Anyone recommend free virus programs??

[Eric the Red]

My computer is running pretty slow. Do people still use Ad-Aware? Anyone have recommendations?

[huskeraddict]

AVG Free works great for me. Plus, it's great to have my computer fast again after I got rid of Norton

[HuskersNC949597]

Plus, it's great to have my computer fast again after I got rid of Norton

That's true. I use McAfee, and it gets the job done. Of course, I only got it because it's free to UNO students, so you may have to enroll in a basketweaving class for that There's always TrendMicro's free HouseCall scan online.

[Landlord]

AVG and/or Avast

[BigBL87]

Here's what I would recommend, as far as free software:

 

Avast Antivirus (It's what I use, and it's worked very well for me)

Spybot Search & Destroy (Run this every once in awhile to catch stuff that Avast might miss)

CCleaner (Formerly known as CrapCleaner, it helps clean out unneeded files that take up space)

 

Also, I'd recommend defragmenting your hard drive. That can help alot, I did it for the first time in awhile and the difference is amazing. There are also programs you can get to optimize your performance, although the ones that work you probably need a decent knowledge of computers to use. The ones that are simple usually do more harm than good and slow your computer down.

 

If you had a copy of Norton, before, you would do well to remove everything involved with Norton, which involves more digging than their uninstall does. The registry values left behind by Norton can conflict with other anti-virus programs and make your computer freeze up on occasion. This is a GREAT link to use as a guide for how to do that:

 

http://www.askdavetaylor.com/how_to_fully_...on_from_pc.html

 

If you decide to pay for one, I'd recommend McAfee or Kaspersky, I prefer McAfee of the two.

[strigori]

It could be running slow for a number of reasons. The amount of background software running, virus, malware/spyware.

 

If it is the first, adding more ram usually help alot if you dont want to get those background programs shut off.

 

I dont know about free anti-virus software, I have always had the ones you pay for.

 

For spyware/malware, spybot and ad-aware are free and do a good job cleaning that stuff up. Most anti-virus software doesnt do anything vs this garbage.

[huskeraddict]

Oh yeah, and if you don't already, use Firefox to pretty much avoid all spyware and malware.

[Overland Park Husker]

See this Link for anti-virus suggestions. Most of the virus programs you pay for are resource hogs, like Norton and MacAfee. Also as other posters have stated, adding RAM may/usually helps out, but the biggest boost I've seen is forcing programs to not boot up at power-up. You can control this by running 'msconfig' at the Run menu and going to the Startup tab.

[zoogs]

Oh yeah, and if you don't already, use Firefox to pretty much avoid all spyware and malware.

 

Firefox also has a ton of security holes. It's pretty popular now, and of course, pretty targeted as well.

 

If your firefox is running slowly, one thing you could do is create a new profile and use that one.

[BigBL87]

See this Link for anti-virus suggestions. Most of the virus programs you pay for are resource hogs, like Norton and MacAfee. Also as other posters have stated, adding RAM may/usually helps out, but the biggest boost I've seen is forcing programs to not boot up at power-up. You can control this by running 'msconfig' at the Run menu and going to the Startup tab.

 

If you download CCleaner, it can access that from within the program. I definitely recommend CCleaner to everyone.

[tattooedhusker]

AVG or Avast

[bennychico11]

old thread...sorry to bump it but I wanted to add another one to the list:

 

Dr. Web CureIt

http://www.freedrweb.com/

 

I recently got infected by some really intense virus. Really, I googled it and all the forums were saying "just re-format, there is nothing you can do."

No other Antivirus program even picked up on the virus...but Dr. Web did. End the end it claimed it cured it, but I went ahead and reformatted anyway. Still, I was pretty amazed at how well it seemed to clean up the computer. A couple of the other viruses went away completely.

 

I also play on using it's Boot CD program for all the computers that I take care of around my office.