Antivirus Nightmare

[Sailor Steve]

I've been using AVG Free for a couple of years now, and have had no complaints at all.

So today I found and downloaded a free downloading tool, and it immediately told me that updates were available for six programs I'm running, including AVG. So I told it to update them. But it didn't just download the updates, it uninstalled each program and then installed the updated version. This was annoying to say the least, but it worked so I didn't worry about it too much.

But AVG didn't reload. Nothing I did would get it to work. So I dumped the downloading program and Downloaded the latest AVG version directly. It downloaded fine, but when I tried to install it it got about 3/4 of the way through and then locked up. So I tried to stop the installation process, and the whole computer froze up. So I manually rebooted and dumped AVG.

I tried it again, with the same results. So I tried an earlier version. Same thing. So I finally went to AVG's website, only to find that if you want real support you have to pay for it. They have a forum, and a couple of people reported similar problems but no one had helped.

Then I looked at the FAQ, and found that after you download, but before running the install process, you're supposed to reboot your computer. So I downloaded it for the I-don't-know-how-manyeth time, and rebooted, and started the install, and voila! It worked! For about five extra minutes. It got past the point at which it had been locking up, but it locked up at about 4/5 of the way through, and I wen't through the same process I had been going through for the previous six hours.

I went online looking for other free virus programs. Tried Avast, with similar results. I'm now running Microsoft Security Essentials, which seems to be doing the job. I'm a bit worried because the download site says it doesn't have a 'Silent Mode' that keeps it from trampling on games, but we'll see how that goes.

But I've really like AVG until now.