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I dumped Wins for Linux and have no problems now.    

I tried ubuntu on a laptop that got decimated earlier this year and it was a great distro. I would have loved to install something like yellowdog or debian, but after that machine I got a gaming laptop for awhile. That one was an asus and it was nice but the battery life just sucked and the hdd ended up dying. So I ended up getting this macbook pro for about the same price. I've been thinking about doing a linux/osx install, but its works well for what it does.

And yes, Charles my friend, Macs have fewer viruses usually (though I have a friend with a Mac who has all kinds of problems and my PC has been much stronger). But the reason Macs have fewer viruses is because they don't even own 10 percent of the market share. PC/Windows has 90% + of market share so obviously more hackers are going after their Windows software. PCs have to deal with far more attacking viruses than Macs. Macs can get viruses, it's just that the vast, vast majority of viruses are not programmed to Macs.

I understand that due to the larger number of pc's that they are the easiest target. But there is also the indisputable fact that windows machines are less secure and are much easier to exploit than macintosh or linux. This is the main reason that  virus programmers and hackers primarily use linux or macs to launch their attacks, since they know the weaknesses of windows machines. Of course you can spend money to install various programs to try and protect your pc, but I would rather my machine just work and stay working.

Although I hear the windows 7 is going to change all that, but I will believe when I see it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX8yrOAjfKM[/youtube]

Im using Avira, Im just contented with its feature and everything doing fine with my Pc for now..

My wife from time to tome uploads something onto the computer, re viruses; I don't always keep up with it. Something to keep away the moskitoes, so to speak.

Im using Avira, Im just contented with its feature and everything doing fine with my Pc for now..

What Anti-Virus Program Do You Use?

I use Symantec



Seems to work like a charm

I've been using Norton 360 for years...it has helped me many times.  I like that you can register it on up to three different computers.

Bond

I won't use Norton or McAfee.  They are too bloated.

   Excuse my inorance.  Please explain bloated as pertaining to a virus protector.  Thanks.

Take up too much of the system's resources, such as processor and memory.

Avira (even the free version) is a good solution for computers with not enough memory, specially notebooks.

Eset Smart security for the rest.

Having tested all the rest and never condidering cost, I strongly suggest these two, based on

proactive defense, stealth tech, and lowest possible usage of resources. Good for gamers too !

Note: for multimedia work it is wise not to be connected on the Internet and to disable the antivirus software.

Kaspersky (once was very good), Avast,  Bitdefender, Norton and Zonelabs are also good but very heavy, drain resources too much. They are all similar and I think my criterion would be the user interface.

AVG, many "false positives" and hardly retrievable anything "killed" by AVG ! Leading to frequent re-installations
of Windows !

hope this helps...

I work online, and use alot of the computer resources so they recommended AVG or Avast.

I noticed a huge difference, since the computer came with Norton.  My new computer I removed Norton's soon as the computer came home.  I agree its a resource HOG!

lol my father isn't a computer dude, but he called me thinking he could get twice the protection.  He had Norton on the shelf, and his computer came with McGee.  He installed both!  Let me tell ya - that was a JOY getting his computer back!

DON'T ever place two anti virus programs on ONE computer! 

Has anyone tried asquared?  I had placed that on my daughter's laptop when we first got it.  I was checking it out per a recommendation.  She of course downloaded some truly nasty virus from an email (which she won't do anymore lol), and the asquared did great with it!

AVG works best for me and the version I use in 100% free! I've also tried Kaspersky, McAfee and Norton. First one works perfect but if quite expensive. Latter two are viruses themselves!

One of the most important things you can do to keep your computer virus free is to download and use Mozilla Firefox as your browser instead of Internet Explorer. Browsing is so much faster. It warns you before anything can touch your computer, and you can abort that connection. I don't use my Outlook Express any more either. Too risky. I use Internet based email only.

  One more vote for Mozilla Firefox!!! 

About internet based email; I won't use hot/livemail anymore since it seems to be a real spam source. I'd prefer Gmail above anything else, although yahoo works fine too!

AVG(free) and Kaspersky(paid) are both good.

Antivirus?  I use Linux.  Don't need no steenkin' antivirus.

Lol!

-Still though, You can have the strongest walls built, but their useless if you forget to lock the door...

Linux has a sort of anti-virus built in right? There are technologies out there for it. It's just by far the most stable.

Anti-Virus?

None.

I'm running Linux.  Linux is basically immune to viruses.  There was a Linux virus that made the rounds back in 1998...I think that's when it was.

Linux is free and much faster than Windows.

I had Norton as a part of my Comcast package, Avira as a backup, and my computer expert dumped both of them from my computer today in favor of "Microsoft Security Essientials" as being far superior to the others in security, free also, and faster.

When he was in college my son was on the computer help desk at Univ of Baltimore. They looked at a LOT of AV programs and what he told me was the one that performed the best for them was Avast - the free version. It actually caught more bugs than the paid version and as it was a smaller package, taxed the recources less which gave better speed to the rest of the programs running.  So we have been using that exclusively for the last 4 years.  (even tho I could get a major one for free from Comcast)

My Norton Internet Security is about to expire and I am not going to renew it.  I want to go with Microsoft Security Essentials.  Should I uninstall Norton before or after I download MSE?   Or, does it matter?   

If you install the new one immediately then you should be OK, you should not leave your computer unprotected for very long.

I always install Microsoft Security Essentials before uninstalling the expired AntiVirus.

It's really sad that there are this many pages of people talking about anti-virus software on here when it's SO easy not to get them in the first place.

Simply use an operating system that doesn't grant system priveladges to it's user accounts.  It's been almost 15 years since Win98 came out and Microsoft STILL hasn't fixed this problem.  Simply don't allow the user (that's you) to have write access to system files and viruses are a non issue.  Mac figured that out early and it's taken years for the first real mac malware to show up.  I once got a virus on my linux machine, it asked me for a password and told me exactly what it wanted to do before it ran.  (so I deleted it)  It's a simple fix, but Microsoft makes too much money on security tools to fix the problem.  They'd just rather take your money for "protection," than make a secure system.

I've used many over the years, both McAfee & Norton slowed my system down, so I started using Avast, which did a very good job for several years now. I didn't like AVG until they introduced the 2012 version...the Security Suite version is pretty good. Have used MS Security Essentials but not long enough to make an opinion about it. Currently I am using ESET Smart Security...it is light on the system and doesn't slow you down...but I had to buy it online for about $30.
If I had to use one of the free versions I would go back to Avast. And like others here, I have used Linux (Mint, Vector, Ubuntu, Puppy) and they all were without problems.

Why would you pay $30 for ESET Smart Security when Avast is free?
Did something make you think it is better?