What Happens When Avira & Norton Are Installed Together?
When antivirus programs Avira and Norton are installed together, you may experience system instability, freezes, crashes and frequent false positives. You should never have more than one antivirus software installed on your system at one time. By understanding how programs like Avira and Norton interact with the computer, you can gain a better understanding of why there should be only one such program on any computer system.
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Low-Level Access
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Antivirus programs like Avira and Norton operate at a lower level than other computer programs. That is to say, they integrate more closely with the operating system and have greater access to computer resources. Some components of these programs, such as a boot-time scanner, actually gain the ability to circumvent the operating system entirely when you install them. In this circumstance, either product has access to the hard drive before Windows even loads. Having two programs with this kind of access can lead to any number of problems.
Update Conflicts
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One of the primary problems that you may encounter by having Avira and Norton installed to the same computer is slowdowns. If both programs happen to update their virus definitions at the same time, each will claim a large amount of system memory for themselves temporarily. This situation can literally bring the computer to a standstill until each program completes its update process. While you can schedule automated updates for these programs, there is no guarantee that the programs will not receive additional mandatory updates at the same time.
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Scanning Conflicts
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Both antivirus programs have root access to all of your files. They can actively scan incoming files and those that are stored on your hard drive at any time. If both programs decide that an incoming file is malicious and attempt to quarantine it at the same time, your computer can enter a endless loop of error messages. This occurs because one of the antivirus programs succeeds at quarantining the file, while the other detects that the file has been moved by another program. In fact, it is possible for either program to consider the other as malware, given the access to the system that it can demonstrate.
Other Potential Conflicts
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Both Norton and Avira use bits of viral code in their definitions. They use these code snippets to differentiate the malware from other programs. However, while these snippets are usually encrypted, it is possible for either program to detect these definitions and attempt to attack them. This situation can lead to a string of false-positives from both programs. False positives can result in the quarantining of files that are actually safe, and can make it very difficult for you to differentiate between a benign file and an actual threat.
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