I’m often asked to remove viruses and other forms of malware from ailing computers, and a common problem we encounter is folks running two or more antivirus programs at once.
When it comes to virus scanners, more is not a good thing. We know that probably sounds like it can’t be true, but it really is.
Before we discuss why that is, here’s a quick overview of the two primary types of anti-malware programs:
1 – Full-Time / Always Running – Antivirus programs such as AVG, Avast and others run continuously in the background, protecting your PC from threats on an ongoing basis. It is essential to have ONE of these programs running at all times if you use your computer to connect to the Internet.
2 – On Demand – These anti-malware programs should be run periodically as a “backup” scanner to catch any nefarious code that might have slipped through the cracks in your regular full-time antivirus program (and they ALL have cracks).
The most popular on demand anti-malware program is the free version of Malwarebytes.
Whenever two antivirus programs run at the same time they tend to fight one another, reducing your overall protection against viruses and other malware by a large margin.
In other words, ONE good full-time antivirus program will do a better job at protecting your PC from malware than any two of them combined.
Our recommendation is to pick ONE high quality full-time antivirus program and go with it, then run the free version of Malwarebytes about once a week to catch and remove anything that might have slipped in through the cracks.
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