Advice on whether to install antivirus (which one)

kittykat500

Can anyone recommend free antivirus software (preferably) to run alongside ZoneAlarm (free version) and Ad Aware Personal Edition?

I recently downloaded Avast after reading a few posts on here but I had to uninstall it because it slowed the laptop down to a crawl!

I've never had antivirus software on the laptop but I recently downloaded Eban to wipe the hard disk after a fatal error on start up. I then upgraded to Windows XP. I tend to back up stuff to various memory sticks/other computers so is it really that necessary to have antivirus anyway?

TIA

welshman10

AVG from Grisoft

wearside_2

I find AVG works well and is well recommended by Computeractive magazine.

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/personal-computer-world/software/2043735/avg-antivirus-free-edition

albertross_2

How much memory does the PC have? If you have 256 a memory upgrade might speed things up.

I wouldn't put any PC on the net without a virus scanner and resident antispyware (defender, ewido etc.), especially if you use online banking/shopping. Also, make sure you have automatic updates turned on in control panel, security center.

Tallymanjohn

Antivir recently got the best ratings for AV software & the free version uses the same definitions as the paid-for one. Also you may want to check out what your ISP might offer - NTL have a complete free package for their subscribers & it seems to do a good job.

o_t_e

I have AVG working with zonealarm with no problems and no discernable impact on performance, just works quietly in the background

kittykat500

Is Ewido similar antispyware to Adaware? Or should I download it as well?

superscaper

kittykat500 wrote:

Is Ewido similar antispyware to Adaware? Or should I download it as well?

Similar but looks for quite different things. You'll find that there isn't a catchall application although there is overlap. The more antispyware apps you have and run (not realtime though) the better I think.

Blacksheep1979

nod32 - but its not free, would also suggest getting spybot search and destroy for spyware as well (is free)