Newbie wants some assurance

I am not a techie, I just want to work on my computer and make money. I was using AVG 8 and hate it. I decided to google free antivirus and came up with Avast.

Have downloaded it and scanned. I have done the basic things to get it to work but don’t want to do a whole lot of technical stuff.

My question is, after looking at the forum and not understanding much:

Can I safely rely on Avast to scan my computer, find what it needs to find, let it do its work, remove, identify, vault, etc., etc. without having to know a whole lot as most of you seem to be very savvy on this program.

Like I said, I just want something to protect my machine.

I use Spybot, Ad-Aware, Windows Defender and AVG8 which I am thinking of deleting although if it is safe to keep it on I will do so. I use Windows XP, Word 2003 and various other programs to do my work. I have had problems with slowness but upgraded my computer for more memory which helped a lot.

Any answers would be greatly appreciated.

sydac

Hi Sydac,
Avast was recommended very highly to me and I’ve been using it for three months now, and I like it.
You mentioned that you are running Avast along with AVG 8. It’s not good to run two antiviruses at the same time. (they can fight eachother and impair their ability to catch viruses)
I have the feeling that you probably would be better off to remove both and then reinstall Avast. Don’t delete any program, you usually use add/remove.
AVG has always used it’s installation .exe to remove the program. I would check with their forum to see if there are any special steps in view of the additional features of AVG.
Also, if others at this forum think you should remove Avast and reinstall, Avast has an uninstall utility (I think its at the site where the install file is). The instructions for that are use add/remove…reboot, then use the uninstall utility and reboot. Then you can install Avast again.

Good luck.

Sincerely, Libra

Libra is correct, you can only have one AV running at a time. Expect error messages and other problems if more than one resident (realtime) AV is installed.
To uninstall AVG try and locate it in “Start>control panel>add/remove programs” then select uninstall. (Same with Avast.)
There are uninstall utilities for both AVG and Avast. They should both be run after uninstalling the programs, respectively.
You should be offline while doing this.
http://www.grisoft.com/ww.download-tools (This is likely to be the top download on the page.)
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-uninstall-utility.html
Once this is all done, reboot, if you haven’t already, install Avast (reboot if asked), then reconnect and get updates.

If you are using the computer Avast is installed on commercially, the license for Avast home is not valid; you would need to use Avast pro.
If you use “pro” you also have access to more features, including scheduled scanning, which isn’t available in the free (home) version.

I am very confident in Avast’s ability to guard my computer, (but run a couple of extra apps just to be sure), and would recommend using a two way firewall rather than just the built in Windows firewall. Using a two way firewall (such as Comodo, or ZoneAlarm, or Online Armour…) requires a little learning, so as to answer any alerts appropriately. Some of these firewalls have behaviour blockers included. Up to you whether you want to activate and use these. They are useful, but, once again, require a little learning.

Rather than running scans with AdAware, which in my opinion is bloated and not effective, I’d be inclined to uninstall it and download and install SUperantispyware, and/or MalwareBytesAnti-Malware. Both are similar to AdAware in intended function and streets ahead in ability.

The license of avast! Home (i.e. the free version of avast!) allows you to use it on home computer which is not used for commercial purposes. If you are making money on the computer, as you wrote, you should purchase avast! Professional.

All good posts
make a list of what you need to do

go here
http://www.pchell.com/virus/uninstallavg.shtml (especially part about latest installer)
then here
http://www.pchell.com/virus/uninstallavg.shtml
then to the bottom of the page and remove any Norton, McAfee, Panda that came on your machine
then
Using the AntiVir Registry Cleaner-- even if you have never used Antivir

you may have to download AntiVir’s registry cleaner utility to remove all traces of it from the registry and allow you to reinstall it.

  1. Click on the following link and download the AntiVir Registry Cleaner to your desktop

http://dl.antivir.de/down/windows/registrycleaner.zip

  1. Create a folder on your desktop called Antivir and Unzip the file to your desktop

  2. Double-click on the file called RegCleaner.exe to run it

  3. Since the program is German, you’ll have to click on the button called “keys asulesen” to search the registry for any issues. Then place checkmarks next to the registry entries you wish to delete.

  4. Finally, click on the button called “loschen” to delete the keys

remove both AVG and AVAST from your Firewall permissions as well as any other old AV

  1. Restart your computer and try to reinstall your antivirus
    Install latest Avast

If avast finds a virus send to chest- do not remove/delete post back here with what you found- we’ll help
no real need for daily scans with both web and on access protection

I appreciate the responses but just am not techy enough to try any of this.

I did try to uninstall it with CC cleaner but it comes up with an error message that “something” is missing.

I have disabled it from my start up running programs so hoping this will do the trick. It still pops up: updates finished reboot… but am ingoring that.

The ccCleaner appears to be great. I would also like to know how I can keep my log ins for Hot Mail and other emails I have so that I don’t have to log in each time. I unchecked the “Autocomplete form history” but it still is deleting my passwords and log in names. Any help there?

Thanks.

sydac

sydac
just follow the instructions one little step at a time
CCleaner does not remove any programs

Avast is still your best shot
post back if it seems overwhelming

uh what pops up
what did you disable
whose update finished
knock off the pronouns and be specific