Have you ever tried to remove a program from your computer, and found that bits of it were left behind? If so, you will realise that not all uninstallers remove their programs completely, and that the leftovers can cause problems like error messages and wasted disk space. In the case of antivirus programs, which are deeply integrated into the Windows operating system, an incomplete uninstallation can be particularly problematic. It might be impossible to install a new AV program if its installer finds traces of the previous product. So, if you need to remove one AV product in order to install a different one, the issue of AV uninstallation becomes important.
In a test commissioned by the German PC Magazin (Ausgabe 06/2022), AV-Comparatives recently carried out an uninstallation test of 16 popular consumer antivirus programs (PDF version available here).
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