Norton Anti Virus

I've got a few days left on my free trail before I have to pay for this....or get a registration code....anyone....anyone?

bin it and use avg

What speedplay said.. lol

There's an article comparing the performance of AV software in this month's PCPro mag. Might be available online.

The main gist of the conclusions were that:

1. Norton 2010 was the best "paid for" solution
2. It is nowhere near as invasive an install at it used to be
3. AVG Free performed as well as most of the "paid for" software
4. Some "paid for" software was worse than the freebies
5. One of the freebies was total poo

I'm with Speedplay. I use AVG and Vista's own Firewall. No probs in years of using AVG

You can do a lot better that Norton (the corp AV is not so bad) but I'd take that before free AVG.

I used to use Norton but the files became so big and as stated above it was very invasive.

I've used AVG for 4 years (the last 2 years I have actually bought the full version).

It works and is very simple to use without being so big it slows everything down.

Simple

[timwilky]

We use McAfee at work, with corporate managing policies and all sorts. However we also give all staff virusscan home edition though a corp deal with Network Associates.

On the grounds that a protected home user is less likely to bring in a virus

Speedplay, glad you mentioned you are on the subscription version. My last experience of the freebie was my nieces uni laptop (what is it about unis) that came to me about 18mo ago in an un-bootable state. I had to drop the disk into a caddy to get at it. The freebie was installed and up to date. I got over 140 hits with NOD. Needless to say that I didn't bother trying to fix it.

FWIW, I am hesitant to recommend NOD these days. The last decent version was 2.6 - it was light, fast and efficient. Versions 3 & 4 seemed to be as bloated as the worst of them.

[jambo]

I'm a little out of touch with AV software. However, a few people using AVG's most recent version seemed to have problems with it being resource hungry. This may well have been resolved by now.

Avast have a free and paid for edition for home users
Microsoft's security Essentials can be downloaded for free here

Jambo

Also check your company rules, as some places if you work at home will give you access to there corporation accounts to make your home network secure. But I use AVG on most things, its a bit heavy on older computers, but the Sony you have should be just fine with it.