I remember anyone asking about a good antivirus program would be directed to AVG. And it was free.

Well...after my little trist with a nasty maleware problem I upgraded to AVG Internet Security 2011, it had all the bells and whistles to help keep my system safe.

Little did I know it would take 4 to 5 tries just to install the program, and 2 system restores not long after to finally, hopefully, get the program working properly.

I first realized the program didn't install properly when I read the user's guide and saw a screen shot of more icons than were on my screen. After three system lockups the fifth time went without a hitch. I thought.

Now we come to updates. Want a program to update itself even before your Windows program has finished its loading? AVG 2011 is your program. You cure this problem by going into Advance settings and uncheck a couple of boxes under the Schedule header. Not good programming.

And the latest problem delt with updating to AVG version 1170. Twice this update to the program locked up my user profile; I have one for each family member, thank goodness. And twice I had to go back to a restore point just to get my user profile working again. All this updating occured before Windows finished loading. For some funny reason the third time did not produce this problem. My user profile worked just fine. Very strange.

Please understand, I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from using the free version, or paid version, of AVG Internet Security 2011. Merely trying to warn you that this program acts more like a Beta program than a finished product. To see what problems others are having go to AVG's free forum .

I know what you mean about AVG updating itself without Windows having time to finish loading. It brought one of my older computers to a virtual halt until it finished what it was doing. Thank goodness, I found the place to be able to change that setting. I can't say that I've had the other problems, though, thank goodness. I'm using a free version.

I use Avast and have never had any trouble with it. I did have problems with a previous version of AVG and since getting rid of it, have never looked back.

It sounds like you are a fortunate one, Mary. AVG's free forum is full of people having problems with the free version of AVG 2011.

And you're so right about it bring your system to a stand still until it finishes updating. This is the other reason I disabled automatic updating. The first was because it didn't let Windows finish loading.

The other programs on my system that update periodically ask permission before updating. Just as AVG should.

I'm afraid that's where I'm also headed, Marian. I hate to just dump a program I'm paying for, but it isn't worth all the trouble sorting out problems everytime something goes wrong.

I know AVG is working on fixes, but if there were these many problems it shouldn't ever have been released.

I gave up on AVG back when AVG released version 9.5. Each release seems to get buggier,with more built-in ads. Installing 9.5 slowed my computer to a crawl until I uninstalled it and reinstalled it. I later ended up fixing other computers with the same problem: the upgrade apparently didn't work properly if you did an upgrade install rather than uninstalling 9.0 first.

That was what finally convinced me to try out other programs. I switched to Avast (Free) and haven't looked back: Avast works well, doesn't get in my way, and doesn't hog system resources.

I've also heard good things about Microsoft Security Essentials, but for the moments its capabilities are a little too limited for my tastes.

I'm with Demosthenes - I dumped AVG after version 9.5 too. My hard drive was running constantly and it was definitely affecting system resources. I've always liked Avast, but decided to give Microsoft Security Essentials a try. It's capabilities are a bit limited, for sure, but after about 4 months, I'm liking it quite a bit.

A local computer repair shop uses the free Avast and Malwarebytes and they say the combo is great.

Yeah, the constant running hard drive does have me a bit worried. Last thing I need is a hard drive crash.

And again, yeah, it really does slow down my system. Though there might be some other contributors as well.

I do have Avast sitting in the wings, and if things get worse it may make its debut on my system.

My experience as well.

When I get some extended time AVG is coming off our system. Really bothers me watching the HD light stay on longer than I remember.