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My mom's buying a laptop...


Venusaur
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I can't remember the actual specs of the laptop, but my mom's not too tech-savvy. Since it's a Windows laptop, anti-virus is 100% necessary.

What are the best antivirus and antispyware programs for Windows? We'd like the price low, (preferably free), but if the around $100 ones crush the free ones then we might as well buy the $100 ones.

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why not get an antivirus online for free? I'm sure some people here will tell you some.

Anyways, I have had norton before and it was pretty good IDK though we don't have an antivirus anymore :(

Also why doesn't apple need antivirus 100% of the time?

Edited by SlayerX
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Free antiviruses will suffice if you're careful/aware enough.

For an antivirus get AVG

For a free firewall get Comodo.

Also why doesn't apple need antivirus 100% of the time?

Because there's a lot less viruses that are coded specifically for macs.

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I can't remember the actual specs of the laptop, but my mom's not too tech-savvy. Since it's a Windows laptop, anti-virus is 100% necessary.

What are the best antivirus and antispyware programs for Windows? We'd like the price low, (preferably free), but if the around $100 ones crush the free ones then we might as well buy the $100 ones.

Dual-boot linux. ;)

In all seriousness though, I can't recommend AVAST! enough. AVG free is good too. I used AVG for years before switching to AVAST!, and have now been using that for years, and never once since undergrad (before I wised up about antivirus programs) has my machine caught an infection. I do visit my fair share of dubious sites, and have on occasion indulged in suspicious downloads, so it's not just a testament to my surfing habits.

It's very important that you do not run multiple programs though, since they will tend to interfere with each other.

Also why doesn't apple need antivirus 100% of the time?

Since the largest target base is Windows, most viruses are written for Windows. Since fewer crackers/scriptkiddies/malcontents are interested in maliciously targetting Macs (or Linux) there's much less need to worry about viruses for those platforms.

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Norton all the way you dont notice what it does till you lose it '.'

And by "it," you must mean your computer, because it might as well do NOTHING with how useless it is.

Avast! for Antivirus. I'd recommend MalwareBytes for anti-malware, but I've been running Avast from the get go, and it does everything it needs to. Being smart makes a malware protector useless. And it's completely free, and since Avast! 5, you don't even need to register.

There's AVG and one other one that's interchangeable with Avast!, but they switch off between who is best all the time, so I recommend Avast personally since I know it works.

Norton and Synaptec are beyond worthless, and aren't worth the paper the money is made out of. And anyone who recommends them has no idea what they're doing.

EDIT: No one ever said decent anti spyware, so let me cover something. Make your default browser Firefox and get an addon called AdBlock Plus. Combined with Avast!, it makes a computer very save, and ABP can even be used to block specific bad parts of a website, so if there is a site with a bad ad for a time, you can just block the ad and still get to the site.

Edited by Furby
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I bought Norton and it was really good until the year passed and it spammed me with messages of supscription renewal - it's only good for a year or the time of the trial.

I got Avast and until now it has worked great. It's probably the best free option! I also have AVG which is also great and has good antispyware. Also get AdBlock for any of the browsers your mom will use.

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Microsoft Security Essentials. It's Microsoft's way of apologizing for the many holes in Windows.

If you have Adobe Reader and/or Java, keep those updated. Ditto with Windows itself.

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  • 1 month later...

Microsoft Security Essentials. It's Microsoft's way of apologizing for the many holes in Windows.

^This

After a bit of trouble with Avast and a first-minute virus ruined our desktop machine both it and my laptop now run Microsoft Security Essentials and it hasn't put a foot wrong yet. It helps that it's relatively lightweight software and it runs real-time protection so if anything tries to change the OS files it tells you and you can stop it. Just keep your virus definitions up to date and watch what you download.

I don't think this counts as necroposting. I've been on forums before but they didn't have a rule like this.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've never had problems with Norton.

I've had AVG for a few weeks, it didn't find the virus I had.

and I knew I had a virus, since I started receiving messages with links from myself :facepalm: (I have myself in my msn list, lolz)

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Here's how it works. I simply do not have an antivirus on my computer. At all. Nothing. Then, after 5 months of ZERO "protection", I will install an antivirus, and run a check. The check NEVER comes up with ANYTHING at all, save for 1, maybe 2 false positives (Lolkeygens), and then I uninstall it.

You do not need a virus 100% at all. Obviously, you don't need one period. You just need to learn how not to be retarded.

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Here's how it works. I simply do not have an antivirus on my computer. At all. Nothing. Then, after 5 months of ZERO "protection", I will install an antivirus, and run a check. The check NEVER comes up with ANYTHING at all, save for 1, maybe 2 false positives (Lolkeygens), and then I uninstall it.

You do not need a virus 100% at all. Obviously, you don't need one period. You just need to learn how not to be retarded.

*facepalm*

I'm glad you've mastered the fine art of not getting infected, but I doubt that this holds true for the majority of the population, especially the "not to tech-savvy" ones.

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Even the best of us aren't invulnerable, I nearly had a mishap when I was just playing a game on a completely innocent site that never game me any problems before and a virus somehow managed to sneak in as a temporary file. If my anti-virus hadn't detected it and told me it was trying to access system files who knows what would've happened.

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