Every anti-virus suite I download tries to take over my computer!

[andrea9]

I have downloaded at least 6 anti-virus suites, and everyone of them has made changes on their own. These were top rated programs. Norton, Bit Defender, Avira, and others. And most were the devil to try to uninstall. They hide the uninstall program under some strange name or part of the program. I just spent a scary hour trying to uninstall Avira. It informed me that "it could not be uninstalled because I needed a virus control program. It also asked me for administrator rights. I finally got it out thru some aspect that wasn't the main program. All of these programs tried to put software and changes of their own on my computer. One asked me if I wanted to make internet explorer my default and use opera. I clicked 'no', yet it put up a window anyway telling me that these were now my defaults. It was a window without a way to x out except to accept. All of the programs used these windows that you can't x out of. All of them wanted to speed my computer, and make all kinds of other changes they called tune ups, ect. I had a hard drive die, have had two techs and spent days for a month fixing this damn computer, and it works good. I just want what used to exist, an antimalware program that changes nothing, just scans and gives online protection. I don't want it to tune anything, defrag. anything, accelerate anything, or take over my computer. Can anyone suggest a decent, legit program? As well, what is going on? Everyone of these programs were almost impossible to remove and imo act more like viruses. Do I have some kind of virus that is causing this?

 

[mdd1963]

Many AVs are indeed difficult to uninstall, and, without VERY careful analysis of what was being displayed vs. what was clicked on (many will ask 'are you sure you don't want application x?' which tricks folks into clicking no, etc...), so it will be difficult to guess which things you downloaded or menus were or were not legit...

That being said, as long as you stay out of the hacker sites, and notorious 'free downloads' and 'free software!' websites that fool thousands per day, generally Windows' included Defender (and, Chrome has a Defender browser add-on!) might very well do what you desire.

No AV app can fully protect you from clicking on the wrong thing at shady sites, however...

Have a backup/restore plan....

 

[Robert Ban]

Use malwarebytes for free, it doesnt take over pc and easy uninstall.

 

[andrea9]

Many AVs are indeed difficult to uninstall, and, without VERY careful analysis of what was being displayed vs. what was clicked on (many will ask 'are you sure you don't want application x?' which tricks folks into clicking no, etc...), so it will be difficult to guess which things you downloaded or menus were or were not legit...

That being said, as long as you stay out of the hacker sites, and notorious 'free downloads' and 'free software!' websites that fool thousands per day, generally Windows' included Defender (and, Chrome has a Defender browser add-on!) might very well do what you desire.

No AV app can fully protect you from clicking on the wrong thing at shady sites, however...

Have a backup/restore plan....

 

[andrea9]

Thank you MDD1963 for your input. I never download except from the company/author site, or one other trusted for years site,MajorGeeks.com. I don't go on hacker or shady sites, period. I have Defender as it came with the computer. I need more than Defender. IMO, the new anti-malware/virus suites are doing way more than they should. I don't want anything more than something to protect from malware and viruses. I have tuned my computer and can get programs designed for aspects of that. Do you know of any program that just does protection from viruses and malware? Does anyone. If not, maybe we should start asking that they get back to basics.

 

[andrea9]

Use malwarebytes for free, it doesnt take over pc and easy uninstall.

Robert Ban, thank you for the reply. I just wrote you a long post explaining why I no longer use MB. In preview i tried to correct spelling in my answer and the whole thing disappeared and I am out of time. Will try to explain further when I have more time. Just know it is a good program untill there is a problem. There customer service is slow email. They have a questionable 3rd party biller. I explained in detail that. Maybe an admin. knows how to get back my post. I do not understand posting on this site. first time. There doesn't seem to be an option to post this. Enter doesn't work.

 

[Robert Ban]

Oh... Well aint an paypal 3rd party also?
I really dont use it much, but except scan here and there , then uninstall.

 

[Rocky Bennett]

You might have some kind of virus. I read this thread a couple of days ago but I wanted to personally install and try out a few of the anti-virus programs that I have access to. I have licenses for Kaspersky Total Security, Bitdefender and Norton, so I installed them one by one into my system to see their behavior. Not one of them did anything more than just install and perform its function. Not one of these AV programs had a tune function or defrag function or an accelerate function. They are just AV programs, and that is what they do.

In the end I deleted them all (uninstalled) because I prefer Windows Defender, but the paid AV programs are all good and none of them exhibited any of the behavior that the OP complains about.