Any opinions re Avast vs ClamXav?

idink wrote:

Avast is now officially on my list of "Anti viruses which cause more pain than actual viruses".

Here's more on this new Avast! "feature" and how to avoid it Avast installs adware!. Obviously all these A-V developers aren't able to provide their products to Mac users free forever, so we are starting to see a shift in the marketplace. Intego completely removed their Virus Barrier Express (although still supporting existing users) from the AppStore with the promise of something better in the future, but will it still be free? Dr.Web Light isn't free any more. Avast! is trying the adware approach to pay the bills.

There are some other factors with Avast! that users should consider:

- It routinely leads competitors in tests of the ability to detected infected Mac malware files. That's the good news.

- It also leads all others in it's ability to declare "false positives" including an OS X file on a system that contains nothing else. Be certain that anything it detects is actually malware and not something needed by the OS or a clean application.

- It has been pretty well established here in the forum that it's responsible for running the battery down overnight in laptops that have been put to sleep without being connected to the charger.