Free anti virus and firewalls

strangesarahsmum

Hi I hoping for some help. My Norton anti virus is due to expire, and reading through some of the threads a few anti viruses are recommended but also mentioned that they dont have a firewall. I have windows XP with service pack 3 doesn't that include a firewall? Also I am on virgin medium broadband as an isp and they do a free anti virus but you all seem to say that it isnt very good, why?

i8change

If you look at the AV-Comparatives independent tests, in the link below, you will see that Avira Antivir free antivirus along with some others do very well, but they all differ in efficiency. Some are quite poor and none are 100% effective unfortunately.
http://www.av-comparatives.org/comparativesreviews/main-tests
The built in Firewall you get with XP only blocks incoming and not outgoing threats and is not considered as good as others that do.
However, if you are connected to the internet via a router, rather than just a basic modem, it will have a built in Firewall itself and the XP firewall is usually considered fine if used together with this. Otherwise it is recommended to use a better one with both outgoing and incoming protection.
You would be better off posting this question on the "Techie Stuff" forum as you will get a comprehensive answer from the knowledgable people on there.
Remember to remove Norton fully, with the removal tool on their website, before installing other AV as there can be problems if you don't.
Many recommend supplementing this protection with occassional scans with Malwarebytes and Superantispyware which are effective, free and don't interfere with the other programs. Handy if you do online banking etc. and need extra protection!
Hope it goes OK.

Bongedone

Kaspersky is free for Barclays customers

Livingthedream

Strangesarahsmum, theirs a whole sub forum over on the techie stuff MSE forum regarding Firewall and Antivirus programs and a lot of good people to give you an appropiate answer to your question.

Browntoa

I'll move this thread to techie

slow_saver

strangesarahsmum wrote: »

Hi I hoping for some help. My Norton anti virus is due to expire, and reading through some of the threads a few anti viruses are recommended but also mentioned that they dont have a firewall. I have windows XP with service pack 3 doesn't that include a firewall? Also I am on virgin medium broadband as an isp and they do a free anti virus but you all seem to say that it isnt very good, why?

I use AVG , have done for nearly a year now & I think it's pretty good.
http://www.filehippo.com/download_avg_antivirus/
And I'd keep the windows firewall, just use it in conjunction with the AVG or whatever other anti virus software you use.

strangesarahsmum

thanks for all your help, will look at the techie stuff

coffee_prince

Hi, no problems with my laptop with over a years use with

AVG Free
ZoneAlarm free

The windows one is good enough tbh but the zonealarm tells you about outgoing connections too, not just incoming ones

I also have CCleaner, Deffraggler and spybot and use that once in a while

slow_saver

coffee_prince wrote: »

Hi, no problems with my laptop with over a years use with

AVG Free
ZoneAlarm free

The windows one is good enough tbh but the zonealarm tells you about outgoing connections too, not just incoming ones

I also have CCleaner, Deffraggler and spybot and use that once in a while

I also use CCleaner and I have used Defraggler but Windows has a built in Defraggler so I thought no point in wasting more memory with software. I do use Glary registry repair and it picks up errors that CCleaner misses (and vica versa)
http://download.cnet.com/Glary-Registry-Repair/3000-2086_4-10372101.html?!!!!!mncol
:beer:

DCFC79

I dont use avg and ill never touch it again, i have avast on 1 pc and avira on another and pc tools firewall on both machines