Eidolon14

So I recently found out that Norton AntiVirus is a hunk of junk, if you will, and that it doesn't do much as far as protecting my computer. (I'm not sure about Norton's Firewall, so I'm not going to bad mouth that.) I am planning to purchase a few softwares soon though, so if anyone knows a good (and relatively cheap or even free) anti-virus program, please let me know.

And if you could, any ideas on firewalls?

n e r b l e

i loathe and abhor all things norton. it causes all kinds of problems on every machine i've had. i use panda (pandasoftware.com) it's like $20 for 6/mo of update and comes w/ a 30 day trial.

as for firewalls i have yet to find a software one that i like. generally unless you're hosting a bunch of progs or mp3s or movies no one is interested in hacking your pc. it's not worth the time and effort to read some random strangers email. however if you are that security concious, or do have the aforementioned, your best bet is a router. they come w/ built in firewalls and they don't cause the problems that software ones do. you can pic up a router for about 50-60. (get a linksys, they're the best).

Eidolon14

Another friend told me about this. Which program should I actually get? I see a couple at the site.

jessieka03

I have Norton and it seems to work fine. But since you're having problems with it...

My roommate uses McAfee or whatever it's called and she likes it.

Lylie

I'm also looking for a good antivirus and so far I read that:
NOD32
BitDefender
Panda
are the best you can find.
I'm trying each of them. Aparently NOD32 is very good.

btvsrocks

yep that's what I read too.

I read that on the suprnova forums and a lot of those people seem VERY "computer savvy" so I trust their opinions. I personally am not computer savvy so I just go for whatever.

The Chickie

Firewall...I'd have to go with Kerio, definitely. If you know what you're doing, go with one of the older versions (2.1.5, I believe). The new version (4.x) is kind of...funny looking to me but it may just be what you're looking for.

Gabriela

www.grisoft.com is a really good site..they even have a free anti-virus program, and it caught 114 infected files in my computer [img]smilies/look.gif[/img]
Oh, and I forgot to add...it "heals" whatever viruses it can after runnign its virus scan, and tells you which ones it wasn't able to heal (if there were any)

[ 04-16-2004: Message edited Gabriela ]

n e r b l e

there's a couple versions of panda. one's like a corporate version and one's a personal one. i think the platinum is the personal but i'm not 100%.

The Daywalker

My Nortons has been a punk. I think i might cop up on a copy of one of those.

~*Ellen*~

Mine works fine too.. in fact, the best one that I've used.

I used to have McAfee on my old computer... and I hated it. It fricked up the computer pretty badly.

Headhunter

McAfee was riddled with holes when I used it; even with frequent viral definition updates of the latest version of the software, problems would go through at will.

Norton causes some system instability, but seems more reliable on the detection and elimination fronts.

I'll check out one of the other options listed, see how that goes...