Turn Off Real-time Spyware Scanning by AVG Antivirus
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Here’s a quick tip on how to disable the real-time spyware monitoring feature in AVG Anti-Virus 8.0. This can be particularly useful if you’ve a separate antispyware utility already protecting you (like the default Windows Defender in Vista).
1.To check if AVG’s real-time spyware scanning is on, fire up Security Center from Control Panel (Vista only). You’ll probably see something like this under the Malware protection tab.
The Security Center feature of Windows XP doesn’t provide information on antispyware, so you’ll have to do a bit of poking around – like checking out the icons in your System Tray, or the Add / Remove Programs list in Control Panel – to ensure that you’ve another antispyware protecting you in the background.
2.If AVG Anti-Virus Free shows up under Spyware and other malware protection, double click on the AVG icon in the System Tray to open it. Go to Tools > Advanced settings…
3.Open the Resident Shield tab, and remove the checkmark next to Scan Potentially Unwanted Programs and Spyware threats.
4.Click Apply and then OK, and you’re done! To make sure, open Security Center and AVG Anti-Virus Free would’ve disappeared from the Spyware protection category.
You can make AVG to scan for spyware anytime again by simply re-enabling the option (which you disabled in step 3). Alternately, click on Show me the antispyware programs on this computer in Security Center, select AVG Anti-Virus Free from the list and click on Turn On…
Hi,
the above information is not quite correct. The AVG scanning engine is still active and does all the necessary analysis, it only does not _report_ the potentially unwanted applications. It is recommended to disable other anti-spyware applications, especially Windows Defender can slow down the system when used together with other AV suites
Nice blog you have!
@Anonymous
That’s why the title reads includes the term “real-time spyware scanning” and not just spyware scanning. I personally feel Windows Defender is a better alternative to AVG’s built-in real-time spyware scanner, because the former also monitors so many other stuff like auto-start changes etc. which the latter doesn’t.
I followed your directions and cleared that “Scan potentially unwanted programs…” checkbox in AVG’s control panel. However, Security Center still shows AVG in its “Spyware and other malware protection” section (and this is after several reboots). Is it possible this no longer works with the current AVG version?
@ Ander
Thanks for pointing this out. This feature has been slightly modified in AVG 8.5, and now reads “Report potentially unwanted programs…”. So if you mark this one off, ONLY the reporting and not the active scanning will stop. AVG seems to have removed the ability to turn off spyware monitoring. Anyway, AVG’s spyware detection is pretty good, so you can actually turn off your other antispyware.