Best free anti-virus?

Sorry... just a really old joke. Didn't mean to jump on you.

Anyways, I use them both. Mac's recent XFree86 infusion makes it very tempting, but the main reason I have a PC is to play the few game I have. Buying Photoshop and Flash licenses for the Mac versions isn't my idea of fun either. Yes, there's warez, but I've downloaded software long enough -- it's time to give back.

While Linux is good for every day stuff, there are some things it just doesn't have:
-Anything to come close to Illustrator or Flash (two apps I use)
-Online poker
-really good video support

Besides, these are for work computers. What office is complete with out some Microsoft

 

Check what's going on at startup (registry Hkey Local machine - software - microsoft - windows - current version - run, and delete anything that looks suspicious. Then run msconfig and do the same to startup. Run HijackThis and do the same, then reboot and all your problems will be gone... maybe

 

getting off-topic for a joke acompagned by a real solution (didn't anyone noticed AVG after that stupididty i wrote anyway? or you just don't bother?) doesn't usually help al0ot either.

Oh...and AVG still my recommandation, if you missed it. it beated Norton. Do like alchy said too, but be sure to BACKUP your registery before deleting anything suspicious, you never know.

 

My next step is Wolverine's solution. M$ should've done something themselves ages ago.

 

Windows never gave me any problems, except when I fucked with it. :\

 

Remember MSAV/MWAV from the DOS/3.1 days?

 

I do, from installing DOS 6.22 for the first time two years ago ^_^

It's not really embedded or anything - it was just a TSR loaded in autoexec.bat like the previous Norton AV's. Though yes, it did come with DOS 6.22

 

Autoruns!

Why bother reading through the registry manually to kill startup stuff when Sysinternals has made a front-end app that couldn't be better?
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/autoruns.shtml

The trick is to go to VIEW and
Hide Signed Microsoft Entries
Veryify Code Signatures
Show all Appinit DLLs, Explorer Addons, Services, Winlogon Notifications and Winsock Providers
Then you'll be able to look for and delete anything suspicious with ease! =)
NOTE: Autoruns displays the Description and Publisher of every entry, you'll notice that most of the suspicious stuff is totally unsigned (like the CoolSwitch listing in the sample image).
I then tend to follow up with HijackThis and remove any other BHOs, and miscellaneous leftovers.
~Krelian

 

I currently run the free avast! 4 Home Edition. It isn't heavy on the resources and was a breeze to setup.

To all that run the free AVG, how is it on resources?


^_^_^

 

I use it on a PIII and don't notice it doing anything devastating normally. When it's doing a full scan it slows things down a bit, but I can still browse the web and listen to musacks comfortably. And up until last summer I was using it on a Celeron 366!