It's not so much that Avast was getting in the way of my tools, but the old story of missing components of malware, detecting others after it's too late and gyrating and crippling and being unable to remove it anyway. This was like a 3 GHz'ish uniprocessor pentium 4, or pentium D (can't remember which but I think I saw it running at 2.71 GHz somewhere), 1 Gb RAM, Windows XP computer. Not modern, but it shouldn't have sucked.

Also, Avast Internet Security kept detecting a new network and gyrating and prompting every time the PPPoE connnected. I could not get it to stop doing that, even in Advanced options where I changed every instance of the network to "work, medium security".

So I disabled all of Avast's shields while using Malwarebytes and friends. After I got the computer cleaned up a bit I took it off and installed Avira and scanned, then took that off and replaced it with... Avast's free antivirus software (the lady really was used to Avast and I didn't want to yank the rug out from under foot, especially seeing as Avira was an uncertainty to me with the crap going on)

Avast also has reasonably good detections, but Avira has better ones. I remember once (years ago) trying to report missed detections to Avast and was told that they were spyware, and beyond the scope of the program.

Avira, by contrast, fall over themselves to deal with user submissions whether suspected malware or false detections. I often find new malware variants just by following the path from the entries that load the pest. Rootkit drivers too, after I find and remove/replace them. If Avira doesn't detect something, I submit it to Avira, and by the next day, if not the same day, I get a response saying they have added my submission to their database. I have also submitted what I have known to be false positives as well. I believe that this is one of the reasons that Avira has such good detections.

Indeed, most people here never get to see their antivirus software in real action other than reacting to the odd thing they encounter. (and sometimes that's not even a serious threat)

My criteria is mostly to stick with what I have come to trust. It has to provide reasonably good protection, and not cripple the computer. In terms of brute force detections, Avira works very well. That is not to say that it stops all malware though to be fair... nothing does because of the way these things present themselves. (as legit software installs that don't show their true nature until after they are hooked)

I don't use antivirus software at all in my Windows installation, but I mostly just use it for games. I use a 64 bit Firefox ("Nightly") to check my forums and stuff sometimes and I'm pretty careful where I go. So sure, I could sit there and watch something as shitty as AVG go around in circles and be impressed if I didn't know any better.

Quote:

QUOTE:
Just curious, what's your criteria for what to install for the average user you service? I noticed you said Avast got in the way of you using your own tools to clean something - never thought of that (I use Avast free AV after several years of nod32->Avira->MSE with a good reason to drop each one.)

See, I don't think about how well something cleans, because I've literally never had to do it. I guess I just use an AV "because." If it doesn't slow me up, I can figure it out quickly and works consistently, I'm happy.