lofsfire, what are you running?
I'm a little bummed at McAfee. We renewed every year too. Then all heck broke loose. I may have loaded SpyBot too late. Kind of a shame that you need both. After loading SpyBot is when it appeared to open the flood gates.
Sorry for the late reply, I got busy at work today and had to do actual work and now I'm staying up just to write this for you.
Well I currently use McAfee Securty Center, but the only reason I use it is b/c I get it for free. Like I said before Check with your ISP if you have Cable or DSL you most likely get some type of program for free for having their service. You will most likely get more than one copy to use on other PC. Anther spot to check is with your kids or other family members if any are in collage. Most University will give the software away free to students, but what most people don't know is it can be put on as many pc as you want. But you need to get this from someone that is family b/c you will need their log in info to be able to download the software from the University.
If I were to pick one of the free ones it would be Avast, I have used it and had good luck too. I think John even uses it for the board here.
As far as Spyware/malware programs I have used all three Spybot, Lavasoft Ad-Aware, malwarebytes. On my last PC I had all three installed and just ran them on demand each would find different things. In the 6yrs I had that PC I never had a virus except once. I knew the program had a virus but installed it anyway. And McAfee Flagged it, I told it to keep installing. Once I got what I need I let McAfee go back and fix it. Then ran all three Spyware/malware programs and they took care for my problem.
The best piece of advice is use common since. When opening files you get off the internet. If you are protected most virus need you to give the ok to install. Like when you go on a web site and it starts popping up windows for free PC scans. Don't run these they open doors of things that are much worse. Keep you PC updated with Windows Updates and Anti-virus. One other way to help keep you pc protected it use Web Mail don't use Outlook or a program that has to download your mail to your computer. There are a few reason for this. Outlook saves all you data in one file called outlook.pst and once it reaches 2gb you lock up outlook and it no longer works. My boss has done this twice. He just won't archive stuff. The other reason is your email is more accessible from anywhere not just one computer. Plus it make you think before you download an attachment.
Lastly make user accounts of everyone that uses your computer and only give basic privileges to them. Make one person the Admin. I did this to my Mother-in-law's pc and made my wife the Admin on the computer. (they had just bought the pc when we were engaged) My Mother-in-law ask me to remove my wife's account after 5yrs of her not using it, I made the mistake of telling her that it was the only account with Admin privilege and she was pissed at me for not making her the Admit, b/c it was her pc. So I gave my Mother-in-law full Admin privilege as she requested, and within 4 hr she managed to reformat the hard drive. She thought she was installing a game. I still have no idea how she did it. It takes a number of steps for this to happen, with the PC asking you are you sure 3 or 4 times.
Hope this helps I going to bed now gota get the kids up for daycare and school at 6:30am
PS Also I have heard the Symantec Norton Internet Security 2010 is much faster like
hotfingerz said above.
