Free antivirus recommendations

rmg1

Hi all
I'm looking to dump Norton 360 (for various reasons, most of which have been posted on here) and I'm looking for recommendations (free ones, obviously).
I torn between AVG, Avira and Avast.
I'm also looking a the PCTool free firewall.

Anyone any recommendations/pros/cons/suggestions?

Cheers

Marty_J

This topic pops up a few times a week. The three you've mentioned are the three people generally recommend; I'd recommend you give each a try and see which one you prefer.

I don't use Windows myself, but I seem to recall reading that AVG performs the worst out of those three. I installed Avira on my sister's computer for her, and it picked up loads of stuff AVG had missed. AVG also seemed to make the system more unstable. If I had to choose, I would be inclined to try Avira or Avast before AVG. Avira does have an annoying popup though, nagging you to buy the full product. I think there's a way to disable it.

gaming_guy

i personally use antivir and the comodo firewall on both my XP and Vista computers

rmg1

Might be a dim question, but I've just tried to download Avira from their website and it's taken me to a German page.
Is that right or does anyone have a better link?

BTW, any pros/cons on the PCTools free firewall?

rmg1

Thanks loaner - that got it.

Now for a firewall.......

rmg1

OK - just installed Avira and the PCTools free firewall and it all seems to have gone without a hitch.

Now, don't know if this is connected but when I rebooted, I got an error message on the POST screen which said something along the lines of
"Display adapter switch incorrectly set"
"Loading CMOS defaults"

Anyone any ideas what is causing this? A bit odd that it's only just started happening.

rmg1

Dunno

Just been into BIOS - didn't change anything just exited.
Rebooted after getting to desktop as normal and the message didn't appear.

How odd........

rmg1

Didn't think it was
Just a bit of an odd coincidence.