Claus at grand stream dreams, linked in his recent Anti Virus Software Updates blog posts an interesting article about issues Windows users were having with high CPU load. The culprit as it turns out was an optional (though installed by default) of avast! antivirus (both free and premium versions) called avast NG. The article (which has been Google Translated from another language) includes step-by-step instructions on how to uninstall the unwanted components (warning: restart required to complete the removal) as well as screenshots (in a another language).

On my three systems (generic Windows 7 Desktop, HP Windows 7 Laptop and Gateway Windows 8.1), I have just the basics Shields installed for avast! along with the Software Updater as seen below. Overall, I haven’t noticed much difference in the desktops, but both are running beefy processors and have 8 GB of RAM. On the laptop, I did notice some improvement especially when waking up out of sleep mode.

 

I sometimes wonder if these security software suites with all these “tuning tools” components (such as avast GrimeFighter) are partnering with computer repair services (such as Geek Squad or Data Doctors) to drive up business. That being, people who followed the “advice” given by these applications and now their computers don’t work properly anymore. Even worse are those TV commercials that say go to this website to fix your slow PC…you don’t need to do anything, it will be fixed remotely. Classic ‘fox guarding the hen house’ scenario. Sure it may be fixed, but at what costs (they claim the service is free) such as your personal data is scanned/collected/harvested/sold, they secretly install monitoring software (spyware) so your computer reports back to them, ransomware/malware. Then what happens when their “fix” breaks your computer, I suppose then they charge you to fix what they broke.