To AV or not to AV....

coopsjc21

coopsjc21

coopsjc21

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So, this past 6-12 months I've been having all sorts of nightmares with Windows 7 and my (free) upgrade to Windows 10. Crashes, blue screens, temporary freezes, temporary internet connection disruption. I've tried to find the cause many times. Corrupted OS, viruses, etc. I've reinstalled OS countless times.

I've only recently reinstalled Win7 and within a few days I'm getting problems again. This time though I've noticed it's since I installed AvG anti-virus, I've had all manner of freezes & crashes. It even prevented me booting due to corrupt AvG boot files. I managed to remove it and all seemed ok. I installed Kaspersky Free.... straight back to crashes, freezes and corruption. I remember having trouble with Avira a while back too. I just got rid of Kasperksy... back to running smoothly again.

Windows Defender seems to run trouble free. But is AV software likely to be causing my problems? Could it be not liking my h/w setup and causing issues? My system runs fine without AV, as soon as I install some... boom.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/01/antivirus-is-bad/
 
The only AV I'd reccomend are NOD32 and Bitdefender

But both have had issues in the past, crashing PCs etc.

Windows Defender is pretty good tbh, I just rely on that and do monthly NOD32 online scans.
 
I haven't felt the need to use 3rd party AV software for about 10 years.
Defender is good enough IMO along with a bit of common sense with what sites you visit & links you link.
 
I’ll be going down the Defender only route and see how I get on. Going to do another re-install on os and avoid 3rd party av this time, see what happens.
 
Assuming that you use Firefox or Chrome, install Adblock Plus for your browser, takes care of many ads/popups.
 
Haven't used AV for years and years. As long as windows is updated and your not downloading dodgy files, 99% of the time you will be ok.
 
Going to be contrary as is apparently my want this days.

I prefer using a paid AV and Firewall. Support is much better and you gain access to additional functionality.

I currently use Panda AV as I got the full liscence free, I love its app blocker module. I'll probably switch to BitFefender next.

I'm a bit strange though, I disable and uninstall every possible Windows service I can, and deny internet access to those I can't, unless absolutely necessary.
 
Something sounds more wrong if you're getting issues after installing any AV. How are you reinstalling Windows 7 and if you made the bootable disc/USB yourself, where did you get the ISO from?

What about if you used the W10 ISO from Microsoft directly?
 
Dr.Eddie said:
Better to AV it and not need it than to need it and not AV it.

Imo :)
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It's not that simple though. AV itself can cause problems and expose vulnerabilities.

The OP himself has had problems with Windows that appears to be linked to AV and the article he linked to talks about high severity bugs found in Symantec/Norton products and integration of AV into broswers making them less secure...

The problem, from the perspective of the browser makers, is that antivirus software is incredibly invasive. Antivirus, in an attempt to catch viruses before they can infect your system, forcibly hooks itself into other pieces of software on your computer, such as your browser, word processor, or even the OS kernel. O'Callahan gives one particularly egregious example: "Back when we first made sure ASLR was working for Firefox on Windows, many AV vendors broke it by injecting their own ASLR-disabled DLLs into our processes." ASLR, or address-space layout randomisation, is one of the better protections against buffer overflow exploits.
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Grrrrr said:
It's not that simple though. AV itself can cause problems and expose vulnerabilities.

The OP himself has had problems with Windows that appears to be linked to AV and the article he linked to talks about high severity bugs found in Symantec/Norton products and integration of AV into broswers making them less secure...
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I have to disagree, I have used many different AVs for many decades and they are very stable in general, the issues he has really sounds like a hardware/driver issue with the amount of crashes he has on various Operating Systems, it is always better to use a good AV then none. The first thing he needs to do is find the exact cause of the crashes, a clean install of OS with no AV and minimal software and nothing overclocked should help. I would do the usual things like memory test, run stability tests etc to see how stable the PC is without AV then take it from there. Try a different hardrive/ssd and check/replace cables.

AVs in general do not cause that amount of crashes if any, I would even say rare to get a crash on a good AV, I have never had an AV crash.

I'll say last time I had something similar to what he had it was faulty a memory stick and time after that a faulty cpu on a different system.

Remember corruption can be caused by many things from bad SSD/HD to memory sticks/cpu/cables etc...
 
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Sounds like the OP has got some other problem that is giving him grief that manifests when an AV is installed.

Millions of people have installed AV without experiencing any issues at all, so (in my mind) it has got to be something specific to the OP.

OP, my advice is to try NOD32, if you haven't already, and see how you get on. Also, have a look at what you are putting on the PC, sounds like there might possibly be a virus kicking about somewhere in files you're copying over or something.

Just my guess, but I have ran NOD32 on many computers over many years and never experienced any problem that makes me think 'this AV lark is more trouble than it's worth'.
 
The AVs all try and keep there files, systems and virus definitions up to date. They all also attempt to prevent there update mechanisms from being tampered with or disabled. They also use tricks and sys calls to prevent those preventions from being blocked. All this stuff happens at windows boot up. It battles with all the other stuff going on, conflicts with file permisions and user acount privaleges and causes all sorts of crap to occur. I have had it with both AvG and Avast. Both causing lockups, black screens and full crashes on multiple systems. They are just not worth the hassle. Download there respective removal tools and remove them,put the windows default AV on and the systems run trouble free for years.
 
MonkeyBasher said:
The AVs all try and keep there files, systems and virus definitions up to date. They all also attempt to prevent there update mechanisms from being tampered with or disabled. They also use tricks and sys calls to prevent those preventions from being blocked. All this stuff happens at windows boot up. It battles with all the other stuff going on, conflicts with file permisions and user acount privaleges and causes all sorts of crap to occur. I have had it with both AvG and Avast. Both causing lockups, black screens and full crashes on multiple systems. They are just not worth the hassle. Download there respective removal tools and remove them,put the windows default AV on and the systems run trouble free for years.
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I have not used AVG for years, but have NEVER had any of these issues with Avast for the past ten years or so. There is an option to delay startup so that it only loads the Avast module after all other system processes, just incase your system has issues.

Of course AVs have issues from time to time, just like any other piece of software, such as browsers, games and other utilities. Windows itself (as well as Linux) also has bugs, so you cannot tar all AVs with this brush. Some are obviously trouble-makers and I have run into issues with both Norton and McAfee in the past.
 
linktoinsanity said:
I have not used AVG for years, but have NEVER had any of these issues with Avast for the past ten years or so. There is an option to delay startup so that it only loads the Avast module after all other system processes, just incase your system has issues.

Of course AVs have issues from time to time, just like any other piece of software, such as browsers, games and other utilities. Windows itself (as well as Linux) also has bugs, so you cannot tar all AVs with this brush. Some are obviously trouble-makers and I have run into issues with both Norton and McAfee in the past.
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I'm using Avast Premier at the moment, no issues or lockups, as I stated earlier have used Avast, Panda, Bitdefender, AVG, Avira, NOD32, Kaspersky in the past with no issues.
 
Elevon said:
I'm using Avast Premier at the moment, no issues or lockups, as I stated earlier have used Avast, Panda, Bitdefender, AVG, Avira, NOD32, Kaspersky in the past with no issues.
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Well you did not mention Norton or McAfee in that list, so I believe you. ;)

It has been so long since I used AVG on a regular basis I cannot give a fair opinion these days, though it was not good back when I did use it ~15 years ago.
 
Windows defender or failing that Sophos, Sophos is aimed at the enterprise market so doesn't bug you it just sits there quietly doing its thing.
 
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