I've been using the paid for version of Avast for many years. A few days ago my PC began to get sluggish. I ran the resource monitor and saw Avast using up to 100% of the CPU and it didn't go below 75%. I shut down everything and Avast kept hogging the CPU, even after a reboot.

I emailed their support -- which is what I pay for -- and got no reply within 24 hours.

Result: Avast removed and Kepersky installed in its place. PC response back to normal ... although Putin is probably now spying on me.

(I read where Avast has recently been sold to Norton bloatware for $8 billion.)

I ran Avast for 6 months or so some years ago and just gave up. Nothing but alerts about nothing and then demanding updates to be done three times a week.
Next subscribed to Norton bloatware wherepon was badgered to install this, that and the other so Norton could control all my activities. Finally without my permission swept my hard drive and loaded it onto their bloated cloud.

This cost me over $120 in excess internet fees.

After consulting with some IT people I know installed ESET which has been very reliable and unobtrusive. Just does the job without badgering hassels all the time.

I've installed the free version of Kapersky to see how things go. I don't mind at all paying for AV protection, but I don't want all of the additional "features" that comes with a full subscription -- to justify the range prices they charge.

When a company like Avast (which also owns AVG) is sold for $8 billion, you can imagine its income stream. Avast was also accused of selling the data from tracking cookies. Not sure if there was any truth in that.

I've opted out of all advertising, etc. Let's see how that goes.

Meanwhile it's so nice to have a responsive PC again. I note Kepesrky is using just a few percent of the CPU.

Avast have been very naughty, as have AVG. And yes, they have been caught out.

Kaspersky have improved over the years and are now a first class product. After using their basic product for one year I have now switched
to their next level. Excellent value, five devices covered for two years. Cheaper if you make the effort to visit a retailer e.g. Officeworks rather
than buy online.

Regarding Putin, I would not be too concerned there, he will be quite busy negotiating the price of gas with "Green" Europe this coming
bitterly cold winter. This will be interesting.

Update:

My wife just had all her photos ripped out of her laptop and into the cloud, without permission, compliments of Norton.

I did start out with Norton many years ago & ended up dumping it due to various issues. I have been using Kaspersky on more than one computer for probably decades.

Despite arguments between Malwarebytes & Kaspersky. Malwarebytes is also a program I have used for decades.there are programs that do better at wiping out cookies and I have used it to get kid introduced malware, out of several other friends computers. Some programs are hopeless at removing all of their programs leaving orphans all over the place and one has to get in there & manually get them out.

Computers have not got an infinite storage space & its incredible as to see how orphaned stuff accumulates

I uninstalled Malwarebytes a few days ago trying to get to the bottom of the terrible sluggishness that turned out to be caused by Avast.

BBTV: I guess the answer is to get rid of Norton, pronto.

My first AV software was Innoculate IT by Computer Associates. Australian-made and pretty good until they got out of the game. Good things never seem to go forever. By that state Windows Defender had come along, which like most things wasn't perfect in the beginning and MS doesn't have a reputation for keeping it ahead of the field in terms of updated signature files but one thing it has never done is bog down a computer or run out of control. It just works and it doesn't cost anything so I just run with it. I've never had the computer taken over by malware so I guess it has done its job.

I remember F-PROT on DOS and then Trend Micro on Windows.

I have to add, that since uninstalling Avast, I don't seem to be getting timeouts here on V-R. Might be a coincidence.

VR has been a little unstable here, having hanging & loading issues. There is such a thing as tidy with a computer. All the historic data from decades, not in common use, especially Photos are kicked off the computer & transferred to mobile HDD.

I have Wireless Broadband & as I think I noted I got a call a few days ago from a person with a subcontinent accent telling me he was from NBN & would be checking my NBN speed and if this was not being up to standard (never has been) and being slow he would be sending his technical person to install a new optic fibre plug.

How this was going to be achieved when there was no optic fibre cable to connect it to? My Kid comment was expensive, the computer involved had no AV. Grandson had installed a program that claimed virus infection and you were advised to do x and download y, but it was all actually the virus. That resulted in a loss of around $4K from their account and it took Malwarebytes to get it out as it would not uninstall.

A subsequent scan took hours as, due to no protection, there were thousands of items of Malware etc. in that unit & I was seriously tempted to run "Format C".

GTC, I advised a week ago to get rid of Norton but being a new laptop it came with free Norton. After the missing photos a sudden change in
mind resulted in an all out assault on N.

A losing battle ensured as N proved highly skilled at avoiding removal. Much frustration but solution came in the form of Kaspersky.

Once installed it's first operation was to remove N, and it had the manners to ask permission to do so. That's what I call class. I paid very
little to protect five devices and as I only have two there were three to spare ( gone now to her phone and older laptop)

I just hope Kaspersky never change, but the way things are these days change for the worst seems so fashionable.

Happy ending, except for the photos.

I have McAfee and it has 22 separate processes running. The laptop gets slower and slower and McAfee can't be helping.

STC: Years ago, John McAfee himself said that his namesake product had become bloatware.

I'm surprised that it's still around. Like Norton, it's often bundled into other product downloads.

Norton has been crap since the Windows 95 days. Get rid of it. Never tried Avast or Kapersky.

There's 2 kinds of McAfee : the free one which is also crap, and the VirusScan version available to corporations. This version will run on anything from Windows 2000 to Windows 8.1 (need a newer version for Win10), updates by itself nightly, and has minimal impact on a modern (< 12 years old) computer.

Still, given how slow Win2k and XP computers are, I wouldn't really recommend it for them.

Defender when originally released was not kept up to date, and a survey of its capabilities showed it couldn't detect any viruses. But now it's quite the opposite - it has many false alarms, and the thing can't be turned off (on Win10) or uninstalled. To stop it clogging up the local LAN and the computer I had to resort to drastic measures. In fact I'm sure some of the things it does would be illegal in some countries.

I have NEVER ever had any "anti virus" software installed on any of my PC's in 20 years plus
With my net connected machines I just use Win10 and let "defender" do its thing.

I have had plenty of hours related failures in PC's that just cripple running and once I fixed the CPU/motheboard/whatever issue normal running was restored. Wailing: its got a virus! Answer: No the HDD has failed!

I always thought the best way to GET a virus was to install an "anti virus" software.
Then you are on their list!

Our biggest problem in a company office / sales set up was SPAM, dont worry about viruses!
When 90% of your resources was used defending your system against spammers pinging your system to death there was not much left to do anything. Its got a virus! No its being spammed to death!
Sort out the spam at the gate and all of a sudden systems run smooth and resources are fine.

Fred.