Anti-Virus Suggestions

[Mathias]

I've been using Avast Anti-Virus for a couple years now without incident and it even covered my butt a couple times I did something stupid without thinking. However, when I run http://speedtest.net I get an average download rate of 2300 kb/s and with Avast off 5000 kb/s. In the past that wasn't such a big deal, because I wasn't downloading or watching as many videos on the net as I do now. This is VERY annoying.

Currently, I have Instant Messaging, Internet Mail, and Outlook/Exchange providers terminated. This leaves Network Shield, P2P Shield, Standard Shield, and Web Shield enabled. Even with all of these providers terminated, I'm barely hitting 2600 kb/s download. This is all with the VRDB (Virus Recovery Database) disabled.

Am I missing a setting? Is this a known issue with Windows 2000 Professional machines. Kelene's running the same programs with the same settings including ZoneAlarm and is running nearly the same speed.

Setting Suggestions? Should I try AVG? Anything?

[the56ker]

only one i have use for the past few years is avast you can get it from http://www.avast.com free home ed free registration

[Sledgstone]

speedtest.net seems wacky to me. Every time I've used it it gives me a variety of results. O_o

btw, you can tell when avast is runnings because the little a will spin. If its not spinning, then its not scanning anything. The only setting I can recommend is to double click it and set everything to 'normal' sensitivity and make sure its upgraded to the latest version. I have to upgrade mine now actually, I neglected the little green update block yesterday.

[Eppy]

only one i have use for the past few years is avast you can get it from http://www.avast.com free home ed free registration

he said he has been using avast foo :P...yeah and speedtest varies depending how flooded the connection you are connecting to is....i mean my down varies from 13mbps to like 25mbps and up is between 1.3mbps - 2.1mbps

[gokuDX7]

Does Avast have a built in firewall or packet analyzer? if so it's probably blocking some packets which would result in your speed degrading on the speed test.

I use AVG on any PCs I need a scanner on. AVAST got bloated over the years and bogs down most systems worse then Norton. Just my opinion though.

[Mathias]

I ran the speed tests about ten times one after the other and another ten times simultaneously with XP and 2000 PCs. XP saw little difference when Avast was running or not. 2000 was twice as fast (at XP download speeds) when Avast was off. It sounds like the program affects download speeds differently between the two operating systems.

[Eppy]

different OS different way a virus acts so its not a surprise that it handles them differently