Anti-virus programs

superscaper

Before splashing out any money I'd say give something like the Eset Smart Security or Kaspersky a go on the free trial. That way you can personally make the decision whether it's worth it or not without any of us persuading you one way or the other. It's what convinced me as until I did I hadn't realised how much of my PC's resources were taken up by previous security and how intrusive they were. One of the biggest advantages for me is the firewall that has the smallest footprint and is the least pestering of any firewall I've every tried. But there's nothing to stop you giving it a go and comparing for yourself. I'd still say to stay clear of McAfee and Norton. Norton is a pain to uninstall and McAfee's not much better.

-TangleFoot-

deejayen wrote: »

if downloaded from the net is $49 BUT if bought in UK is £49 ie half price

Shouldn't that be the other way around? According to the UCC $49 is roughly equal to £25.

deejayen

Yes your right my friend I paid £25 for it -- dave

moonrakerz

I used AVG for some years until "something" got into my machine. Have used BitDefender for the past 3 years, it has had good write ups and is a reasonable price.
Download it from the US site, it's cheaper !

wendy05

the following free are as good as any paid for, in all honesty you dont need to pay for av tools as long as you have common sense and good practice ie regular scans at least once a week.

avast - bitdefender10 - avira antivirus - as well as avg

use spybot - or similar anti mal ware free program as well

webroots anti spyware tool is good if you can get the trial version.

superscaper

wendy05 wrote: »

the following free are as good as any paid for, in all honesty you dont need to pay for av tools as long as you have common sense and good practice ie regular scans at least once a week.

avast - bitdefender10 - avira antivirus - as well as avg

Used them all, none are as good as Eset by a large margin in my experience. In fact just yesterday (or was it day before) I did some conservative estimates and the decrease in intrusivenes and PC performance increase actually made it quite a bit more economical to pay for Eset than use the free alternatives. In other words for impacting on productivity the free alternatives are actually more expensive (for me).