AVG Anti-spyware?

I'm trying out the new AVG anti-spyware. It gives you 30 days on a trial basis with all the bells and whistles then reverts to the basic, stripped down free version. Question: Has anyone tried this? What do you think about the resident shield?

 

AVG Anti-Spyware has proven to be a very good application in finding and removing malware for some time. It gets updates the most frequent out of many other aps, sometimes 2-3 times per day.

I've never known it to be much of a resource hog either.

In so far as its real time guard goes tho, I can't say how well it works, I've not seen nor done any testing with it recently

 

I run it as a standalone scanner - reverted to the free version.

The only annoyance is that even thougth running w/o the resdent Guard, there is a Service that runs for it. This Service if not enabled will not allow AVG AS to run at all.

I start the Guard's Service manually - I have it disabled, to update/scan.

 

I tend to agree with Charles on the resident shield/guard. I don't like things running constantly in the background, given my somewhat limited resources. I prefer to run them on demand. Thanks for the input. I've decided that I have sufficient antispyware and therefore do not need AVG's (at least at this time).

 

The bigger problem now by far is not computer viruses it is adware /spyware / malware

Spyware can shut down a fast broadband connection to 10 %

I am now a fan of avg
There is a free version as well
I had a terrible computer virus last year jump from an infected computer across my network
Nothing but nothing got it out
I was not a fan of avg
AVG was the only product that removed the final traces which were reinfecting the system


its not a question of which antivirus program is better than another but a question of doing the updates
It used to be that the free versions had manual updates and the paid versions had automatic updates
Now most of the free versions do auto updates


link: http://www.download.com/AVG-Anti-Virus-Free-Edition/3000-2239_4-10746390.html?tag=lst-0-1

As the others said - anything running in the background takes a performance hit
Viruses are not such a big problem now
Most are there only to take over your computer to be involved in large denial of service attacks
It is estimated that 50 - 60 % of computers are infected with these trojan viruses
AVG is quite agressive in that even if you do not have the resident shield turned on it will run full scans ( called "tests ")
If the computer is off for some time on booting AVG will attempt a scan



If you are behind a broadband cable or dsl connection a router is a good idea even if you only have one computer
The router adds a first layer of security

 

We're behind a router so we feel reasonably protected. I had been running BitDefender Interenet Security Suite 2008 and everything appeared fine. But after three months of never having a single hit, I decided to do a little experiment. I uninstalled it, installed Ad-aware and Spybot and low and behold, 23 infections (spyware) were quickly discovered. Needless to say, BitDefender is staying off and AVG anti-virus (free), Ad-aware and Spybot remaining (along with Comodo for a software firewall). Just didn't feel I need AVG anti-spyware as well. Seemed like overkill.

 

James I'm curious as to what sort of 'spyware infections' were found by AA-SE & SS&D? Cookies, actual files, just registry points?

 

If memory serves I believe they were tracking cookies alone. There was one that was marked in the red zone but to be honest, I didn't really study them... just deleted them and re-ran the scan. There were no viruses or trojans, thank goodness. Yesterday I decided to try BitDefender once more for two reasons: I paid for the darned thing for two years and I don't like the idea of throwing money away. Secondly, I grew tired of Comodo's incessant whining whenever an application would try to access the internet. I've never had a firewall so darned irritating than this one. So as of this morning, I'm back on BitDefender and things are going much more smoothly. I only wish I could run some of these other anti-spyware programs in conjunction with it but evidently (according to BD) this will cause conflict and all have to be removed. Actually, I was told the exact same thing a year ago when I was running F-Secure's Internet Security suite: "All other spyware progs must be removed." So....

 

Further to the other comments, it is a very good program, IMO and IME.

Another good quality program, that has a limited, free version is: -

SUPERAntiSpyware