No security program have 100% detection … and then also consider what you do on the net
I use Avast since version 7.0.14xx and never got infected.
No AV can give 100% protection, even Avast misses some things: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=149287.new#new
My grandpa had .exe files of the GEMA Virus on his PC some years ago and only Avast was able to detect all 4 files that he had on it.
Well just past my tenth anniversary of using avast free and not a single infection.
During the course of helping out on these forums - checking sites that people consider clean yet avast considered infected - I did get alerts when checking things out, but no infections. The other thing is that sticks out that avast does have a very high detection rate on the web shield, preventing the malware getting on the system.
All of that said, nothing is going to give 100% protection, so the user also has to take some responsibility - don’t go opening unsolicited emails, attachments or clicking links within said unsolicited emails. A healthy dose of common sense or scepticism also stands a user in good stead. If something looks to good to be true, it probably is.
A user should also have a robust backup and recovery strategy just in case problems occur and that doesn’t mean just malware. If you don’t want to lose it, back it up.
These forum posters are giving you bad tips. Of course Avast Free is not enough to protect your computer. It will always miss spyware/malware/viruses that other programs can find but Avast cant.
If you want the ultimate protection you have to innstall
- Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
- SUPERAntiSpyware Free Edition
- Emsisoft Anti-Malware
These 3 programs finds stuff Avast cannot find. All 3 programs are free just like Avast.
Did you check I♥Avast!'s signature, MBAM is already installed. That and avast should be enough.
Having three anti-spy/malware isn’t going to give three times the protection, but a greater chance of conflict. Unless one or more of them aren’t resident anti-malware, then they bring little else (real-time protection) to the party.
Generally the same advice for AVs (no more than one resident AV installed), should also be considered for anti-malware applications only one resident, real-time anti-malware.
Emsisoft Antimalware is an anti virus just like Avast so you can run it with Malwarebytes real time. Either choose Avast or Emsisoft to run with Malwarebytes. I would totally forget about SuperAntispyware as MBAM is far superior.
Just use all of them man. I can swear Avast cannot find things that these programs can. It is always wise to use different spyware.
These Avast fanboys says Avast is superior to everything. It is like saying Xbox1 is superior to Playstation 4 or Console is superior to pc. Fanboys will always be fanboys.
Since you will be using free version of these programs it wont conflict with antivirus programs. Since free programs wont have a security shield on the background. Just use it to scan for whatever Avast misses.
You can do whatever you like on your system, but giving advise to others to run multiple AVs/anti-malware applications is a recipe for conflict. Many even free versions load drivers and it is these drivers that may conflict.
No one has said avast is superior to everything, the reverse if you read this topic, the only time anything was mentioned about superior was when talking about “I would totally forget about SuperAntispyware as MBAM is far superior,” etc. Hardly avast fanboyism, when people are saying no AV is going to be 100% so a compatible anti-spy/malware compliments avast. But getting carried away with all the anti-spy/malware is too much.
I’m no fanboy, I’m an avast user who tells it as it is in regard to any issue with avast. Just because people don’t agree with your advice doesn’t make them fanboys.
Can you tell the URLs of those sites? I also want to check them out.
I have been using avast free for almost a month and got no infections so far.
My 360 Internet Security is disabled, so no conflict arises.
You will get conflicts sooner or later, even disabled Qihoo still has low level active drivers running so your on borrowed time imo.
Aside from the driver detections there is also the risk of Qihoo’s virus signatures being detected as well as Bitdefenders ( Softwin ) signatures " hidden files in Program Data "
360 Internet Security has been on my computer for 16 days, and my computer is still working properly.
Like I said “sooner or later”
Sorry, I don’t collate the sites visited when checking out supposed false positives. Not to mention many of those will have subsequently cleaned or the detection corrected if an FP is confirmed.
Sorry but a resident antivirus program, even when disabled will have low level drivers running. These drivers try to hook files so that they can scan the file. The hooking doesn’t stop, so two or more low level drivers could conflict when trying to lock the file and scan it.
There is no set time that a conflict may occur, the fact that nothing has happened ‘yet’ is more luck than design. But there is always the possibility they could conflict and the timing could be immediate or some time in the future. The worst case scenario would be if they conflicted during boot, which could lock your system.
Your system your choice.
Later? How long? 10 years?
I a few updates maybe you will get issues.
It’ll happen when you least expect it, like DavidR just stated it’s your system your choice.
Do you mean definition updates or program updates?
Most likely program updates, but also Windows updates can give you issues.