In the midst of everything else, my Norton AntiVirus expired. I'd already decided I wasn't going to renew it, and I was a bit leery about what it would do when I went to uninstall it. I gave myself lots and lots of time to switch from Norton to AVG Anti-Virus Free by Grisoft, the latter suggested by one heck of a good egg, Mark.
Well, the uninstall went smoothly, much to my surprise, and AVG installed itself with no problems until we got to the scan-the-computer-part, when it took bloody forever. If it takes longer than Norton to scan (and perhaps that was because of different settings), I thought, then AVG's default daily scans were going to be a bit of a problem. I'd set Norton to weekly as its scans so hogged resources, it prevented me from using the computer while it took at least an hour to scan. What would AVG be like, I wondered with trepidation?
By the time I turned on the computer next, I'd forgotten all about the daily scanning thing. At some point, I became aware that the computer was rumbling, looked at my taskbar to see a little moving AVG icon, and realised it had started scanning. But programs had not slowed down, tasks weren't stalling -- AVG was keeping out of my way! How refreshing.
The other refreshing change was that AVG can scan my e-mail. I'd had to disable e-mail scanning in Norton as it didn't work well and became annoying. I didn't get any viruses through e-mail, but it would've been nice to have had the extra protection just in case. I decided to see how AVG handles my e-mail. It pops up a little message announcing e-mail is being scanned, but my e-mail program doesn't stall as it's downloading, and there's no appreciable slowdown in me being able to read my mail. And that brings me to the best part: my computer no longer takes long minutes to start up. In fact, it's now ready to rock and roll before I am, being so accustomed that I am to having to go off to do something else while it starts up and beeps at me that I have no AntiVirus program (yes I do, no you don't, yes I do, no...oh, there's Norton) before Norton AutoProtect finally pops into the taskbar and lets me run my programs.
Yup, it's been a good move. Not the best timed one, but now I'm free -- AVG Free!
Well, the uninstall went smoothly, much to my surprise, and AVG installed itself with no problems until we got to the scan-the-computer-part, when it took bloody forever. If it takes longer than Norton to scan (and perhaps that was because of different settings), I thought, then AVG's default daily scans were going to be a bit of a problem. I'd set Norton to weekly as its scans so hogged resources, it prevented me from using the computer while it took at least an hour to scan. What would AVG be like, I wondered with trepidation?
By the time I turned on the computer next, I'd forgotten all about the daily scanning thing. At some point, I became aware that the computer was rumbling, looked at my taskbar to see a little moving AVG icon, and realised it had started scanning. But programs had not slowed down, tasks weren't stalling -- AVG was keeping out of my way! How refreshing.
The other refreshing change was that AVG can scan my e-mail. I'd had to disable e-mail scanning in Norton as it didn't work well and became annoying. I didn't get any viruses through e-mail, but it would've been nice to have had the extra protection just in case. I decided to see how AVG handles my e-mail. It pops up a little message announcing e-mail is being scanned, but my e-mail program doesn't stall as it's downloading, and there's no appreciable slowdown in me being able to read my mail. And that brings me to the best part: my computer no longer takes long minutes to start up. In fact, it's now ready to rock and roll before I am, being so accustomed that I am to having to go off to do something else while it starts up and beeps at me that I have no AntiVirus program (yes I do, no you don't, yes I do, no...oh, there's Norton) before Norton AutoProtect finally pops into the taskbar and lets me run my programs.
Yup, it's been a good move. Not the best timed one, but now I'm free -- AVG Free!
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