Since the main idea of getting a computer was, understandably, to use the computer, and not to spend the majority of my time dealing with a gluttonous anti-virus program with an insatiable appetite for attention, I looked around for something else, and soon settled on Norton Anti-Virus. After all, I was already a happy user of the company's flagship product, Norton Utilities.
A few years prior to that, though, Peter Norton had sold his company to Symantec. In retrospect, while that was a good move for Peter Norton, it was the kiss of death for his formerly great programs. For a time, while Norton was still actively involved, the software remained worthwhile, but gradually, Symantec's developers changed it until it finally became every bit as bloated, buggy, and intrusive as the McAfee product I had previously abandoned.
It was then that I discovered AVG Anti-Virus, the product of GriSoft, a small Czech software company. It turned out to be everything that Norton was not – quiet, unobtrusive, and efficient. The various organizations that rate anti-virus programs all gave it high marks for both sensitivity and specificity. (In other words, ideally, any anti-virus program should accurately detect any virus intrusion, and at the same time, should never signal a false alarm.) I happily adopted it, and became a paid subscriber to its Professional version, which I eventually used on three computers – my office and home machines and the laptop I acquired in 2003.
When I suddenly got sick at the end of January, 2006, I was away from computers and the internet for an entire year, until I finally got to come home at the end of January, 2007. By then, my AVG Professional subscription had expired, so since I was no longer in practice (having been forced into early retirement by illness) and was no longer running an office computer, I dropped back to the AVG Free version.
During the ensuing 15 months, I was still quite happy with AVG. It worked well with my software, remained unobtrusive, and drew modestly upon my system resources. In addition, the company did an excellent job of keeping it updated, often bringing out new virus database updates on a daily basis. Along the way, they had also come out with companion free anti-spyware and anti-rootkit programs, both of which also worked quite nicely.
Therefore, I didn't think that much about it when GriSoft rolled out an update last week, AVG Anti-Virus 8.0, incorporating the anti-spyware and anti-rootkit functions into a single program. After all, I had been using their products for years, and trusted them as well as one can ever trust any software company. So I went ahead – downloaded and installed the new program, which, of course, uninstalled and superseded the older versions.
To my dismay, the new version 8.0 turned out to be a disaster. (Certainly, your mileage may vary – I'm sure that many people, perhaps with computers newer and more powerful than my now-obsolescent model, are quite happy with AVG 8.0.)
First of all, despite repeated uninstallations, system and registry cleanups, and reinstallations, I was never able to get the GUI (graphical user interface) or the tray icon to work. All of the underlying functions of the program, including system and email scanning, were operational, but the interface would never start. Instead, every time I launched it, an alert box popped up stating that the GUI could not start because it was improperly configured, and perhaps a reinstallation might help. (No, it never did.) Even worse, the program's background services sucked up such a huge fraction of my system resources that everything else, including my email client (The Bat!) and my browser (Firefox), slowed to a snail-like crawl.
I did a little poking around online, and soon discovered that many others were experiencing similar issues with AVG 8.0. Reluctantly, I decided not to join the crowd of people in the users' forums seeking solutions to their problems from each other (truly a case of the blind leading the blind), but instead to find out what else was out there, and what sort of recommendations the alternatives were receiving.
It didn't take me long to settle upon Avast! version 4.8 Home Edition, the latest release of a very highly-rated program published by another small Czech company, ALWIL Software. This program, like the new AVG version, includes all of the "anti" functions: anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-rootkit. It includes, as does AVG, a plug-in which works seamlessly and transparently with my email client, The Bat!. Yet, with all of that, once installed, it acts much like the AVG of old – quiet, unobtrusive, and efficient in its minimal use of system resources.
I installed it yesterday, and immediately noticed a huge difference. Once again, my computer flies along. just the way it used to. Of course, the main reason is that with both my email client and my browser open, my System Resources are now running between 3 and 15%, instead of 80 to 85%, as they were when AVG 8.0 was installed. The program's icon sits there quietly in the system tray, with the only indication that it is actively scanning being its animated rotation. Updating is quick and efficient, with the nice touch of a voice announcement when it has completed. (Of course, if you find it annoying, you can disable it.) The user interface is superb – graphically beautiful; simple and uncluttered, yet fully functional – in short, light years ahead of the AVG interface (at least, the last one I was able to see, on version 7.5.)
Installation was simple and uneventful. As with all Windows anti-virus programs, a reboot is required after installation. One thing you'll want to know about in advance, though: before rebooting, the program will ask your permission to scan all of your hard drives during the reboot. This is a highly desirable thing to do, and I strongly recommend that you click "OK" and allow it to carry out the scan. However, particularly if you have a good-sized hard drive with lots of stuff on it (as I most assuredly do), that scan will take several hours. Therefore, do this at a time when you can conveniently bo off doing something else while it scans – before bedtime, before leaving for work, ar at some other time when you won't be needing to access your computer for a while. (In case of emergency, you can abort the scan at any time by pressing the Escape key.)
One other question often comes up in the discussion of how to change over from one anti-virus program to another, since it is strongly recommended not to install them together. Of course, you don't want to uninstall the old program, leaving your system unprotected while connected to the internet, until the new one is in place, so how, exactly, do you go about the task? My recommended procedure is as follows:
- Download the new anti-virus program and have it ready in a known location, such as on your Windows Desktop
- Disable your internet connection, either by clicking Start-Settings-Network Connections-Local Area Networks, then right-clicking and selecting Disable, by logging off your dialup connection, or, if necessary, by physically disconnecting the Ethernet, USB, or telephone cable from your computer
- Uninstall your old anti-virus software
- Run whatever system cleaners you have (CCleaner, Easy Cleaner, etc.) to remove every trace of your old anti-virus program
- Reboot
- Install your new anti-virus software, while leaving your internet connection disabled
- Allow your new anti-virus software to reboot and run a full system scan when it's ready
- After the scan and reboot are completed, then and only then, enable your internet connection, then carry out the steps necessary to register and update your new anti-virus software
- Run your system cleaners one more time to clean up any detritus left behind during the installation
- You're all done! Wasn't that easy?
Non-geeks can stop reading right here. However, for the technically-minded, here are my system specifications:
Operating System: Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (build 2600)
Processor: AMD Athlon XP Palomino 1800+
Motherboard: ABIT KG-7 Lite
BIOS: Award Software International, Inc. 6.00 PG 03/06/2003
Memory: 1024 Mb (1 Gb) DDR PC2300
Hard Drives: (2) WD drives, 200 Gb and 80 Gb, partitioned into Drives C through M, and into separate partitions for my Kubuntu Linux installation (Windows page file occupies a separate 2.5 Gb partition)
Email client: The Bat! Professional version 4.0.24
Browser: Firefox version 2.0.0.14
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