Thursday, June 25, 2009

Anti-Virus Software -- Free is Good, Free and Good is Better

We all know, or we should anyway, that we need anti-virus software, and anti-spyware, and anti-adware, and most of us pay for it.

But what can you get for NO Money.

Would that software be any good?

The answer is: Yes.

I know of a number of programs that are free to home users which rival commercial software in effectiveness, although they may be just a little more work to use. Paying NO Money makes up for just a little trouble, doesn't it?

Do not be fooled by a number of commercial programs that suck you in to downloading and installing their software, leaving you to discover that only the download and first 30 days are free, and after that you MUST Pay, or kerflooey for the software.

I particularly like Avast! and Spybot, 2 programs with different purposes which can, together, deal with viruses, trojans, and a variety of web related malware and adware, and they cost NO Money.

Now you have to update them both manually and while Spybot and Avast both provide automatic resident protection against threats and nuisances, you do have to run a Spybot system scan manually. No big deal really.

You also have to register Avast! and get a key, but it's free and good for a year when you are required to get another free key.

I find a lot of annoying but not deadly stuff that commercial software does not find or protect against, just by running Spybot on a regular basis, say, once a week.

There are other free programs as well, often intros to more expensive and convenient for-pay packages, but these 2 are at the top of my list.

Take a look at some of the others if you like.

Two are AntiVir, and AVG Free Edition. Do not even consider CyberDefender, which is poor at best and malware itself at worst.

Now you really have no excuse not to be protected against malware of any kind except ... laziness and procrastination, and ... that certainly doesn't apply to you, now, does it?


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