Antivirus removal. Sometimes it is needed by force.

Share This November 30th, 2009 Antowan

We are all pretty aware of the importance of some kind of protection from malware, spyware and computer viruses in general. Many people opt for a free solution as long as possible going for the likes of AVG FREE, AVAST HOME and many others. AVAST HOME in my personal opinion is currently the best free antivirus available online but this blog is not about who wins in the free AV product quality division. This blog is about what you can do to remove the recently snuffed hero from your PC in order to replace him or revive him or her (which antivirus would be a female?).

Sometimes something goes wrong and you need to clean out the house. Some folks will for various reasons try to maybe uninstall an antivirus program that for example came with their new computer in order to put on the antivirus of their choice. It doesn’t often happen, but sometimes something bombs out and the new antivirus complains about the presence (or remnants) of a competing antivirus or Internet Security product on the PC. What stands you to do when you run into a problem like this and you just cannot get all traces of the offending AV gone and dusted?

The best thing to do is to get the removal tool or uninstaller from creator of the AV in question’s site. Most of the antivirus and Internet Security developers offer such a tool free for download from their main sites. Download it and run it. You might need to go into Safe Mode (if you are using Windows) to do it properly.

Here is a list of removal tools as provided by some of the main antivirus and Internet Security vendors around today:

• AVAST :: http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-uninstall-utility.html
• AVG :: http://www.avg.com/us-en/download-tools
• SYMANTEC NORTON :: http://service1.symantec.com/Support/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2005033108162039
• KASPERSKY :: http://downloads1.kaspersky-labs.com/utils/klremover/KAV_Registry_Clean.zip
• ESET NOD32 :: http://www.eset.com/files/esetru.exe

Entry Filed under: General, General IT, Software