security software

anyone know of any good security software I can download for free. I have norton and it is slowing my computer down. Do you know of any that is just as good or better. That will update itself

 

AVG, Ad-Aware SE, ZoneAlarm, you can get all this stuff from this site. Goto major geeks home page, right hanf sdie in the box, click top freeware picks. This will give you a list of things you might be looking for. Hope it helps.

 

Or click this link http://www.majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=20

 

thanks

 

Chaslang has a good list:

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=44525

 

So are the free ones just as good as the not-free ones? I work in a store and I'm told that Norton and Kaspersky are better than free software, but I'm told that by my manager who may just be blowing smoke so I sell these programs. And out of the free ones, which are the best? (Anti virus, anti spyware, firewall, and something that'll keep me secure for ebay purchases) I've used spybot and adaware as well as AVG and I like them... are they really all that? As for a firewall, I don't know which one to use... Also, I'd like to know the best not-free ones too just in case I get neurotic and have to buy one

 

I think so. I'd say some (or most) of the free ones are better than the paid products. I base this on the number of massively infected PCs that I see running full, up to date versions of Norton and MacAfee. A massive infection (IMO) is over 75 infections. Now you might be saying "75!!!!! Holy cheeet!!! That's alot!!" Yes, it is. But, I've seen PCs with over 10,000 viruses/malware infections. Yes, that was ten thousand. And this is on a PC with an active current installation of Norton Internet Security. So, IMHO, the paid products are bloated, resource hungry, and basically uneffective. The current full install of MacAffee installs over 12 programs that run in the background constantly. That really slows things down. The reason your manager is telling you that the paid versions are better is for two reasons: he wants to sell them; and the more people that buy and install it, the more people will have inferior protection, then these people get massive virus infections, and bring the PC back in for repair. So now your manager can charge these people (that just bought Norton to keep the PCs clean) to clean the PC of the viruses that Norton was supposed to keep out. A double whammy! On the other hand, I've heard good things about Kaspersky and I don't have much first hand experience with Kaspersky, so I can't comment on it's effectiveness or lack thereof.