Windows 7 - Free vs. Fee: Free and Paid Antivirus Programs Compared

Free vs. Fee: Free and Paid Antivirus Programs Compared - PCWorld

I think this is a question you can only answer yourself. You'll get a different story from each person you ask. I've known people who say they only have free anti-virus and have never had a problem. Personally, because I do banking online (many people say thats stupid) I like the protection of Norton Internet Security. Even the experts disagree. Good Luck.

An interesting read. I have used NIS for a few years but when time came to renew I opted to go with MSE. I haven't noticed a difference in protection for my needs.

In my case I paid $US50 for a fully blown AV Software and within 1 year my computer suffered infection via a completely undetected Downloading Trojan followed by two separate incidents of Hosts File Infections which the paid AV computer security allowed the second of which crashed the computer. After switching to a top testing free Computer Security Software nearly 2 years ago there have been no Malware detections or Hosts File infections on either of my computers.

I have left any security software brand names out of my statement since we are discussing the effectiveness of Paid vs Free computer security software and also to avoid contentions concerning brand loyalty.

~Maxx~
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I do online banking, ebay (a lot), since the first beta of MSE came out I've use it as my main AV software on all computers at home with no problem at all, just a great AV solution

how to protect your Hosts file
http://www.tech-faq.com/understanding-dns.html

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/s...les/32096.aspx

Thanks for the links! My current freeware computer security program is doing a flawless job of protecting my computer's Hosts file unlike the $50 fiasco of a computer security program I paid for.

~Maxx~
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I wouldn´t take this for granted. That will depend on what computer you are using ( a laptop or a desktop), where do you intend to plug it to the internet, and of course what kind of modem you have (cable, wireless).

We have more than 65.000 virtual doors in a computer and from 1024 up to 65.000, any can be used to send information about your passwords and credit card information among others. AV, Firewalls, Anti-spywares/malwares just capture what they know, using heuristic, comparison and so on. But what happens to what they don´t know?

So be damned careful when sending your information through the net. By the way, sorry for sticking my nose into other people´s talking.

zorg

That's what Sandboxie is for...



I've been running my browser in Sandboxie on my laptop and desktop computers for years without a single infection and without using black list Antivirus software.

~Maxx~

Hi there
Instead of Sandboxie a Virtual Machine IMO is a good way to protect a computer --and if it DOES get infected simply blow it away and re-load a fresh Virtual Machine.

For Online Banking etc I always use a Virtual machine for web access. Only if after decent tests do I think the application or whatever is SAFE do I then copy it to data on the REAL machine.

Virtual machine software is FREE and modern hardware - including even modest Netbooks can always run at least ONE Virtual Machine --remember you are only basically using it of Internet Access so it shouldn't consume significant Host resources either.

Finally a lot of the articles in magazines about AV software performance and detection are so out of date by the time they are inprint as to render them useless.

In any case it's the USER far more than the Machine that is likely to be the cause of any infection.

Cheers
jimbo