New laptop with trial of Mcafee coming to an end... What Firewall / Antivirus to use?

Access

Hi All,

Firstly, i have previously used zonealarm and AVG free on my previous old laptop and found it took ages to startup and shutdown... but that was on an old 1gb ram laptop with XP.

Now, with my recent purchase of a new laptop, I dont particularly want to use the memory hungry zonealarm or AVG.

Would i get away with using Microsoft Security Essentials as my anti virus program along with the Windows 7 Firewall? - Are they as good as reviews show?

I dont need anything extreme to be honest as i dont go virus dipping on the internet... (i mainly use for social/banking/email).

Would love some feedback on Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows 7 Firewall from users of it.

Thanks.

JoeyHansberry

You can use Avast! It's a free anti-virus which updates itself automatically or use either Bullguard or Kaspersky, which are about €40-€60 for 365 days of protection.

JoeyHansberry

JoeyHansberry wrote: »

You can use Avast! It's a free anti-virus which updates itself automatically or use either Bullguard or Kaspersky, which are about €40-€60 for 365 days of protection.

Avast is class, AVG is a good alternative although it screwed up my laptop due to a sys file, Avast would be my personal favourite of the free options.

JoeyHansberry

You could use a trial version of Kaspersky Internet Security but you'd have to uninstall and re-install it every month.

dunworth1

avast is the best of the free options

for my personal security i use eset smart security

Access

JoeyHansberry wrote: »

You could use a trial version of Kaspersky Internet Security but you'd have to uninstall and re-install it every month.

Thanks for the tip... but in fairness i dont see that happening!

Avast seems to be well recommended, does it put much on startup/shut down times? and any Microsoft security users on here?

TiGeR KiNgS

I use MSE and Comodo Firewall, with MBAM as an on demand scanner. I also use sandboxie which I highly recommend.

I haven't got a virus for years.

Ironbar

I can also recommend Threatfire. It makes your computer a bit slower but it doesnt let any **** get on your system.

Unless you play games that use punkbuster. Then its a nono because you will get kicked from servers.