It's not so much research, it's more practical failings where it counts. I don't say Avast does nothing, but the real time scanning is unreliable and Avast doesn't detect enough trojans. (I haven't seen an actual "virus" in a long time, it's more the high level trojans and malware)

I must say though, if you can NEVER seem to get the updates, then the antvirus software is useless to you. If it's just a matter of having to check with a right click, and maybe picking a different time if you just can't get it after letting it try all its mirrors for a while, then I would not stop using the better program because of it.

At the present time, be mindful of the possibility of false positives or inappropriate detections with Antivir. I've seen it detect a few downloaded installers as containing parts of trojans. (I generally do Antivir configured to scan all files, with high heuristics settings for both scanner and guard, and all unwanted program types enabled after I install it for someone)