SOTW: AVG Anti Virus
You’ve got to drill down a bit to find the free version, but here is a link that’ll get you close.
This one is pretty well known in the computer world but it definitely deserves a write up.
Most computers you buy from a store come with some sort of anti virus program built in. That’s very nice of them to do! But the sneaky part is that they are only free for a short amount of time. After that you have to pay for either continued service or updates. And with how Windows operates you get flagged with all kinds of messages when your anti virus software isn’t up to date with the latest information. Sure you could pay for continued service or disable those Windows announcement annoyances.
Or…you could get free anti virus…free quality anti virus!
AVG has been around for a quite a while now and was free for a long time. Unfortunately they did start charging for their full services. But being the good company that they are they still made a free version available. It doesn’t have all the fancy bells and whistles that the “full†version has…but if you are looking for good old fashioned basic protection I’ve found none better.
Once installed it sets itself up to do automatic scans daily (they do slow performance a little when running…but it’s not overwhelming with a modern computer.) You can right click on any file to do a scan (perfect for those suspect ZIP files you randomly download). I also believe it can be configured to run with most email programs (although that may only be part of the full package currently).
Of course the best way to avoid getting a virus is to play it smart…don’t open random attachments, don’t download random programs and use a good internet browser (FIREFOX!!!). But a little extra security is always nice…especially when it’s FREE!