I have noticed that loads of people say they dumped Norton for Avast. I did the same thing myself.
So I thought I do a silly poll (I couldn’t help myself, it’s stronger than me! ;D) and find out how many of you did too
Being primarily a Mac user I have not used many AV products but I did not dump NAV for avast. I switched from Command Antivirus when they were purchased by aythentium. Commands great support was replaced by authentiums and it SUCKED! so I saw avast had a forum and came here. Command is still perhaps the #1 product at detecting Macro viruses though
back in the the last millenium I had Nort, came with the comp, then got mcaffee…gotta new comp mcaffee with a free year…was considering trendmicro…housecall seems to scan pretty well infact it had found things norty and mac never did.
My neighbors had McAfee and called me over when they were having multiple problems with their computer (compared to everyone on this forum I consider myself to be a computer idiot, but they think of me as a computer genius. Next to them I guess I am, but please don’t tell them the truth :-X).
I suspected McAfees was at least part of the problem so I uninstalled it. I didn’t want them to be without an AV so I installed avast! as a “temporary” free solution until we found something “better”. I actually considered suggesting they try Norton.
Anyway I never found anything better and after a few days I got rid of McAfee’s on my own computer and went to avast! My neighbors still have avast! even though they recently got a new computer, and they still think I’m a computer genius.
We still have norty at work…i call it norty because if i am not mistaken he is missing a toof or two and is playing a banjo with a bud bottle cap. That is 'bout as affective AV that was for me. What I dont get is how people keep paying for AV that is not affective.
Since I may be needing the professional version of AV soon myself I appreciate being able to try the home version and seeing how it works before I buy. It is not easy to get your $ back these days when a product is less than satisfactory.
I use HouseCall (Trend) once in a while myself for a “second opinion” – especially if there’s suspicions of a false-positive from avast, or for that matter if I suspect something might be slipping past avast. Since they use different scan-engines, it’s highly unlikely they’d both report false positives or false negatives.
Don’t forget to pause your Standard Shield before using any of the online scanners, to avoid conflicts. And of course don’t forget to “resume” it afterwards.
shgoh,
Now why would you use NAV once in a while?
If you did and it didn’t find anything, you would only have to run avast afterwards to make sure it didn’t miss anything. ;D