What virus protection software do you recommend?
Saturday, November 20th, 2010
When I was in college they provided virus software to us, and since I have graduated in May I haven’t bought any. Guess it is about time! I know Norton and McAfee are about the same in terms of what they offer, but what stuff is absolutely essential in terms of protection? Do you need the most expensive thing, or will the basic system do?
Thanks.
Nah, you don’t need the most expensive… you really don’t need to pay anything for good protection.
I’ve used Avast free antivirus for years, coupled with the Comodo free firewall, and *nothing* gets past them.
Microsoft Security Essentials with the Windows firewall [Vista or Win 7 only (*)]
would be *adequate*, but IMO the free Avast is the best all-around free antivirus.
(*) The Windows XP firewall monitors *incoming* traffic only.
A firewall *must* be bi-directional to be effective.
So if you are using Windows XP, I strongly suggest a third-party firewall instead of the Win XP firewall.
> Avast Freev5: http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download
> Comodo Free Firewall: http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/free-download.html
> Comodo Firewall Tutorial: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-install-comodo-firewall.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gizmosbest+%28Gizmo%27s+Best-ever+Freeware%29&utm_content=FeedBurner
NOTE: Although the newest version of AVG free (AVG 2011) is significantly better than previous versions, it still isn’t as good as Avast.