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Best Free Security for laptop

[Deleted User] · 2009-02-07 11:28:04

Hi, My Mcafee secrity cover expires in a few days and was wondering what is the best free security cover out there? Would appreciate any help/suggestions

07-02-2009 11:28AM

#1

[Deleted User]
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Hi,

My Mcafee secrity cover expires in a few days and was wondering what is the best free security cover out there?

Would appreciate any help/suggestions

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#2 07-02-2009 11:31AM

McNuggy

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hey OP...

i reckon AVG free edition is the best.
The IT support in college recommend it for anyone who's laptop isnt compatible with their own Virus protection .

heres the link

http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition

i find its quite good if your using IM a lot and stuff it catches an awful lot of them trojans and malware..

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#3 07-02-2009 11:33AM

shaywest

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simple!go to download.com key in avg free this is all you will ever need trust me

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#4 07-02-2009 02:06PM

PaddyTheNth

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I prefer Avira AntiVir. Find it's a bit lighter on resources than AVG and doesn't tell me that it's 'broken' when I disable the surfing guard or linkscanner or whatever it is.

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#5 07-02-2009 02:13PM

Hogzy

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+1 On AVG!!!

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#6 07-02-2009 02:17PM

DigiJem

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Replaced McAfee with AVG free myself about 6 months. No problems with it, seems a good product.

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#7 07-02-2009 02:19PM

yoyo

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Avira or Avast these days, new AVG isn't good imo,

Nick

My Beer Glass collection site 🍺
My Irish Callcards site

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#8 07-02-2009 02:19PM

zero19

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AVG FTW

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#9 07-02-2009 02:21PM

tricky D

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shaywest wrote: »

simple!go to download.com key in avg free this is all you will ever need trust me

This is bad advice, you need more than just anti-virus. AVG didn't prevent the problem I am recovering from.

OP head over to the Virus and Malware forum and read the 1st and 3rd stickies.

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#10 07-02-2009 02:26PM

thebman

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Avast and AVG both use too many resources.

Avira Antivir is the best free one IMO. Uses almost no resources. Only annoying thing is when it updates, it asks you to buy each time.

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#11 07-02-2009 02:29PM

yoyo

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thebman wrote: »

Only annoying thing is when it updates, it asks you to buy each time.

http://www.elitekiller.com/files/disable_antivir_nag.htm

Simple solution to this problem

Nick

My Beer Glass collection site 🍺
My Irish Callcards site

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#12 08-02-2009 03:29AM

_CreeD_

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tricky D wrote: »

This is bad advice, you need more than just anti-virus. AVG didn't prevent the problem I am recovering from.

OP head over to the Virus and Malware forum and read the 1st and 3rd stickies.

+1. Your AV should be your LAST line of defense, not your main one.

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#13 08-02-2009 03:49AM

thebman

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I'd recommend Malware Bytes as anti-spyware and Spybot too.

You can install both. They work well together but you have to pay for full version of malware Bytes.

It did remove the Vundo virus from our computers in work which Sophos couldn't do and that was costing the company a fortune.

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#14 08-02-2009 04:34AM

pwd

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yeah avg is now too resource intensive. I replaced it with avira, which I prefer

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#15 08-02-2009 05:11AM

Black Swan

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"AVG Free" is without a firewall? If so, you may also want to add "Zone Alarm Free Firewall" if using AVG?

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#16 08-02-2009 05:39PM

[Deleted User]
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Thanks for all the replys.

Ok gonna go with Avira as my anti-virus, it seems to get the thumbs up all round and uses the least resources.

Is this alone enough protection?

If not what else should I download?

Also, should I remove Mcafee before installing Avira?

Thanks again for the help:)

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#17 09-02-2009 09:55AM

PaddyTheNth

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rarnes1 wrote: »

Thanks for all the replys.

Ok gonna go with Avira as my anti-virus, it seems to get the thumbs up all round and uses the least resources.

Is this alone enough protection?

If not what else should I download?

Also, should I remove Mcafee before installing Avira?

Thanks again for the help:)

Yes remove Mcafee...trying to install more than one AV on a machine very often causes problems...they don't co-exist too well.

An anti-spyware program would be good to have also - as someone recommended, MalwareBytes Antimalware is very good, as is Super AntiSpyware.

The windows firewall is useful - I wouldn't recommend installing a third-party software firewall unless you're interested in learning a bit about how they work. Otherwise you'll just get pissed off with all the prompts and may well end up removing some of its security features by accident or on purpose. If you do want to check one of these out, I recommend Comodo firewall.

Your best defense is yourself - don't install programs that aren't from trusted sources, and don't download stuff from an untrusted source at all unless you are confident that you know what you are doing.

Don't click Yes on browser popups on random sites. Keep your programs updated, and keep your operating system updated.

Keep backups of your data on a separate disk/pen drive, and make regular backups.

Look at learning about disk imageing (cloning) as a means of restoring your system to a previous state in case things go tits up with your machine and you can't undo the damage.

I know people who run (regularly updated) versions of Windows using absolutely security software apart from what is built in who have managed never to have a problem...simply by being smart about what they do. I would never recommend that people do this, but it shows what a big factor YOU are in your system's security.

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