Recommend Anti-Virus & Firewall please

Hi,

Can you recommend a good FREE anti virus & firewall that doesn't slow down your PC.

I've tried AVG amongst others, and am not sure whats the best one to go for.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

 

Thanks for the quick response.

im using windows XP home.

Never used Avast before.

It's not a hungry app is it?

 

Comodo Firewall Pro and Avira Antivir.

 

+1 on that combination.

 

AVG and Avira for anti virus
Online Armor and Comodo for firewall
Until recently used the laters, at present using the formers.
Change is good, try something new occasionally.

 

I have problem with firewalls: I have tried few free ones (I'm pepertually broke) but to access the internet - and stay on - I always had to disable the firewall, which lost the whole point of having one. I used to like Zone Alarm Pro, which made configuring dead easy for a non-techy user like me, but after an upgrade two years ago, it suffered the same problem - and not only that, my password to my account, forum and support, was suddenly not recognised and even phoning the support people did not solve the problem: they gave up after two weeks but did not refund my money either...

The problem of firewalls preventing any access to the internet on standard configuration - I'm not capable of configuring one by hand - has affected both my laptop and pc via wired router (definitely no changes in that, or in OS that I'm aware of) as well as wireless connection via different router. The only one I have been able to use was OneCare trial version (it disables Adaware and ofcourse any other virus checker) - but despite taking my subscription money, I have not received a subscription code, so I get no security updates, which is worse than not having firewall at least but being protected by a virus checker... I have contacted Microsoft support several times about this, but they haven't got back to me.I have now uninstalled OneCare and re-installed AVG

So, do you know any free firewall that I coud use with standard settings, i.e. install, register and go? I use XP but may install vista in near future.

 

Just another opinion...

Am using 'free' ZoneAlarm firewall and works fine.

Also using free Avast and free (comes with Comcast) Mcafee... most people will tell you not to use 2 antivirus programs at same time (probably good advice), but when setup right seems to work fine (havent had any virus problems in years (at least 20... knocking on wood).

Am big on redundancy if works.

If had to choose, would probably go with free Avast (especially if had to pay for Mcafee).

Ps: Also need to use a few safe email practices (ie review all in text only format b4 open html, etc). Using 'ePrompter' (text only) to read/delete/reply/etc to monitor multiple emails from one interface... cant get attachments (need to go to email host for that), but makes getting thru email a whole lot faster and safer.

 

Sorry akm, didn't see your post yesterday, so I'll answer to that first: I tried again the newest version of free ZA this summer, with same problem.

Mark: thanks for the advice: Installed Comodo and it works fine! Recognised IE and Opera without a prompt but asked about Firefox :-? Also recognised Adaware, Spybot S&D and Spywareblaster automatically; haven't tried office programs yet - I use a lot OpenOffice Writer, MsWord 2000 or 2007 to copy text)

So far I have come across two applications I am not sure if they need an automatice access to the net - or at all. (Can you advice? These are

svchost.exe = Generic host prcess for Win32 services
jqsnotify.exe = Java(TM) Quick Starter binary

I'm sure there will be many more to baffle me, least because the laptop wasn't wiped out from most junk when I got it from a secod-hand dealer. I never dared to reformat it as I don't have any drivers and being a laptop I don't dare to open the case to look what's there in order to find drivers from the net (which may or may not work).Like I said, I'm not tech savvy.