I currently run CCLEANER, MalwareBytes and AVAST. Once a month I run TWEAKING.COM.
AVAST seems to be everywhere on the system. Malwarebytes isn't playing nice according to recent reports.
Question: Would replacing AVAST with BitDefender Free be a less intrusive antivirus pgm?
Although Malwarebytes isn't playing nice there are settings to control who it thinks is a PUP and automatically removing them.
IMO, you don't need Tweaking at all.
If you want to get rid of AVAST, I would just go with Windows Defender which is already built into Windows 8.x and Windows 10. It does play well with MBAM. WD and MBAM is what I run on all my systems.
Looking back on one of ChuckRJr's previous posts, he is running Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
http://www.landzdown.com/computer-problems-questions-and-solutions!/is-sql-server-necessary/
so as a last resort, Windows defender. It is not good on a Windows 7 computer.
I am currently looking for a Win 7 av and Avira was recommended to me. You might want to look through the thread
http://www.landzdown.com/general-software-news-updates-discussions/mse-57372/
One must carefully distinguish between Windows Defender on:
Win7, in which case, Defender is "merely"/only an anti-spyware program;
Win8.x and Win10, in which case Defender is a full anti-(Virus+Malware) program.
No problem. With Windows 7, Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) (http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/), the predecessor to the new Windows Defender, is what I used on all my systems (before upgrading to W10 and WD) and never had a problem with malware, or hogging system resources.
Windows 7 MSE and Malwarebytes 3 do not play well at all and continue to cause all sorts of problems.
Malwarebytes 3 does not play well with anything for many people at the moment. So I suggest running with the older version of MBAM (V2.2.1.1043) until they get it sorted out.
An opinion from me (not an expert):
The computer I use at school I work, has Windows 7 installed. I had AVAST Free running with MBAM Free, but I uninstalled Avast, because every hour it warned me that my computer is in danger without the pro version. I installed Avira two weeks ago, and everything seems to be OK.
As for Bit Defender, I tried Internet Security 2017 version on my personal computer, after reading many antivirus evaluations, but I uninstalled it after two months; many many false positives, and this was very annoying to me. I don't know about the free version, but I wouldn't recommend it to a friend.