best protection

[judd]

whats the best protection(virus) to get and the easiest to download

[raybo]

whats the best protection(virus) to get and the easiest to download

AVG is pretty good.

[kitts]

I have been using AVG for a few months and it is great. A definite improvement over the resource hog pricey Norton, IMHO

[michiken]

AVG has become bloated and is a resource hog now. Try Avast - it is free to try for 60 days and then you have to register (similar to AVG).

Avast Download (http://www.download.com/avast-Home-Edition/3000-2239_4-10019223.html?tag=mncol)

[Dave Schwartz]

I have removed Avast from my systems. Apparently you have to get an unlock code every 120 days, even for the free one.

It is a pain.

I went back to AVG.

[michiken]

Their website states that you will get a 1 year subscription when you register the 1st time.

Avast Home (http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html)

[Derbyman32]

Just installed Avast and the sight does say registration is good for one year.

[headhawg]

The absolute best FREE antivirus software is Avira AntiVir. Download it here (http://www.free-av.com/en/download/1/avira_antivir_personal__free_antivirus.html). It is better than most commercial programs. Use it in combination with Threatfire and you will be good to go.

If you need a complete security suite than get...gulp!...Norton Internet Security 2009. As much as it used to be a resource hog, but the code has been rewritten and now it has a relatively small memory footprint.

Or my personal choice for a SecSuite -- ESET Smart Security. Not as full-featured as Norton, but fast.

[Dave Schwartz]

Their website states that you will get a 1 year subscription when you register the 1st time.

I guarantee that it has been less than 6 months since I began using it and it demanded a new registration. I went through the process on one machine and it kept saying, "Sorry, try again later."

After about 2 hours of trying spread over three days I gave up. Then it expired. I uninstalled and went back to AVG.

[robert99]

There is no "best" AV program as regards detection. Some miss this and others miss that - all pot luck for the user. Some of the free ones are now performing better than paid ones on recent known attacks. As malware writers are now mostly highly professional criminals they are way ahead of the good guys and write malware that gets past all AV software and morphs itself into undetectable different forms as it does it.

DriveSentry and Clamwin are another two of the good free ones that outdo Norton etc

[judd]

going to try avg-thanx

[headhawg]

There is no "best" AV program as regards detection. Some miss this and others miss that - all pot luck for the user.No, there is no perfect AV program; there are some that clearly outperform others. As I don't believe in anecdotal tales of performance, I trust the lab results.

Check out some independent testing:

AV-Comparitives (http://www.av-comparatives.org/)
Virus Bulletin (http://www.virusbtn.com/news/2008/09_02)

The above are obviously testing the professional versions but interesting nonetheless.

Also check out this month's MaximumPC article (although they might be biased toward their advertisers) here (http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/protect_your_pc_from_guys_like_this).

[fast4522]

The fact is the very same people who write the worms are the people selling you protection software, windows kept up to date without virus software, and instead of the making a image of ones hard drive will nip all of that BS in the bud. If everyone did this such company's would go broke and programmers would have to create other ways of keeping themselves in business.