i have a question i was wondering if just using free products is good enough or should i buy a security suite of something and which one. at the moment i have AVG, Avast, spybot s&d, adaware se, ewido, microsoft antispyware, spyware blaster, and for my firewall zone alarm. its all free and yes i have herd that if you run to many of the same type of scanner it will screw it up. well i haven't had any problems in that department from what i can tell. I'm ok when it comes to computers i keep my familys and my computer running well or the best i can. but everything i know is from what i have taught myself or from calling tech support uhhhh hate them at times. well i hope someone will answer me soon thank you to everyone on this site.

I would add SpywareGuard and MS Defender. You should not run two antivirus' at the same time. You should stop using AVG or Avast. Two AV programs running at the same time can and will lead to problems. They detect each others vaults, and that can and often does cause a conflict.
I run nothing but freeware on my PCs and I have not had an infection in over 3 years.

The concern with using more than one anti-virus program is due to conflicts that can arise from them both running together at the same time in real-time protection mode. Anti-virus software componets insert themselves into the operating systems core and using more than one can cause instability, crash your computer, slow performance and waste system resources. When actively running in the background while connected to the Internet, they both may try to update their defintion databases are the same time. As the programs compete for resources required to download the necessary files this often can result in sluggish system performance.

While operating in real-time mode, each program will often interpret the activity of the other as a virus and there is a greater chance of them alerting you to "False Positives". Further, if one Av finds a virus and then the other also finds the same virus, then both programs will be competing over exclusive rights on dealing with that virus. Each piece of AV software will attempt to seize the offending file and quarantine it. If one AV finds and quarantines the file before the other one does, then you encounter the problem of both AV's wanting to scan each other's zipped or archived files and each reporting the other's quarantined contents. This can lead to a repetivite cycle of endless alerts that continually warn you that a virus has been found.

In contrast, using more than one anti-spyware program running in real-time mode simultaneously increases your protection coverage without causing the same kind of conflicts or affecting the stability of your system.

No single product can detect and remove all threats at any given time so using more than one increases your protection and is recommended. The industry is in a constant state of change with new infections coming out on a daily basis. Each vendor has its own definition of what constitutes spyware and scanning your computer using different criteria will yield different results. The fact that each program has its own definition files means that some malware may be picked up by one that could be missed by another.

well then i have one last question in your opinion which one is better avg or avast?

AVG.

As someone who doesn't use either of these anti virus programs...... can you explain why AVG is better. Just incase someone asks me in the future.

I have used both AVG and Advast, and I found the latter to be very sluggish with my computer's configurations when I tried it several years ago. While both will do a reasonable job keeping your computer secure, I seem to remember AVG's user interface was much easier.
Both of these are free, so you can give each one a test drive for two weeks and determine which you prefer yourself.
Regards,
John

All of the articles I have read say Avast is a better program than AVG. The only reason I keep using AVG is it works. I found it before Avast and have had it install on most of my computers for over 3 years. Except for my 13 year old daughter's computer, who refused to stop P2P, none of my computers have had a virus infect the system. AVG quite regularly catches virus trying to sneak in with the email, but to date none have gotten thru.
My reason is personal experience. I also run 3 antispyware programs in concert with AVG's active scan. They also block malware almost daily.
Spybot S&D
SpywareGuard
MS Defender
AVG 7
SyGate 5.6 (Firewall)
These five proactively scan my computer. I have several others, but these five are at core of my defenses.

It is rather suprising (to me) that many articles say Avast is stronger than AVG. In my experience as well as many of my friend's, Avast has missed several viruses that AVG catches and removes successfully. I use AVG because it has a nice user friendly, yet professional interface and it keeps my computer clean of viral-malware. I used to use Sophos Anti-Virus which is considered to be one of the best anti-virus products. After reformatting my computer, Sophos was gone and I was to lazzy to reinstall it so I went for AVG Free (same with my family's laptop which was reformatted a few months ago). From what I've seen, AVG Free gives me protection equal to that of Sophos and its real-time montoring and defense systems appear to be much better than Sophos's.

i gotta agree to 100% with Elendill.

thanks guys thats all i needed to know and now i am just running AVG is it bad to have more than one antispy though? heres all the stuff i am running on my computer...
adaware se
ewido anti malware
spyware blaster
yahoo antispy
AVG
microsift antispy
ccleaner
registy mechanic
spybot s and d
thats all of them if someone finds a problem with one please let me know im trying to make my computer as safe as possible.

I had a family member have trouble with Yahoo freezing . I have heard of no one else have problems though.
I alos run the companion of Spywre Blaster, Spyware Guard. It is real time like Spybot and MS Defender.
Whith that said you are very well protected. I would still recommend a firewall along with your other security software. I like and use Sygate 5.5

yea i forgot to add i use zonealarm for my firewall