Virus Scanner?

[R4L]

I need some advice. Should I switch to a freeware virus scanner rather than pay $200.00 for a 3 year renewal of my McAfee? Im accustomed to McAfee, but I hate how it just ran out, and I don't have $200.00. I've never used AVG or ClamAV Anti-Virus. Either way, I need a virus scanner, because I am always connected to the internet by cable.

[MrColossal]

All I can say is that I have never had a complaint with AVG... Sometimes I go to websites that have tests for your virus scan software that try to get past it and AVG always catches them.

I mostly go to these sites because AVG works so well for me sometimes I fear that it isn't working, so I must find out!

[LGM]

I use AntiVir. It's very nice.

http://www.freeav.com

[Evil]

I've got Norton and Ad-Aware and they work just fine for my setup. I had AVG ontop of everything for a while, but Norton was mostly everything and what it didn't, Ad-Aware picked up. I use Norton because it's at no cost to me, but if AVG is just as good. Norton has a helpdesk and are liable for some things, I'm not exactly sure what.

[scotch]

Yeah the free antiviruses (and firewalls) are just fine, and usually more efficient and more easily removed than the commercial ones.

[R4L]

EDIT: Oh jeez, I seem to have made a stupid error. I opened up the McAfee window, and I still have the anti virus and anti hacker portion of it, but the spam killer has expired. Does this mean that the anti virus and anti hacker features will expire too?

[Mr Flibble]

I thought that it was just the free updates that expired, and the actual scanner would still function.

I too had the problem with AVG working so well it appears not to work at all. 
I also keep Spybot running, because sometimes an antivirus program will let adware etc. past (after all, they aren't viruses) but AVG has always worked very nicely for me.

The only fire wall running is Window's firewall, which seems to work well. Norton's old firewall would semi-frequently boast of how it had just blocked a hacker, but this happened with such frequency that I began to believe the poor old thing must be mistaken.

I used to have Norton, but that thing was like a huge tumour on my system. Every boot-up and every shutdown I would experience a noticable lag with complementary grinding noises. Once Norton was removed, things ran a hell of a lot faster.

[Fabiano]

Well, I always use:

- AVG
- Ad-Adware
- Spybot
- A firewall program (forgot the name)

Never had much problems, but as Mr Flibble said, sometimes AVG dont pick up some virus.

[BOYD1981]

i used a hardware firewall and common sense with AVG there for backup if i need it, but i never have it running all the time and i haven't had a virus in over 2 years.

[R4L]

I just got ad aware se and it removed quite alot of garbage my McAfee wasn't cleaning up. It found over 14 trojans in my computer.

[BOYD1981]

i've found that adaware can sometimes falsely accuse something of being a threat, such as certain cookies.

[R4L]

yeah it told me that i had 179 threats, and they were all cookies.

[R4L]

sorry for the double post

I just switched to AVG, and its great so far. I just have my doubts, so here I go.

What does the Free version not offer that the paid version does? And, will this protect my computer as good as my McAfee did?

[Mr Flibble]

As far as I know, the difference between the free and paid version is just a licensing thing. As long as you're a home user, then I think the free version is fine.

Anyone care to correct me?

[R4L]

Thank you all for the help!