[Sparks]

Important: You must upgrade to version 9 by December 1, 2009
AVG 8.5 is being replaced by AVG 9 and you will have to upgrade to stay protected. Updates for your current AVG Free will not be available after December 1, 2009.

http://www.avg.com/w...e-appf8590-1b_a

[Little Kopit]

For anyone thinking of changing to AVG, you have to have a DSL connection. I tried it with just a wireless connection. But it has too much memory.

[Sparks]

A dsl line is nice but generally slower than wireless. I just downloaded it via my 54g wireless LAN with no problem. Actually, it's better to select run rather than save when asked. That requires less bandwidth and also doesn't require the extra disk space to save the program before installation.

Wifi, if provided by an ISP or service provider is probably b rated rather than g or n and is a WAN rather than a LAN and shared by many and would make downloading slower if many are online sharing the wifi service.

[Little Kopit]

You're a city boy, big population city boy. I'm talking rural wireless. There is a huge difference. In Newfoundland my last connection was via Cable Modem, that was quite a bit faster than this wireless.

My experience with wireless is clearly very different that your experience. & DSL is broadband per my experience.

[Sparks]

That's what I said. Rural and city wireless is a WAN (Wide area network), basically the same equipment except it may have a higher power output (requiring a Government license) for wider geographic coverage, which is one where a lot of people use it compared to a local area network which is homebased (short range, unlicensed) & only 1 or 2 people generally use it whether it's connected to DSL (.5mb) or Cable G wireless router which operates at 54mb..
It can only handle so many users at once & is generally the B (10mb) version or slower speed wifi unless the supplier has installed the newer equivalent (G 54mb) to keep the system updated..

In RV parks that provide wifi, it's hooked up as a LAN for local coverage but can get slower than 54mb depending upon how many are using it at any given time and what (DSL, Cable, or Satellite) supplies the broadband signal. As a rough estimate, the speed (54mb) can be divided by the # of people using it (say 20) resulting in each one having a 2.7mb download speed. Still fairly fast compared to DSL which is the next step up over the telephone modems.

I would guess that wireless in your area would be sourced from a DSL line as it would cost more to have a cable suppling the signal rather than a dedicated phone line. In any case, if a cable was supplying it you should have access to cable TV and Internet.

[Little Kopit]

Ron, you're trying to apply US law and US conditions to Canada and you seem to think that they are exactly the same.

I don't think so.

We are close in how we use the term Wifi. That's all.

My Wireless tower is about 2 to 2.5 km from me. The company head tower is over 60 km from me. I've known it to come down 1x in the 15 months I've been connected via that outfit. They started in that centre 60 km from me and service a variety of urban and rural areas. I'm supposed to be @ 100.0 mbps. But compared to what I used to get,it's slow.

[Sparks]

Sounds like wireless cell with an aircard. Do you have a cell phone? If so, we are comparing apples to oranges. But if so, why couldn't you download AVG?

[Little Kopit]

Oh, I could download it all right. It just hogged memory for hours and hours.

I'm using Avast.

[Sparks]

Avast is good. But I don't understand your first comment about memory?

[Little Kopit]

Well, it's well over a year ago, but it took forever + to run a scan and it slowed everything during a scan. I concluded that there was a connection to connectivity speed, but the details are gone, gone, gone where the goblins go.

I remember saying in more than one place that having read that techies love AVG, it should have occurred to me that all techies would have high speed connections.

[Sparks]

I've used Avast in the past and like it but yes, a thorough/deep scan by AVG can take up to 2.5 hours, but it's a deeper, more thorough scan than Avast does, and I have over 150GB of files on my computer. That's the reason I switched to AVG. Better protection IMO. It slows my 2.1gb system down a bit but not enough to cause any problems. At any rate, I still schedule deep scans for when I'm not actively using the computer. But once a week for a deep scan is enough.

Connectivity speed has nothing to do with a scan. Only at the beginning when it looks to see whether a virus definition or AVG system file is newer than the one currently in use. If so, it downloads & updates (a few seconds).

It also updates the virus definition file several times daily while it's running in the background (If it's set to auto update).
The files generally are only a few KB in size not MB. So with a highspeed connection it takes about 5 sec total. With a phone modem (56K) it takes about 35 to 45 sec. And these are downloaded & updated in the background and not normally noticed...

I did use it with a phone modem about 14 years ago on a Win95/98 systems, & downloaded AVG while I was sleeping & installed it the next day. Was building & uploading web sites at the time & even with a slow 100mhz processor speed it didn't really affect useability.

I'm happy. Haven't had a virus since 1999.

[Little Kopit]

Well, maybe Avast has changed since you used it. I'd be quite happy if an Avast scan was ONLY 2.5 hours. 4 hours is more likely. & I had one time when I was delayed on going somewhere because it wouldn't finish. & I had to give up on it. I've had 1 virus in the more than 12 months since I've been using it.

AVG was more like 8, 9, 10 hours during which time I could do almost nothing else.

[Sparks]

Have no idea why your scans take so long. Avast, two or three years ago would scan my system in a bit more than an hour and AVG never took longer than 3 hours at most.
Do you empty your temp and history files occasionally?

[Little Kopit]

CCLeaner empties the temps.

[Derek Bullock]

I purchased AVG Internet Security, as I got sick of all the hassles with the free one, a while back and it updated to 9.0 a few weeks ago.

Great program. Just runs in the background and does it's job. I have noticed that when it scans unlike the old free one it doesn't slow anything at all.


Derek