Hi media_luvvie, welcome to our site

Don't worry about being confused when it comes to trying to figure out which programs you should use to protect yourself from all of the possible threats out there; given the huge amount of "nasties" that Windows users can suffer from, your question is well worth asking.

Use McAfee until your subscription runs out if you'd like. I wouldn't suggest renewing it after that though, and nor would I suggest switching over to Norton's products as an alternative. The offerings from McAfee and Norton are both "pay for" products to begin with, and Norton's programs have the same sort of subscription-renewal plan as McAfee's. In addition, there are other (free) programs which often do a better job.

My suggestions would be:

1. Installable anti-virus programs:

AVG: http://www.grisoft.com/doc/40/lng/us/tpl/tpl01
Avast!: http://www.avast.com/eng/down_home.html


2. Free online anti-virus scanners:

http://www.kaspersky.com/scanforvirus.html
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
http://us.mcafee.com/root/mfs/default.asp?cid=9914
http://www.pandasoftware.com/active...n_principal.htm
http://www.ravantivirus.com/scan/
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan/licence.php


3. Some specific "anti-spyware" detection/removal/protection programs:

ewido Security Suite - http://www.ewido.net/en/download/
Microsoft Anti-Spyware beta - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&displaylang=en
Ad Aware SE Personal - http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
SpyBot Search & Destroy - http://www.safer-networking.org/
SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/downloads.html
IESpyad - https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ehowes/www/resource.htm


4. Firewall programs:

Kerio Personal Firewall - http://www.kerio.com/kpf_download.html
Zone Alarm - the direct link to the free version isn't working here for some reason, but you can get to it by starting here:
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/applic...201&lid=nav_db

Here's a detailed review of different antivirus programs:
http://www.virusbtn.com/library/files/4pg_reprint.pdf

many thanks for your help. much appreciated as i understand you're very busy. hope i can help out someone in the near future.

loving the forum.

thanks again

:mrgreen: thanks so much for all your help. really appreciate your time to respond. loving the forum.

Hello there! I have recently been in the same boat as you (so to speak!) and can recommend the following FREE downloads all available on your IE search engine:

Spybot Search and Destroy
Grisoft - AVG antivirus
Lavasoft/Xsoft spy
Firewall - Zone Alarm
Microsoft Spyware

These were all recommended to me by an IT engineer, are incredibly easy to find on the net and to download free. Once you've found the programme, run it to download and then run it again to install it. When free trials run out of time, delete the whole programme from your hard drive and then start again. I've only once run out of trial time on one programme and that is since March 2005!

Good luck from Kaz

Hüllo. I just wanna ask. Is it really necessary to install a firewall and a spyware software to my computer eventhough it already has an antivirus working? What would be the adnvantages and disadvantages?

I would appreciate any feedback. Thank you, kindly.