Antivirus and Anti-Spyware

I heard that you can download these programs off of the internet for free. Which one do you guys recommend?

avast antivirus is a good one for me....keep the protection on high and youll be good.
also ad aware se personal is amazing

avast, avg free, several online scanners are all good

for spyware, there is spybot search and destroy [spybot s&d], adaware as hustlinpapi1 mentioned and several others.

if you google for "freeware antivirus" and "freeware spyware" you'll get tons of results

Hijack this is a realy good program if your not familar with it, but anti virus general AVG free edition is a great one that is free S&D is great too, but the best program i've ever used apart from Hijack this, is spyware doctor it costs money but it works.

Hijack this is a "nuclear tool" that can save your computer but can also screw it up horribly, dont use it unless someone you know can show you how or you find someone that can explain it well,

I personally use Avast on all of my machines. My brother used AVG and after a while we tested it's efficacy by running a spyware tool and it got tons of hits. However, on my computer which was running Avast, no hits were detected... that's good for me ^^

Another program to use (which is slightly lighter to load than avast) is kaspersky. I've heard awesome reviews on it but keep in mind that it is a shareware tool.

I used to use AVG, but I've gotten infected WHILE using it before. I started using Avast and liked it a lot. Currently I use a license free version of Symantec AntiVirus that my school gives away; ver. 10.0.2.2002 with scan engine 61.1.0.11 and never-expiring updates. I can update this puppy until they simply discontinue support for it alltogether.

While I had no "lisence agreement" to agree to, some people would say that distributing this would be violating some rules. But if someone wants to ask the admin, I could post links. I, myself, however, don't want to get in any kind of trouble. I'm liking Ozzu too much to leave.

As far as antispyware goes, I recommend Spyboy Search & Destroy (get it from http://www.download.com ), Ad-Aware SE (get it from http://www.download.com ), and Windows Defender from http://Microsoft.com

NuAngel

A+Freeware is great, I got Avira AntiVir, Spyware Blaster and Kerio Personal Firewall (2002) for free at their site. All three programs consume less resources than memory hogs such as Norton Internet Security Suite; and is just as effective. http://www.aplusfreeware.com

For an antivirus/antispyware tool that you don't want to install on your machine there's Housecall by Trend Micro that runs in an internet browser.

you can use it here:

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

I recommend housecall to a lot of people, too, but remember: it's NOT a replacement for a virus scanner. Sometimes it won't even be able to perform cleanups - even though it would tell you about a virus. I had a friend with nearly 40 'infected' files (mostly adware, not really viruses - though he did have a couple of trojans as well) - Housecall found them, but couldn't clean them for one reason or another.

So while I've had it help me out many's a time, it's still no replacement for a good real-time virus scanner. Not in this era, when even safe computing can't save you, because of network-based worms.

I've never been infected with a virus when I didn't know what I was getting in to, under my own power. I've never once launched a file and then had to deal with the regrets later. I've always practiced safe computing and know what to and not to run. However, a few years ago, when moving into a college dorm room - I plugged into the network, and then finished unpacking. Within 2 hours I had a virus that was un-removable and was forced to reformat. And I hadn't even gone on the internet, yet - all I did was plug in my Ethernet connection and load up Winamp so I had something to listen to while I unpacked!

Antivirus is key to staying alive out there!

NuAngel

I personally use Avast, but once my licence runs out i'll switch to Sophos, as my work gives it away to our staff.

For anyone who happens to be in the US Military, you can get Symantec, McAfee, and Trend Micro Antivirus for free for home use from http://www.cert.mil/antivirus/av_info.htm

The download links will only work if you are on a .mil domain, sorry civies!