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unpopular that this view may be - norton is not that good.

It tends to take over your machine, it is quite buggy as a firewall and it leaves nasty little hooks all over the place so it is a pain to remove

It also costs - and that is not necessary - if you need a good antivirus for the average home user, head over to http://free.grisoft.com/doc/avg-anti-vi ... /us/tpl/v5 and get AVG free - it works, has a small footprint (ie does not take over your system resources) - I run it on 2 of my systems with no problems

For a firewall - use the one built into winxp sp2 - it works and is simple to run. Having said that, if you do have a router, investigate the built in firewall there - there will be one, so use it :)

Free firewalls basically boil down to zonealarm - and i think it is no better than the one built into windows.

If you do decide to buy a software suite, then I would suggest the AVG one, then Panda, then Mcafee - i would not recommend norton in all honesty

Last two programs that you should have, and both are free are Spybot and AdAware - both are free for home use. I run them on my system every week - but do remember to update them first....
(The windows defender is a little naughty - Micro$oft own some nasty companies like gator and they allow it to pass... I rest my case!)

I've been using Adaware SE and Spybot for about 5 years now and they are both very good, I'd also recommend Super AntiSpyware free addition, as it seems to find some tracking cookies the other's miss.

I concur.

To summarise ....
Norton is shite.
Panda was first-rate but has slipped of late.
AVG is as good as anything you can buy.
Built in firewalls are adequate.
AdAware works.

Keep em updated and run regularly.

Just a word of warning with Spybot - it conflicts with Trend Antivirus 2007 and slows the PC down hugely. Took a while to understand this and remove spybot ... which fixed things nicely. Now moved on to Trend 2008 but not dared to reinstall spybot to see whether still a problem.

Adaware is good.

Avast (as pirate like as it might sound) is another choice

The windows firewall is ok but it only monitors traffic comming in and not going out... definately worth exploring the hardware firewal on your router if you have one.

DKJ

Hi TN, can't fully help (not at home, so can't do much from work), I've got full AVG on one machine, but free on the other - the free one does update automatically without issue, and doesn't require a reboot, sounds like something else is going on as well.

TwinNut
Make sure you are using the latest version 8.5.
It's a good idea to run malwarebytes (it's free, google it) first to make sure the PC is clean of any crap.
If the problem continues, uninstall and reinstall avg.

You usually have to restart the PC once after the first update.

Dave

I did have to uninstall and reinstall at one stage to get the updates to work automatically.
No probs now and still recommend it.

i think that if i were to upgrade / change to avg i would recommend a full uninstall the reboot prior to install

i still rate avg but am currently testing another newish free av program

(If you play online games, and have an nvidia card there can be an issue with avg and the game - specifically the video card.... i will keep people posted)

TwinNut wrote:Cheers Fellas, will give it all a go tonight.........FS, I've pm'd Paddy about hooking up locally for some sensible rideouts if you fancy it. PM me if it's up your street

Edit: Wavey just noticed you live in Liverpool, the offer extends you also fella if you fancy it.

Sounds good mate, I'll PM you some details. Although I'm not so sure about the "sensible" part

Gotta be sensible, got responsibilities

TwinNut wrote:Cheers Fellas, will give it all a go tonight.........FS, I've pm'd Paddy about hooking up locally for some sensible rideouts if you fancy it. PM me if it's up your street

Edit: Wavey just noticed you live in Liverpool, the offer extends you also fella if you fancy it.

Sounds good to me, though I can't do any of the next 3 weekends as me and me Falco are busy
Deffo up for it asap

Dave

AVG is still very popular McAfee and Norton still popular and still pants so I would suggest still avoiding those however if you can get copies of the business versions ... not the ones that say business versions on a nice shiny box in PCWorld they are nnot as bad still not good unless you enjoy having your machine run a lot slower

AVG do a full suite which is ok but not free depends if you just want a one box solution. What you should rememeber is that none of these products will catch everything and a multi pronged approach is still the best IMHO

What I would suggest is choose a selection which is current and popular and create a folder on your pc where you download the install files to every once in a while. and then keep a selection of install files there.

Superantispyware
Malwarebytes
Combofix
are all good to have to support your main antivirus / anti spyware first choice. Then if you do get an infection it saves you fighting to get the files onto the infected machine.