Free vs. paid security software

Liz - McAfee Site Advisor's green, yellow or red color is only an indicator to let you know whether or not submitting your contact information on that site will lead to spam e-mail in your inbox. It has no relationship to your virus or spyware vulnerability.

I use AVG free, spy-bot free, Ad-Aware SE and spyware blaster. The guy who repaired my computer said this is all I need. They all work great. I have always paid for Virus Protection and it never caught anything like all these do. I will continue to use the free items. He also said when my subscription runs out for McAfee, to just get rid of it. One point, when you do remove something from your add-remove program, always do a search with the item name and see if there are left over folders. I always find some and then delete them. That way I am sure everything is gone. Hope this helps.

FOR THE TIME BEING, FREE SECURITY SOFTWARES ARE PERFORMANT AND RELIABLE ONLY PROBLEM IS THAT MAY CHANGE WITH TIME. PAID SOFTWARES ARE ALWAYS MORE TRUSTABLE. NEVERTHELESS, MY EXPERIENCE IS THAT AVAST BEATS FAR AHEAD BOTH NORTON ANTIVIRUS AND AVG FREE. IT DEPENDS HOW MUCH SPACE YOU WANT TO ALLOW TO YOUR SOFTWARE AND THE FEATURES NEEDED. I HAVE COMODO FIREWALL AND THREW AWAY ZALARM BECAUSE OF ITS MAMMOTH CPU USAGE FOR EXAMPLE. IS IT AS GOOD? IT FITS MY TASTES. SPYWARE DOCTOR IS NOW FOR FREE ON GOOGLE PACK, BUT IT IS HEAVY ON CPU. SPYWAREBLASTER? GOT IT SINCE 4 YEARS BUT SUSPECT AS NOT AS EFFICIENT AS ADAWARE AND SPYBOT. SO HURRAY FOR THE FREE!!!

These three free programs have kept me virus free for 5 yrs. I also service many computers as a side business, and I recommend thest to all my customers. So far no complaints. T.

After trying some of the paid ones I decided to use AVG anti virus and it has kept many bugs and viruses out of my computers. AVG developers did a great job!!

I do not understand how to clear up my files with Spyware Bot Search & Destroy. It appears to me to use it u need to buy. Am I missing something here? I use AVG Free.

My server seems to have a good pop up blocker and it doesn't pop up and ask you if you noticed what a good job it is doing, as some do. I do not get unwanted ads from anywhere usually except PC Mag when I am in their site. Filmfogger

Spybot Search and Destroy is the one you want, NOT SpywareBot! Use download.com, and don't fall prey to similar sounding anti-malware programs your might find on a search engine, which are often full of adware themselves! Good luck getting rid of Spyware Bot. It isn't easy and not intuitive to get rid of this program.

When I go in to find and click on spybot, it comes up as spywarebot but you are saying they aren't the same. So where do I go to find Spybot without it coming up as SpywareBot?

You can go to www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html to get the real spybot. What's scary is, the first link (and it's a sponsored link) on Google is for spywarebot. The second is also for spywarebot, just reworded. Same results on ask.com and msn. The non-sponsored links were better.

Do a search on any engine and Spyware Bot comes back as spyware and or a virus. I had it. My son or one of his friends infested one of my PC's with it. I spent about an hour finding a free program that has to be run in DOS mode to remove it. The Pop ups were never ending to buy/extort 29.95 for a fraudulent spyware program. Good luck getting rid of it. Spybot is a great program i use all the time.

You can get an unlock disk, CD or floppy, from eBay. These disks allow you to read passwords in clear text. Hope it helps.

Boot in SAFE MODE and see if you can log on as the administrator. If the administrator does not have password you will be able to log on as the administrator and delete the password for that user profile. Once on as the administrator just click on Start -> Control Panel -> User Accounts -> "name of user account" -> change or delete password. At that point it will be self explanatory. Then restart your computer and log onto the user account.

Since this is your dad's computer from work...he should have the password for log on. Your dad should be able to log on and remove the password. If it wasn't his computer but an associates at work have your dad take the laptop back to work and the associate can remove the password.

To everyone who responded with ways to "crack' the password, you may be helping someone socially engineer a way to break into another person's computer. Some times in our efforts to be helpful we forget that there may be an ethical issue we are missing...be careful about help you offer to others.

The GNU\Linux community says that to install any flavour\distro on a computer and use it, you have to be one of two things: Inexperienced Windows user, meaning you can use the programs, but not good at altering settings. You usually get help for that. Or, you must be a Windows technician. If you fall into the middle group, like me, where you are helping friends out with minor problems, it may not be a good idea to use GNU\Linux.

As with any other program, there are benefits and advantages to using GNU\Linux. You may have to spend a little time getting all your hardware to work, but a forum like LinuxQuestions or UbuntuForums are extremely helpful. Unless you delve deep into the configuration files, you will most likely get an answer within the day. It's also a question of what you want to do with your computer. Some distros are better at some things than others. Personally, I like Ubuntu, but OpenSUSE are a viable option for the not-so-tech-savvy.
The benefits are many. Where Windows (mostly) "just works" when you power on your computer, GNU\Linux needs some learning. However, GNU\Linux are generally more stable (crashes less frequently) than Windows. It's usually less "hungry" for RAM and processing power too. I ran Ubuntu GNU\Linux on a seven year old laptop, which had ONE great benefit over others that were just as old or newer: It had plenty of RAM for its generation. I used this with USB-Wireless, and never used my other computer for anything but storage and time-consuming tasks like converting video files.

Another "advantage" (some may say it's a nuisance) is that you will learn to know your computer better.

If you feel comfortable with Windows, but would like a more stable Operating System, you might want to check out Linspire and Freespire. They are made to look as much like Windows as possible, at the cost of some philosophies of the Free Software Foundation (headed by Richard Stallman).

Unless you simply wish to unlock this Windows version, which may require some cleaning up, I must tell you to seek advice elsewhere. If you want to start from scratch, setting up the computer the way you want to, get a Windows CD somewhere, or borrow a friend's computer and get a GNU\Linux distro. DistroWatch is a good place to start.

Hopefully I have been helpful. If you wish to consult more, contact me at ottifantsir (at) operamail.com

Hi beechkomr! I use exactly the same software and find it works really well. Additionally there is Housecall which I am trying for the first time in a couple of years because it now runs in Firefox. My sons swear by it as an effective way of keeping their machines clean, without anything else installed. I prefer a belt and braces approach.

I am really skeptical at some of the replies here that don't run any anti virus s/w. I have had situations when running a clean install of Windows (any version) and once connected to the net, I and others have been attacked.

I do agree that the free firewalls are excellent, especially Zone Alarm . The spyware programs are good but you definitely need at least 4.

In my experience, the free anti-virus programs are all garbage. I do a lot of P2P and I get at least 80% of junk mail or spam in my mailbox everyday. The free anti-virus programs have always failed me in detecting malware in real-time .

If you go online to browse common and popular sites and use a web based email account then you will do just fine with a free AV program. If you have people that send you lots of email or have a lot of spam in your email inbox you need a paid anti-virus program, such as Kaspersky, F- Secure or Norton. There are various sites on the net that do reviews of anti-virus programs and rate them including the the number of viruses caught and all the paid ones do substantially better than the freebies. It's really a no brainer which is better in detecting malware.

Bottom line, despite what others say, there is nothing free in life and everything has a price attached to it, at least when it comes to anti-virus software.

I have to add one more comment to my post; while some people don't like it, IE7 is FAR more secure than IE6, or in SOME ways (but not all ways) than FireFox 2 (which is what I use). In particular, it has by far the best "anti-phising" measures of any current web browser, and that's important because none of any of the other tools do ANYTHING about a "phishing" attack, and falling victim to one of these is one of the most serious things that can happen. A Phishing attack doesn't infect your computer, it makes you (personally) a victim of identity theft, which is actually far more serious.

If you think you don't like IE7, click on the "Tools" menu (right side near the top) and put a check on the "menu bar" item. It makes IE7 a lot more friendly.

Are you really serious--or uninformed? Windows Firewall does absolutely nothing to stop malicious programs from sending your personal info OUT of your PC. It may protect dangerous stuff from getting in--but not from getting out. You need the free ZoneAlarm or any other GOOD firewall to handle this. Personally, I use COMODO Personal Firewall. It's free and protects my PC from any info getting OUT--without my permission.

I do understand that the Windows firewall does not do anything regarding outgoing messages. But I stick by my point; I have found, and many others have found, that more sophisticated firewalls cause as many problems for most users as they solve. I personally continue to feel that the Windows firewall and operating behind a hardware router are enough for most people. Of course, it's a personal choice, and if someone wants more, that is there perrogative.

The fact is that the windows firewall does not stop malicious programs sending out information as has been stated. If you are operating behind a hardware firewall this information will still get transmitted. If you don't mind your details being sent out or your machine being used as a DoS slave etc then thats fine and your choice, but please don't advise people to do the same. The windows firewall is as effective a firewall as a piece of paper is to fire