Best Anti-Virus Prog?

[larry]

Using a new Windows PC along with my trusted old Linux relic and was wondering if anyone could recommend one of the many competing anti-virus programs out there.

Thanks.

[Spacecadet]

Microsoft Security Essentials and some common sense.

[SimonMac]

Avast

avast! Free Antivirus | Download Antivirus Protection Software

[GoodPrognosis]

When I last checked something like 87% of the threat was from unpatched software and OS. So keep everything up to date. So then there's email, your web surfing, people trying to break in... and people plugging usb keys in to yoru pc that have nasties on them.

Firstly for god's sake don't use IE.

Chrome is ultrafast and infinitely more secure than IE. If you regularly have more than about 20 tabs open Firefox could be better as around there memory efficiency pivots in it's favour over chrome.

Email
You might want to route all incoming mail through a gmail account to take advantage of their spam and virus scanning. That should clean your email. Send it to yourself or set up a free domain on google apps.

Your Web Surfing
For completely clean internet surfing have a look at something like zscaler. They have a reseller in the UK now I believe. It's a cloud based web proxy which packet scans your internet surfing. Very cool. Very cheap.

People trying to break in
Why on earth would they want to pick on you? Just make sure you're behind the nat'd router (which you almost certainly are) your ISP gave you. And keep your firewall switched on.

USB Keys
Only use them from sources you trust.

I have no opinion on commercial security software. They're all the same.

Sorry for short hand, I don't have time to write this!

Good luck

GP

[FiveTimes]

Avira

[stek]

Mountain Lion

[SimonMac]

Mountain Lion

[eek]

Mountain Lion

Not that good with java based attacks

[VectraMan]

Not that good with java based attacks

But why would anyone want to install Java?

I agree with Microsoft Security Essentials + common sense. My Dell laptop came with McAfee, but I became so pissed off with having to switch off the on-access scan all the time, I uninstalled it and used MSE instead.

With MSE you barely notice it's there. Which perhaps means it isn't as good in protection terms, but is still a hell of a lot better than something you've switched off because it gets in the way.

[Clippy]

Microsoft Security Essentials and some common sense.

This.