Need Help Choosing a Virus-Removal Program

M

mustardgas

New Member
Hi everyone.

My desktop has been without any virus protection for the past few months, and during that time I've visited my share of porn sites. So, I'm pretty confident that my desktop is packed with bacteria. Moreover, I'll be buying a laptop pretty soon, and I'd like to take the files that are on my desktop and either transfer them directly to the new laptop, or back them up to an ext. HD. Needless to say, I don't want to spread any viruses.
Here's my question: are there any free, downloadable virus removal/protection programs that are comparable in ability to McAfee or other such costly programs? What are some of the most reputable and effective?

Thanks.

-mustardgas
 
The short answear is no the free ones are not as good as the pay programs as far as catching virus goes. If your a careful person the free one will be fine and save you a little bit of bloat compared to McAfee. ESET NOD32 and Norton AV 2009 are both good light weight programs.
 
I don't agree Lawson there are tons of free ones. I totally recommended AVG its great i have had it for about 5 months no viruses so far.
 
Your certainly free to disagree and debate is good. For the average non tekkie user a free AV typically isn't good enough to protect the guys who just has to "click here to see the Olsen's twins naked" or the women who has to have smileys and coupons. In my person ecperience I find that most (90%) of computers I fix that have virus and spyware problems have a free AV installed. It is true that no AV is perfect and a careless user can get a computer infected no matter how well it's protected.
 
Avira AntiVir (Free) works best IMO. I've had other ones I've paid for but this one always catches the most viruses.
 
I personally use the $ version in my main rig. In this case it is NOD32 version 2.7 and I am waiting for the 4.0 version to get out of Beta. (they do have their 3.0 out now for some time).

Another excellent $ choice is Kaspersky and has the best detection rate in the business.

Avast and Antivir have both free and $. I run the free Avast on two laptops and our second Family PC. It has done very well especially when it is combined with SUPERantispyware.

As lawson_jl so rightly points out no antivirus is perfect and one's internet habits are the very first best defense because no matter how secure you made your system going to suspect websites your security will be over-ridden by stupid human action.
 
If you want the best of the best then you may have to pay big bucks for a program. Let me tell you though paying for the program is going to be way cheaper than replacing your system
 
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