I’ve been using Avast for years now (learned about it when I was in France);
Many of my clients and friends use big branded(at least marektingwise) Antiviruses but Avast saved their PCs when other antivirus did not!
I live in the Middle East now where brands (in everything) plays an important role in people choice.
Its detection rate are successful when it comes to my own experience but
I think Avast should work on its scan speed.
Quite frankly i dont know of any AV that is as fast as avast with it’s scanning, please tell me what is faster ?
Yeah, provided you use its cache features, scan speeds will fly. And its a goal they seem to always be intent on improving.
If you’re talking about on demand scanning speed, well, there aren’t many (if any) better than avast.
On access, resident, scanning speed is not bad, on contrary. But you can say that other av, in your computer, run better. It’s difficult to set your particular situation.
Hi Joedotm,
Please view the internet PDF Document here - http://www.av-comparatives.org/images/stories/test/ondret/avc_od_feb2011.pdf
Then kindly navigate to page 11 
February 2011, that on-demand test is 9 months old, a month in terms of malware is an eternity.
Hi DavidR,
No malware here, we are referring to SCANNING SPEED…
It shows that avast! is the fastest scanning speed. 
Same, same, 9 months is a very long time and there have been a few program update since then.
Plus avast’s general scanning speed is right up there and those that use the persistent and Transient caches see their scan speeds improve even more.
Hi David R,
You are very right, Avast has been consistently in the top for years now when it comes to speed.