I see that others have reported various issues with Avast, so I thought I’d just chime in and say that I have had absolutely no significant problems whatsoever(*) since the 4.8 version was installed. Updates now take a tiny fraction of the time they took before - it seems obvious to me that the entire update process has been reworked and the new process is far superior to previous versions.
Update problems used to happen occasionally with previous versions (my dial-up connection can be flaky at times and if it died in the middle of an update, Avast was left unusable until the update was completed), but the updating seems much more stable since the 4.8 update.
Avast 4.8 has now been running flawlessly on my new laptop since the day I installed it (to replace the time-limited Norton AV that came pre-installed on this computer), and I couldn’t be happier with its performance (my computer seems significantly faster since removing Norton and installing Avast instead).
So to the evangelists and Avast folks reading this forum… in case you’re getting tired of reading negative posts, here’s a positive one for you. Nice job!
There was one reoccuring false positive, which was quickly remedied once I mentioned it in this forum.
From time to time it’s good to read testimonials of good working…
We get tired of hearing about problems with avast in the forums ;D
Thanks for the encouraging… indeed, there are millions of satisfied users
Just wanted to add my two cents. I also have had NO problems with the new version. For a guy who knows nothing about how an anti virus works, the fact that I have had no problems is very comforting.
Thanks to you guys who do provide help though, I always learn something here.
I left because of the problems associated with 4.7 and this is the first time I’ve been back to the forum in two years. I’m looking to replace AVG 7.5 (which I liked) since Grisoft has informed us that as of the end of May, that version will no longer be supported. Is 4.8 worth coming back to? How is the footprint? Still fairly light?
Whilst i don’t know what the problem was with 4.7 or why you couldn’t resolve it, yes it is worth coming back and join those other disaffected avg 7.5/8.0 users coming this way ;D
I can’t speak for everyone, obviously, but here are my two cents:
I didn’t have any of the problems people are reporting with the 4.7 version, except (as mentioned earlier) for problems updating that existed in pre-4.7 versions also. Nonetheless, 4.8 seems to be rock solid all around.
As far as the footprint is concerned, I haven’t taken the trouble to check on memory usage, etc., but even my ancient desktop PC (PIII, 1.2MHz, 512MB, Win2k) seems to like the 4.8 version just fine. It doesn’t seem to have any significant differences in performance impact from any prior version (and I’ve been running Avast on that machine for many years, dating back to pre-4.5 versions).
Between Avast 4.8 and AVG 7.5, IMHO there is no comparison. I had been using AVG 7.0 on a severely underpowered desktop machine at a non-profit org that I do volunteer work for, simply because they had a site license for AVG. When Grisoft forced us to upgrade to 7.5, the performance impact was so severe that I had to uninstall it (AVG). Reinstalling it resulted in the same problem. However, once I uninstalled it again and installed Avast 4.8 instead, the machine ran much better. It was actually usable again1.
I hope this helps. If I were you, I’d give Avast 4.8 a try again. If you have problems, you can always remove it… ;D
1 - Of course, I had to remove Avast since we as an org have no license for Avast and no money to buy one, and it isn’t free for non-profit orgs. But I did get a chance to see how it worked on that machine - much better than AVG.
It’s pretty likely I’ll be trying Avast again after support for AVG 7.5 ends. I don’t remember in detail what the problems were with 4.7 other than it ran horrible and messed with the operation of the OS. Perhaps it was because it was upgraded from 4.6 and not installed from scratch, I don’t know.
AVG runs beautifully on my machine, so I’m a little nervous at having a similar experience like I did with 4.7. :
Possible, but without knowing anything about your system, my guess would be that you may have had more than one AV program running at the same time. AV programs are very territorial; they do not co-exist well with each other, especially when running simultaneously. I had this point driven home when, on my new laptop with Norton AV pre-installed, NAV’s trial period expired. I disabled it and installed Avast, and my mail stopped working until I completely uninstalled NAV. It wasn’t enough to stop NAV’s services - it had to be completely removed. (Fortunately its uninstaller did the job properly - I understand that I’m quite lucky in that regard!)
But any time you change something that digs itself as deeply into the system as a good anti-virus program, I’d recommend uninstalling and removing all traces of any previous AV programs first, before installing the new one. This would include any previous troublesome versions of Avast as well. I think this would maximize your chances of getting a good, clean install of Avast 4.8.
I understand this perfectly. Although I prefer Avast, AVG 7.5 is not a bad program - I have some experience with it and it seems to work. Unfortunately, it sounds like your choice is either to stick with an increasingly outdated version of AVG (with increasingly outdated virus defs), or to take a chance on something else. Avast 4.8 runs beautifully on my machine, and I’ve been very happy with Avast over the years, so I don’t hesitate to recommend it. But it’s your PC, not mine… ;D
Those saying “thank you” are rare and most welcome to the forum.
However, if this forum existed only for those saying “thank you” then it would be as alive as your nearest dinosaur exhibit and even less interesting.
Let’s admit it folks - we like trying to help others and we get a kick out of solving problems. Some of us even get a bigger kick out of finding (and perhaps even helping to solve) problems in the avast product. Helping other users to fix problems is meat and drink to us - or else we would get on with our real lives without disturbing this place.
I sincerely hope that ardvark will give avast 4.8 a try with the assurance that we in this forum are here to do our best to assist with any problems that arise and to welcome all who are returning to avast as well as those who are new to the product.
In all honesty we should admit that avast is not the best product for every user so if our efforts to help do not prevail then we wish well to those who choose to move on - confident that they will one day return.
The exception rather than the rule I think ;D and like you I haven’t had any serious issues with avast, through beta builds, updates, etc. and minor issues have been resolved promptly.
But I did get a chance to see how it worked on that machine - much better than AVG.
;D