Sometime back, I told you how happy I was with my virus checker program thingie, AVG. I would like to update that remark by telling you I recently got rid of it.
I had a problem with it. I called their Tech Support folks and they suggested I upgrade from plain ol' AVG Anti-Virus to AVG Internet Security. I spent the loot, upgraded and the problem went away. When it came time to renew AVG Internet Security, I paid for the renewal. When the program updated itself soon after, it suddenly had all sorts of new features, including turning off Windows Firewall (which had never failed me and which generally receives higher marks from reviewers) and replacing it with AVG Firewall. The many aspects of AVG Internet Security began slowing my computer down and there didn't seem to be an easy, permanent way of turning all of them off. And when I did succeed in turning one off, I got a lot of angry messages that said, "You Are Not Fully Protected!!!" or words to that effect.
I called Tech Support again and I had a conversation that pretty much went like this…
ME: How do I turn this feature off?
THEM: You can't.
ME: Well then, how do I turn this feature off?
THEM: You can't.
ME: Well, is there anyway to turn this feature off?
THEM: You can't.
And so on. The Tech Support guy had nothing to suggest other than that I try upgrading to an even more expensive, elaborate version of AVG. He couldn't guarantee it would run better on my system than what I had but it was worth a try. I replied that my problem seemed to be that AVG was doing too much, not enough, and asked if for what I'd paid them, I could just downgrade to plain ol' AVG Anti-Virus. He said no, they're separate programs and if I want the simpler version, I'll have to pay for a whole new installation.
AVG is off my computer and out of my life. I'm now running the free version of Avast, which seems to be doing everything I want except that it occasionally pops up little ads for non-free products. I'll let you know if I keep on liking it.