anti-virus essential ?

Good catch wanchoo re Windows XP Platform being used.

soulfood are you changing to Win 7?

yes i am changing to windows 7 very soon. but being careful about it, get everything just right, so i don't screw things up

I suggest that you create an image of the C Drive (System Volume) as soon as you have upgraded to Windows 7. After that install the various other programs keeping the doubtful ones towards the end. Before starting to install the first doubtful program take another image. Then install the first doubtful program and run it for a some time and if you think that you want to keep it proceed with the second and so on.

If you find that a program is not to your liking then restore the second image, install the once doubtful programs that have been approved by you and take another image and keep proceeding further in this manner.

This way you shall never screw things up with your computer. Finally MSE is a very good and safe program although personally I use Avast Free A-V, Comodo Firewall and malwarebytes to keep my system protected.

Good luck.

soulfood said:

yes i am changing to windows 7 very soon. but being careful about it, get everything just right, so i don't screw things up

soulfood said:

is kaspersky (which u pay for) better than Microsoft Security Essentials (which is free) ?

Kaspersky is a brilliant and funny guy.

Anti virus programs are not neccessarily better because they are paid versions.
Quite to the contrary, the ethic is often better. For example..this forum is all free advice.

My advice remains same:
Avast, Comodo, Malwarebytes, and Ccleaner.

All free, and when used together, makes a very powerful protection system.

sreedhav said:

Dear soulfood,
Now it is quite obvious to you that an AV is essential. The one very important thing to keep in mind is manual daily updates, if it is a free AV, other than the native MSE.

It is my personal belief that 'real-time monitoring" (available with MSE) helps in what is a "stop at the gate" concept. The free AVs do not have it and the paid ones do!
regards,
sree

yeah they do.

sreedhav said:

Dear soulfood,
Now it is quite obvious to you that an AV is essential. The one very important thing to keep in mind is manual daily updates, if it is a free AV, other than the native MSE.

It is my personal belief that 'real-time monitoring" (available with MSE) helps in what is a "stop at the gate" concept. The free AVs do not have it and the paid ones do!
regards,
sree

avira and avast have real time monitoring and scanning ........ I seen both stop intruders before entering my systems using the free versions.

M1GU31 said:

sreedhav said:

Dear soulfood,
Now it is quite obvious to you that an AV is essential. The one very important thing to keep in mind is manual daily updates, if it is a free AV, other than the native MSE.

It is my personal belief that 'real-time monitoring" (available with MSE) helps in what is a "stop at the gate" concept. The free AVs do not have it and the paid ones do!
regards,
sree

avira and avast have real time monitoring and scanning ........ I seen both stop intruders before entering my systems using the free versions.

Yeah, you're right.
Free versions are just a cut down version of the paid.

Dumbed down, if you wish.

Still work real good but !