How Many Anti-Virus Programs Should You Use?

I once tried to have 2 A/V’s on my Pc, it really didn’t work out well. The newest one kept telling the other one was a virus, it was a pain to remove one of them aswell.

But I’ll have to try more combinations before I can make a statement.

I deal with this at work a lot. There are many times that a professor brings me their laptop because they can’t follow the directions for connecting to our wireless network. Usually what happens is they have they computer completely shut down, nothing wrong with that, and they turn their computer on and log-in. 3-5 minutes later, depending on the age of the machine, Windows has finally finished loading.

I ask them, “is that how long it normally takes to start?” They normally say, “Yes.” So I start poking around, primarily looking at the system tray. I see a “red M” and a “yellow shield.” I ask them, “did you purposefully install two pieces of anti-virus software on your computer?” They say, “Yes. Because the one is from my ISP and the other is from you guys.”

They actually think that the anti-virus software is location specific. That’s sad.

I couldn’t agree more. ONE is sufficient!
anti spyware on the other hand……

Thanks for the comments and for sharing your experiences with us. It is appreciated.

hmm… thats interesting. I for one am astounded when people don’t have antivirus software just because they think that they can avoid viruses. Same thing with car insurance, you need it. I myself use avast, and spybot search and destroy. I’m usually smart about where I surf, but sometimes spyware gets through and that stuff needs to be taken out.

Well, running multiple real-time antivirus scanners is not a good idea in my opinion too, if they protect the same thing. On the other hand, with only one of them, knowing that no antivirus can catch all malware, I feel nearly naked. This is why multi-engine AV’s are very useful in my opinion : It’s like having multiple AV’s, but without the problems in compatibility between them (but yes, it’s more ressource intensive also, and not free…). But there is another option I think: using multiple antivirus progams that protect different areas of the system. To stay with free software (paying for something that could simply not work just when you need it isn’t logical for me), my “dream’ configuration in terms of security (if I wasn’t a gamer…here I only have Antivir and Windows Defender real-time, to save some RAM and CPU power) would be Antivir as on-access filesystem protection, AVG free 8 for Email scanning, Avast as Web Shield, and to be on the safe side Clam and Bitdefender free on demand, with of course on demand scans with all that every week-end, not to mention other antimalware utilities i use in complement (malwarebytes, Gmer, and spybot as toolbox and prevention system). And of course, being on Vista, i have UAC enabled (replacing my good old Drop My rights on XP).

Ps: Sorry if I made some mistakes in English, it’s not my native language.

Hi George,
Safe surfing is the best practice.

Hello Florian,
Your English is just fine. Thanks for sharing your thoughts as well.

Regards, Ron

This article and the comments are very useful. I came across this page because I was thinking of installing two antivirus software (disabling one while using the other). I think the antivirus software I have right now is not as powerful as the one I want to install. Will disabling one antivirus, and using the other work if I want to remove a virus that I know exists in my system, but the current antivirus doesn’t detect it?

I, for one, don’t believe that any one program can detect every threat, but I don’t know two much about the issue. I have Threatfire, AVG 8, and Adware all downloaded. As in the article, there’s a remark about buying double or triple car insurance. I wouldn’t do this, but since I’m using the free versions of each software, I have no problem doubling and tripling up. When I do virus scans with all of them at the same time, Threatfire usually picks up one or two things that AVG doesn’t, but AVG has all of the internet protection that Threatfire doesn’t. It takes my computer two minutes to load from the log in screen until it’s loaded the desktop and the CPU’s are idle. It could be quicker, but I like the feeling of being triple protected, even if the programs overlap a great deal.

A single A/V program is enough as long as the A/V program is well maintained (daily updates, scans, etc.). Throw-in a dose of safe web surfing practice and any user can avoid getting problems related to malware or viruses.

hey, i have a few question, am using notebook model Dell. how can i protect my notebook from virus? now am using Nod32 anti virus. am worry because am always on9 download movie and software.. is it i need using 2 anti virus? i mean internet security and just anti virus. hope you can help me to solve my problem..
thnk.