Best Antivirus
 

I have used Norton 2005 for the last few years and been pleased with it. It is time for renewal now and I am wondering about the free antivirus available.

Does anyone know which one is the best? If so, please let me know. I just hate to pay for something if I can get it for free. I keep hearing that there is no need to pay but I can't find which free one is rated the best.

I used to use AVG but I'm not sure if they offer a free service anymore, but I've also used Avast and that's pretty good, and also free. Here's the link to that one so you can check it out: http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

I personally don't like Norton, but that's just me. I have McAfee running at the moment, and I'm happy with that.

I looked at AVG but it only offers 30 email protection. I downloaded Avast for the time being. I may try McAfee because my ISP offers it for free, I think.

Thanks for the info.:hug:

Becky,

I have been using Norton AntiVirus and Norton System Works for many years and am really happy with them.

You can subscrube for a nominal fee to getting free updates as often as you want.

-Vic

Hi Victor,

I have been using Norton for about 5 years and I am happy with them too. I feel very comfortable with it and know exactly what everything means. I was just wondering about all the free antivirus offers out there.

I may give in and renew it since I am too darn old to try to figure out all this new stuff. Avast has these spinning balls in the tray and settings that I have no idea what the heck they mean. Norton is plain and simple. LOL

Thanks for your input on this.:)

I have been a Symantec (Norton) user for many years. I'm comfortable with it. I recently purchased Norton Internet Security 2008. I'm very satisfied with it. Along with anti-virus, it has a fire-wall and spy-ware protection. Some of the options took a bit of getting used to, but it's fairly intuitive. And it came with a year's worth of updates included.

We have
 

Free Avast and it is great. It has gone off 3 times in the 2+ yrs we've had it.

We've had McAffee (which caught nothing) and Zone Alarm which interfered with just about everything.

We have had one false positive recently with Avast however.
It is still free, but you re-up each year, they ping you to do so.

We use Spybot and Adware once a week as well.

(it does TALK however... so if you leave it on overnight it might spook you--- LOL It has us....LOLOLOL)
When it autoupdates, the voice comes on.

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post29405-3.html
here's a post about AV, AS and other pc protections.
some links may have changed but last time I looked at them most are still active.

more -
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...et+security%5C

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...ftware&spell=1

I just installed a new Norton, as that's what we had been using. Plus, DS and DH can use the same program when their's need updating. I also run Spybot once in a while and that's free if you just download it.

Koala77,
Thanks for the link to avast, I down loaded it last nite and its working great and was a very simple install. I have AVG and they have a new addition8, its 47mb and can be down loaded from FileHippo.com. I have the old dialup and peoplepc disconnects at 3 hours being logged in. SOOO a four hour down load won't cut it, I tried twice. Thanks again this 23mb seems to do the job.
Lanny

I use McAfee through Comcast. No problems here. And it's free because I am a comcast member. Free is good.

since....
 

We installed FireFox 3.0....

our SpyBot and Adaware is not finding ANYTHING!

I am impressed!

FREE is ALWAYS a good thing! LOL

Thanks for all the info you guys and gals.:)

I went with Norton 2008. I just like Norton because it's so easy and I am so used to it. I tried AVG and AVAST and that's the only time I have ever had spys and trojans.

I have tried Ad-Aware, SpyBot, SpyDoctor, SpySweeper and more but I can't remember all the names. I am really please with www.ccleaner.com it is free and a computer nerd told me about it. It cleans the computer so fast and also safely cleans the register.

There is another free AV program called
Threatfire - It runs along with your regular AV but it protects in a different way.
Ive been using it for 4 months now along with Zone Alarm.

[How can ThreatFire protect me when traditional antivirus can't?

ThreatFire continually protects your PC against attacks by detecting malicious behavior, such as capturing your keystrokes or stealing your data, instead of only looking for known threats like normal antivirus software. By implementing sophisticated real-time behavioral analysis ThreatFire is able to stop never- before-seen "zero-day" threats solely by detecting their malicious activity.
Zero-day threats are usually designed to take advantage of new vulnerabilities or exploits that are currently unprotected by traditional security products. They are usually distributed in huge quantities very quickly by mass email (SPAM), website hijacks, instant messaging or over peer-to-peer networks. Because they are undetectable they are able to wreak havoc and compromise your PC even when you have up-to-date antivirus software installed.

ThreatFire's patent-pending ActiveDefense technology offers protection against all types of internet threats - both known and unknown - spyware, adware, keyloggers, viruses, worms, Trojans, rootkits, buffer overflows, and other malware. ThreatFire uses its unparalleled protection to hunt down and paralyze those threats that are either too new or too clever to be recognized by traditional "signature-based" antivirus software.]

more info-
http://www.threatfire.com/

i have been using mcafee since it was avaible and have never had a virus issue

avg you can get for free at savemybutt.com

if you are an aol user u can get mcafee for free virus spy firewall

Becky21,
CCcleaner does its job very well as I found out the first time using it. Some sites I rarely visit it cleaned the ID, password and now all that info is put on a piece of paper.:o

At the advice of the folks who recovered my hard drives, I also have free AVG -- so far so good and I haven't felt the need to upgrade to the paid version.

I also installed CCleaner at their recommendation -- haven't used it for a while so thanks for the reminder!

Re: anti-virus, I do NOT recommend Panda. That was the last one I purchased. I found it difficult to navigate and their tech support was not great.

Here is a website with all kinds of neat free things including antivirus.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/

I look into the settings and and also uncheck some of the things on the lists so it doesn't clean out quite as much - stuff that I'd like to keep or not sure of wanting it removed/deleted.