As my esteemed colleagues mention, everyone's entitled to their own opinion. Avast FREE is the best and only reputable A-V program, and
I've now installed on well over 100 client computers. However, it has flaws, as do
ALL the programs mentioned including the paid subscription folks (Norton, McAfee, TrendMicro etc.).
The Avast Free however does a better job than the paid programs as I have only a 1% return on all the computers I put this program on. So, I suspect you have something else wrong with your computer hardware or your Windows if you had to uninstall it. Avast Pro and Avast Internet Security do a slightly better job of protection; at a cost. So you are talking about 99% protection to 99.5% protection.
I've had 0% computers returned using the Avast paid programs. I cannot say this about all the other brands mentioned including bitdefender. That's an older program and I think barely makes it into the top 10 A-V programs reviewed out of the top 35 A-V programs reviewed by independent testing agencies with published results. :ermm:
I've always been a paid subscription guy, have been in IT for 25 yrs. and I still using Norton IS on my production computers for business and personal. In the last 2 yrs. I've been very impressed by the
AVAST Free as
it's the last remaining Free A-V program; bitdefender like AVG and a lot of the other guys who started out free charge you after a 30 or 60-day trial period and if you don't cough up a credit card they deactivate! :facepalm: Avast is the LAST free A-V in operation anywhere.
We could talk all day about my disappointment in how well
MSE or
DEFENDER work; but in all cases of
RANSOMWARE and TROJANS and E-MAIL WORM VIRUSES and SOCIAL MEDIA VIRUSES (FACEBOOK & TWITTER); I see computers on a
weekly basis that have been compromised by these threats as if
MSE or
DEFENDER weren't even installed and turned on and working to block threats. :facepalm:There are also several published papers from independent testing agencies that have published these findings. If I can find some, I will happily post so that you can read and decide for yourself, which you will have to do anyway.
Here's a recent article:
Security Essentials Fails Antivirus Test -- Redmondmag.com
:nonono:
Also, there is a
"human factor" involved which means that most of us Computer Tekkies are hip to many of the fake or sketch websites and E-mails that are out there luring the general public in; so we are not the best test of what works and what doesn't in terms of protection. The
"average" user doesn't know about this sort of stuff; and I have older Users who are just using the computer for the first time in their lives just this year; they have
NO CLUE as to what's safe or not and rely 100% on their A-V programs to protect them. We don't fall for that sort of stuff due to our knowledge of computers, technology, the Internet, etc. so I believe that many of my Colleagues don't have issues with contracting viruses while using
MSE or
DEFENDER because they don't
NEED it as much as pure beginners do. :grin:They don't click on every single
FREE OFFER on the planet. That's where many many spyware viruses and other malware come from and get onto your computer from these days.
Best of luck with whatever you install.:wink:
>>>BBJ<<<