[Sarah]

OK - what do you guys use? I saw Barbara's post over on gb.net. I have been meaning to ask for a while.

I already have AdAware.

[becozy]

Hi, Sarah!
I can't recommend Spyware Blaster and Zone Alarm highly enough. They are simple to download, easy to use and really work beautifully! They prevent any yucky's from tapping in, firewall style!

Hugs,
Barb

[Brittmyster]

Dont know if anyone's heard of this one but avast!Antivirus is really good. It downloads anything on your computer. It even detected a virus in a music file that I was trying to download. It's free; and it'll let you know when you have to re-download it. Once you register, or re-register, you get a new code that is good for 14 months. It's really nice. Hope it helps!

[Starr]

I really like Avast!Antivirus also! I haven't had any issues with trojans and viruses since I've had it

[Kimber71]

I have Avast as well....just got it the other day...I just got Vista, and Mcaffee was slowing everything, and not allowing alot of my programs to run proper, I heard of Avast, and my system runs so smoothly, and way fast!

[Hollywood]

I use:

Ad-Aware
Spybot
Avast!
Ccleaner

[pinkbrain]

Here's my experience:

I use NOD32, the Internet Security one, not only the antivirus. The NOD32 Internet Security version has: antivirus, antispyware, personal firewall, and an antispam module (in case you use an email client for example Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird, etc)
It's really fast and has a very good heuristic. This means, that the software will resolve a problem, such as an infection, faster than others. You can update it when you desire it, or you can set it so the software does it automatically, in my case cos' I'm a paranoid person, the update is every hour.
Now, the weakness that I find in this antivirus is the computer scan, when you want to scan your hard disk, you have to start it manually every time, there's no setting here, so if you forget to do it manually, your computer will never be scan. This is annoying for me, because with my older antivirus I could set the software scan starts at night when I don't use my pc. You all must know that during the scan stage your pc's performace will be very slow, this happend because all the RAM in your pc is being use for the antivirus software.

My older antivirus: Kaspersky Internet Security (KIS), KIS has the same modules that NOD32 Internet Security (antivirus, antispayware, firewall and antispam module). The heuristic is not so good as in NOD32, but the full scan disk is the best in my opinion, is really full scan. You can set it to do automatically every day, every week or once every month. It's up to you. Kaspersky software also has an antivirus version (KAV). KAV is ligther than KIS, but is not that complete.
I still have KIS on my computer, but NOT as resident protection, only for full scan and I turn on KIS manually when I suspect I have an infection that NOD32 can't eliminate it, otherwise the only resident antivirus I have is NOD32.

You can only have one antivirus as resident protection in your system, but can have as many antispyware, firewall software as you wish.

Also have: Lavasoft Ad-Aware Pro, Spybot Search & Destroy (antispyware), Norton Clean Sweep (registry cleaner, this one must be use it carefully, any change in you registry key could break your system and you'd lose all your data), and of course, the safest browser I find (until I switch to Linux/Ubuntu) wich is Firefox.
On Firefox I've install two "must have" addons: CookieSafe and No Script. The first one avoids that when I'm surfing the net, certain sites safes their cookies locally so they follow my tracks on the net, spying me; the other one, No Script, avoids that sites that has malicious scripts can do or change things on my system. I have greasemonkey addon on Firefox too with a few google mail scripts, this allows me to work with certain sites with special attributes, for example I can input emoticons and a html signature in my google mail account.
Sorry ladies about my english, I've just woke up (oversleep taking a nap) and haven't drank a coffee yet.

[aqcheryl]

I always advise AVG Free (free.grisoft.com) for antivirus
Spybot S&D for antispyware.

Whenever you download anything from an untrusted site, be it music, .exe, text, graphics, scan the file before use. Especially if you p2p. I stay away from .wma files when searching for music.

Advanced users use
CCleaner - whenever you edit the registry always always back up the registry first.
Hijack This - you can get this off of the TrendMicro website - very advanced

I also use WinPatrol (referred from cbvixen/mystiglenn) because it monitors your PC for changes made to it, and allows you to edit the start up tasks, etc. Though I still prefer msconfig.

[MarineGal]

I hardly ever do a virus check on my Mac since its mainly used for drawing and work stuff. Rarely do I surf the net on it. For the work PC we use a combination of Ad-Aware SE Personal, Spybot, and Norton.

Its also wise to always do a Disk Cleanup, Defrag, and clean out your desktop Mail (should you have Outlook). On top of that always back up your information on an external hard drive just in case your main drive fries.

This post has been edited by MarineGal: 17 February 2009 - 12:29 PM

[Wadi-Al-lubb]

I had Norton at first but I did research and found it leaves a large foot print on your system and slows your pc down
I find using firefox browser helps eliminate a lot of spyware or none at all with IE that was a different story

[scotsmanstuart]

hi all,

I use firefox then for protection I have Avast but had AVG before that. I also use ad aware.

[Tap]

This is some good info, I just downloaded AdAware. You would not believe how much crap it detected and deleted. Thanks!

[hidden warrior]

i know a lot of computer gamers and they all use avast, ad aware, and cc cleaner. it is fast easy and most importantly free.