Avira or Avast?

I’ve been using Avast for a few years now, so far so good…

I favor Malwarebytes

Are you on a Mac or PC? For Windows, I’ve been using Microsoft Security Essentials, and am very happy with it. It’s lightweight, free, and reliable.

@augustlan I am a PC when I’m not running Linux.

I’ve used Avira for years, and been extremely satisfied. As you can see here, Avira is better at detection than… well, damn near everything else. In real-workd conditions, they are closely comparable, but Avira holds a slight edge overall.

@gambitking That is a great one for many other things, but MalwareBytes isn’t a full anti-virus.

@augustlan MSE… follow that link and you will see that it’s detection is the worst of all AV programs they tested.

Avira = 98.4%
Avast = 98.0%
MSE = 93.1%

Yarrr

That’s my answer.

Avast is the best.

Very easy to install.
No fuss about updates.
Run online along with the Internet.
Doesn’t slow the PC.

I guess that effectiveness doesn’t matter to some :/

@abundantlife Most programs are easy to install, and an AV program that never updates is ineffective within a month, tops. Avira updates automatically, and thus is no more hassle than Avast, and it also matches Avast on the other two points.

@jerv I can’t remember which one I had before MSE, Avast or Avira, but whichever one it was bogged down my computer a lot. (It is an old machine, though.) That’s the main reason I prefer MSE, and I haven’t been hit with anything since I installed it.

@augustlan It couldn’t have been recent versions of either, but as you can see here, Avast and Avira run practically neck-and-neck for their impact on system performance, and both are near the top of the list (least impact). Basically, the circumstances where they slow you down are circumstances where any decent AV should borrow a few CPU cycles and take a look.

I think it may just be that it is an old machine. When you have enough CPU cycles, you don’t notice a few of them being siphoned away. I run Win7 fine on my Clarkdale i3–530, but I would bet that it would choke on my old Northwood P4. Then again, I’ve been running Avira since I had a 1.1 GHz Thunderbird Athlon (a mid-range machine at the time) and never really noticed Avira bogging my system down.