Any Good Free Anti-Virus Programs?

huskerguy

huskerguy

New member
My trial ran out for Norton and I don't feel like paying for it when i know there is other good stuff out there for free.

Any programs you guys would recommend that are similar to Norton, but Free?

 
Another vote for Avast...I love it. I REFUSE to put Norton or McAfee on my computers at home or any of the computers we have at work. Both bog down your computer and hound you with updates/upgrades/renewals.

Another suggestions besides Ad-aware for SPAM protection is Hijack This:

http://hijackthis.de

download the program, run it, and then go back to the hijackthis.de site and paste the findings into the text box. It will tell you what is running on your computer, if certain programs are hijacking your browser, what might be viruses, etc. It catches a lot of things Ad-award didn't for me.

 
Yeah

definitely do NOT delete any of the processes hijackthis tells you about without consulting experts first

it probably shouldn't be used by people without a moderate knowledge of computers

 
Landlord of Memorial Stadium said:
Yeah

definitely do NOT delete any of the processes hijackthis tells you about without consulting experts first

it probably shouldn't be used by people without a moderate knowledge of computers
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true, thanks for adding the warning label. Some processes hijackthis might say are bad are actually needed for certain programs or Windows to run the way you like it to. However, I've never had any issues with it fixing things for me. It actually saved my a$$ once when I got some bad trojans that were taking over my browser. AdAware and a few other programs didn't see them but Hijackthis took care of it.

 
To tell you the truth, I've never used an anti-virus program. I use Windows firewall which amounts to very little, AdAware once in a while, FireFox, and I am careful and aware of potential threats. I can't stress the importance of using FF. IE has gotten better with the latest release, but it still lacks the stability when it comes to vulnerabilities (mallware, adaware, spyware, etc).

I also keep my hard drive image on a server and on an external hard drive, which means if I do get something sticky icky, I can just reformat and reinstall. I've done it enough times that I can actually go through the whole process in about 2 hours.

 
eliot1171 said:
Landlord of Memorial Stadium said:
Well we all love to brag, but the guy specifically asked about anti-virus software...
Click to expand...
I understood the question, I'm simply recommending not using and av program.
Click to expand...

if you are careful with the sites you visit, then yes, there is no problem not using an anti-virus program. I don't use one at work and have been fine for the past three years. Of course, the only reason I don't have one is because they usually cause issues with the programs I'm running.

But even with FireFox you CAN receive trojan/virus problems.

 
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