Anti-Viral Meltdown

Like most computer users i run an anti-virus program for the obvious reasons. They protect against a number of viscous programing on the web and actually more commonly from flash drives that could potentially harm our computers or even ourselves by data collecting.
I am a fairly computer literate person and for the most part i don't visit malicious websites, not even accidentally. If i get a link of an unknown website, i usually do a Google search on the website before i even go to it. However, every once and a while there will be something that gets past your own personal guard. Maybe a trusted friend gives you a flash drive to use and unbeknownst to him it has a virus on it. Infection spreads just that easily and that is why it is always a good idea to run a anti-virus program.

Long ago, i had tried big name anti-virus programs like Nortan and McAfee. However i ultimately settled down on AVG. I had been using the Free version of AVG for atleast 4 or 5 years on all my computers, and for the most part it was doing an excellent job at protecting my computer. however it wasn't perfect, it would sometimes use a tremendous amount of resources rendering my laptop nearly useless. but this was a rare thing  that would only occur less than once a month, not too troubling. It was more of the inner workings of it that really annoyed me. It would always write a hidden folder into the root directory of every physical drive on the computer. to most users they would never know about this and it wouldn't bother them because it doesn't take up any distinguishable amount of space. but its just one of many little things that i didn't like. The one thing that finally pushed me over the edge was its false detection of virus'. I don't know what these programs do to scan for virus' but some detect some things while others do not. Its very annoying when a file you know isn't a virus gets scanned as a virus and you get a stupid pop up that says there is an infection. sure there is the ignore option, but it doesn't work correctly and later on you will get another pop up for the same thing. I don't want to be bothered with something that should just run unencumbered in the background. Therefore about a month ago, after years of a steady relationship with AVG, i ended it and found a new partner.

Avast is everything AVG was and wasn't. so far in my relatively short experience with the program it has been a perfect example of what a anti-virus program should be. I find it to detect and take proper action against malicious files while not overly detecting things that aren't threatening. Much like AVG, its got a very smooth and solid gui that provides plenty of features and is easy to navigate. The best part of Avast is that it does all of this without encumbering the user at all. It has a very small footprint on the computer, using hardly any resources, leaving my relatively old and outdated laptop fairly snappy. It provides all of its functions without any notices of updates or scans or anything that i don't want to hear about when i am busy actually using my computer. oh and did i mention Avast is Free! I couldn't be happier with this anti-virus program and apparently my switch to it couldn't have come at a better time.

AVG just this past week issued an Update that upon reboot would cause the famous windows Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). Which essentially renders your computer useless! Talk about an anti-virus that is actually worse than most viruses. Luckily there are a few solutions to fix the problem without too much trouble, but the mere fact that they had this happen is pretty damn horrible. The worst part of this, is that this isn't even the first time this has happened. Back in 2008 they had a similar issue where they detected an important system file as a virus and deleted it. They have since lost many many customers because of this and i don't blame any of them for leaving. If i was still using their product when this happened i would have surely got rid of everything AVG on my computers as soon as i got them to work again.