AVG Toolbar.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve used AVG for years. I just installed version 8.0 on my home computer and was very dismayed at the sellout of avg.

AVG has released version 8.0, only this time they included AVG Anti-Spyware and something called the AVG Security Toolbar which has to include Yahoo! search.

This really pisses me off. Now supposedly you don’t have to install the tool bar, and if you do you can hide it. I selected the option to NOT install it, and it installed anyway. It’s hidden, but that doesn’t matter much to me because I’m sort of pissed off at the whole deal anyway.

So, what’s a good freeware antivirus solution?

2

I just switched to AVG because my other anti-virus let Conficker.b through. I did use Avast! at one time but it seemed to be a memory hog. My last program that I ditched for AVG, was Threatfire by PCTools.

So, while I can’t make a recommendation, I can tell you to stay away from Threatfire!

3

Rather than upgrade to the pile of shit that is AVG 8, I switched to Avira. I generally like it, except the free version pops up a big advertising window every day after it downloads the updates.

4

I use Cyberdefender at home and at work and it’s great! The free version has the pop-ups too, but the upgrade is worth it! You get 24/7 technical support for any computer issue, which these days, is invaluable!!

Cyberdefender doesn’t take a lot of space and it’s easy to use.

5

Hmmm… I’ve got AVG 8.5 (free), and told it not to install the toolbar. I’m not seeing any evidence that it was installed anyway, hidden or otherwise.

I’ve run into a few free apps that default to installing some piece of extraware that I don’t want (often, a toolbar of some sort). I just uncheck it, and move on. It’s free, after all, so it’s tough to get angry if they’re trying to raise a little revenue somehow.

6

really? i opted not to install [i refuse all handy tool bar installs pro forma]

how can you tell where it is hidden?

7

For relief from that, see here.

I installed Avira a couple of months ago when AVG seemed to be slowing my wife’s laptop to a crawl. Avira seems to be less of a resource hog.

8

I may have to check out Avira. After running AVG for a while now, it seems to be slowing my laptop down to a crawl.

Then again, it could be my firewall. It seems to run constantly, even when I’m not online. It’s really annoying.

I don’t see anything in the Task Manager that shows a major resource hog at the time of the slow down, though. It’s really getting on my nerves.

It takes forever to load my security stuff and that’s really got to stop.

9

Most of the AV programs have a daily system scan scheduled for a certain time of day. Even if you don’t see high CPU usage, all the hard drive access can significantly slow the system.

I usually turn the daily scan off, my logic is if the AV program is scanning the files upon access, then why does every damn file need to be scanned every day? You could do a complete scan when you first install the AV program, after that it seems redundant if the program is doing its job.

10

Same here. I had the paid version on my old computer for 2 years, and I really don’t see a huge difference in quality.

11

I’ve used AVG for years. I opted to not install the toolbar and it didn’t install. I don’t know why it did for you?

What browser are you using? If it’s IE, that’s more than likely your problem right there.

12

It slows down outside of those scans, which I turned off.

This morning the firewall wouldn’t start for two tries.

I cannot figure this thing out. I ran Malwarebytes and it comes up clean.

Ugh. Maybe I need more RAM, but it’s hard to find for an older laptop.

13

My AVG does not like the Firefox 3.1 beta. I hope that is fixed before they release it .

14

Is there any way to remove the Yahoo search bar once I’ve installed it? I’ve tried looking around, but I don’t see a way to do it.