Hello to all, I am Jay, and I am sort of new to avast, or well at least to the avast forum community.
First of all, I may be new here but I’m no noob to computers, I just need a little advice because I am worried. I have used free avast for pretty much 2 years now (by itself) with not many problems at all (that I can tell), and before that I used MSE and free malwarebytes (not active protection, just scans), I got a major virus, ruined computer, lost everything, etc., After that I learned from some tech savvy friends that using more than one security tool reduces the overall protection because they will attack each other…
To get to my point (sorry this was so long to get to), I am worried that I might not have enough protection, and have started considering using malwarebytes again (the free version, no active protection, just scans) and I wanted to ask some actual experts from the avast community. Are there any risks with this? like does that really lower my overall protection?
Also, I am willing to give any and all specs about my computer. ASUS laptop, win 7 x64.
When they mean active protection, the mean like haveing 2 real time antivirus running at the same time as they can fight over the same file(dont recommend this as it can cause even less protection).
Malwarebytes is just a ondemand scanner(the free version is anyway) it runs when you start a scan and shouldnt interfer with the real time shields of Avast.
some people even go as far as having a 3rd party firewall, another scanner an Antispyware one(Malwarebytes free/pro, or Super Antispyware free/pro)
In the rare and “extreme” situation that you find problems between the tools you mentioned, you can add them in the exclusion lists of each other.
Only using 2 “equivalent” security tools might have those type of problems you described, like for example having Avast and an additional active antivirus simultaneously.
Avast works great with malwarebytes free or pro or superantispyware free and pro, most here are using malwarebytes these days as it has really moved into the forefront of it’s genre.
I dont recommend spybot as there have been some issues with it before but these were mainly with teatimer.
Another way to beef up your system is to add a third party firewall, there are good free one’s such as outpost security suite but you have to disable the av componant during install, also there is online armor and comodo which both also have free versions.
Avast-Malwarebytes-firewall
Read some of the signitures at the bottom of our posts to get a good idea of what people are using.
You all are great, thanks to everyone for the replies… currently installing Malwarebytes and downloading outpost, anything else I should know? while it’s all fresh lol
Just make sure that when you install outpost choose custom or expert mode so that you can untick the AV and webcheck and the spy thing so that you are left with just the firewall alone, then before rebooting add the outpost program file to the exclusions in the avast file system shield, then reboot and open applications in the outpost settings and make sure that all three avast processes are set to allow, you’ll have to open avast and run a manual update ( close outpost and reopen after updating avast ) to see all three processes.
On second thought, maybe just malwarebytes and avast, I keep getting crapware with the official cnet download (link from outposts website) since cnet now gives out a downloader and installer instead of just letting me download the dang thing…oh well, this has still been really helpful, malwarebytes found 2 things in first scan that avast didn’t catch. So cheers, and thanks again to everyone
yeah cnet has gone downhill in a big way, i dont bother with them anymore, only Filehippo, fileforum, softpedia or majorgeeks nowdays if im unable to get from the direct author.
hey, it never asked for any modes to install, or about what to install, it just wanted avast’s exclusion then it installed everything, so do I just disable the “real-time protection” and “anti-leak” and “anti-spam” so it doesn’t interfere with avast or what?
Not sure if stopping the realtime protection will disable the firewall but you can try and see what happens, id disable the anti spam but keep the anti leak as that is the hip’s componant.
