Does it help to have multiple antivirus programs?

Written By: admin on January 1, 2010 No Comment

I saw a person post on a forum not long ago that his computer was as safe as it possibly could be since he had the smart idea of running five different antivirus programs on it. I hated to break it to him but having more than one antivirus is like having more than one head chef in the kitchen, it slows things down and it hurts more than it helps.

Most antivirus (AV) programs have a database they call their definitions. When a new virus comes out, the AV companies take it apart and find some characteristic or signature it has that they can detect. They then add this to the definition database, your AV program grabs this new update and now their AV program looks for that virus when you scan your computer. Since most of the AV products out there work this way, their definition files are very similar, so having more than one AV program looking for the exact same thing really does not help you to weed out more viruses.

Having more than one AV product can also have bad side effects. AV software loads into a portion of your computers memory when you start it up. Having more than one AV program means more than one scanner is taking up valuable real estate in your memory, this leaves less memory available for the things you want to run on your computer. Less memory means your computer will have to use a portion of the hard drive and make everything on your computer slow down.

Another bad effect of having multiple AV programs is the possibility of them seeing the other AV programs as bad and trying to delete portions of them. This causes all sorts of issues and makes trying to uninstall them a nightmare since the uninstall programs stop once they cant find a file they are looking for. There is nothing worse for your computer than having missing files in a program. It can cause system lock-ups in the worst cases and slow performance in the best cases.

Look around for reviews of the latest AV products out there and pick one to install. This will keep your computer nice and safe. You may want to partner your AV product up with a good malware program like malwarebytes. Malware and viruses are not the same and most products out there specialize in finding only one or the other. Having one of each of these kinds of programs is good for your computer.

If you have any virus questions, feel free to stop by my website and get a Free Virus Scan and Removal. My webpage has links to FREE antivirus programs, reviews of the antivirus programs available and lots of helpful information to help you get over any virus or malware issues.

John is currently teaching network infrastructure at a state college in Ohio. Before teaching, he worked as the Director of IT at a good sized medical foundation. John holds the following technical certifications: A+, Net+, Security+, MCP, MCSA, MCSE, MCTS, MCITP, CCNA, CEH.

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