Is Avast a safe Antivirus?

Hi Comder. I'm Greg, an installation specialist and 9 year Windows MVP here to help you.

No expert in Forums where we see the most cases (by the thousands) recommends Avast, AVG. Norton or McAfee, but we have solved many problems over the years by having them uninstalled.

I would uninstall any 3rd party antivirus and try running only built-in Defender which gives adequate protection, least issues, and is from Microsoft who knows how to protect their OS best.

If you want the best on-demand scanner install and run a full scan with Malwarebytes free scanner: https://www.malwarebytes.com/mwb-download/

You can turn off the free trial at any time in the app's Settings > Account Details.

I hope this helps. Feel free to ask back any questions and keep me posted. If you'll wait to rate whether my post helped you, I will keep working with you until it's resolved.

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Excuse me, I gave you the very best answer to your question after handling thousands of antivirus cases in forums for ten years. Why would you give me a bad rating for the best possible advice?

Oh right, the website is avast.com and the download link is that big orange button that says "Download for PC."

Avast is ok, but ....odd to use, AVG free has been working for me for almost 10 years.I still leave windows defender on

I don't claim to be an expert, but I've used Avast Home Free since 2005 and the only problems I've had is an occasional false positive,

but I have never had a virus or malware in that time.

(Note the 'free' part. The full paid for version does have some bloatware, as do all the major 'Security' programs.

McAfee, Norton, Kasspersky are perhaps the most notorious system hogs).

Avast Home Free has very little impact on system resources and has never caused performance issues on my machines in that time.

Having said that.... All AV's are known to cause issues from time to time. There is no perfect AV. Not even Defender.

Do not run two AV's real time concurrently. This does have potential to cause conflicts and hamper performance.

It's OK to have two installed so you can run manual scan to cross-check your main AV's scan though.

I run Malwarebytes on files I download now and then.

"I have seen other users encounter BSoD(STOP) errors and viruses that made its way onto the PC."

• The bad guys are always bringing in new virus\malware. The best protection is due diligence. Top on my list (aside from

having my AV running and updating full time) is never open an email without being certain who it is from

(including familiar companies you have not contacted directly in the past few days), and don't use torrent download sites.

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