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[klefenz]

I use Avast antivirus, and i've been quite content with it, however lately it has been doing rather weird things.

It started with the annoying pop ups advertising premium services, ok, this wasnt that bad.

Then it became bullshit behavior, like blocking .jps from the web flagged as theats (seriously? a threat from a .jpg?)

But today it was too much, it told me to uninstall a certain plugin from my browser, which apparently was toolbar crap, so i did, over a dozen times. Avast would ask permission o uninstall it over and over (i dont know if it unistalled the plugin or if this plugin really existed to begin with), but after that it tried to change my default search to Yahoo or Microsoft search. Google was not in that list.

That is a dick move, many malwares attempt to change your default search. I have to admit Yahoo is rather benign in this scale, as most malwares try to get you on those unknown "search engines" that are just traps. But still I have lost any trust I had in Avast.

TLDR: Does anyone know a good alternative to Avast antivirus?

[Arx]

On Windows 7 or 8, Microsoft Security Essentials is apparently pretty good. I never ran anything else, and never picked up anything horrible. YMMV, though.

[miauw62]

1. Some malware reads from .jpg files as a config file. The config data is written beyond the boundaries of the image.

2. I very much doubt that avast would try to set your search to Yahoo or Bing, considering that it tries to install Google Chrome when you install it.

[klefenz]

Today it did try to change my search to Yahoo.

[Darvi]

Today it did try to change my search to Yahoo.

That should be a capital offense.

[redwallzyl]

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware works vary well.

[Aklyon]

On Windows 7 or 8, Microsoft Security Essentials is apparently pretty good. I never ran anything else, and never picked up anything horrible. YMMV, though.

I'll second this. MSE is good enough.

[nenjin]

Echoing the crowd. MSE for passive protection, Malewarebytes/Spybot Search & Destroy/Hijackthis for being proactive. No major AV suite that has a free version seems to be worth shit anymore, including Avast.

[Telgin]

Antivirus software really is absolute garbage these days.  It's almost like over the past ten years there was a great and secret conference where all of the antivirus software producers got together and decided to make their software as awful as they could for no apparent reason.

Microsoft Security Essentials is all I bother installing anymore.  It does a decent job, but if it doesn't catch or stop something nothing else was going to anyway.

[Akura]

Today it did try to change my search to Yahoo.

I'm a week late to this party, but recently something did change my start page and search on IE to Yahoo(previously, it was about:blank and Bing due to oversight/uncaring on my part). It wasn't Avast!, I know for certain. I think it was MalwareBytes, actually, since I installed that this morning on my netbook.

I too am annoyed by the adverts from Avast!, but they've been strangely low-key as of late. Avast! did try to remove Orbit, though, despite the two existing together for months.

[Tellemurius]

MSE has lag spikes since it scans all your damn large files, may not bother you people but i see it and bothers me even on a quad core SSD.
I always say the best defense is from your browser first, keep on adblock and noscript(hell run IP Blocker too). I only have a scanning AV installed cause usually real time scanning isn't going to stop infections if it already happens. MalwareBytes is good so is Super-AntiSpyware. If you got a crapton of adware/toolbars i recommend running ADWcleaner which will search for all known adware on your computer and delete from all of its locations.

[i2amroy]

I use Avast for my Windows side malware with two important changes.
1) I didn't install the built-in browser shield.
2) Make sure to check the box that says "silent/gaming mode". That should remove all the constant popups that are so annoying.

Other than that I haven't had any problems with it. That said the basic free microsoft one works pretty well as an alternative if you can't stand Avast even with those two changes.

[Karkov]

Uh, if this thread's still going, I'm going to go ahead and throw out a recommendation for F-Secure Anti-Virus software.  It's really un-intrusive and does it's job really well.  Updates every day as well.  The home Anti-Virus edition is somewhere around $40 for three computers a year.

It won't try to change your search engine, and I got it because a certified cyber-security specialist told me about it.  He actually likes it so much he is their local vendor for it, if that's saying anything.  Truthfully he likes the business version better than the Home, but the Home version works well enough for what we ask of it.  This is if you have the money to spend on an Anti-Virus though.