How To Fight Computer Viruses Without Paying A Yearly Subscription

Let's face it, in this age of downloading just about everything, sooner or later your computer will get infected. Are your kids into music, or computer games? Is your computer slow or did you notice a change in your Internet speeds? Then you might have a computer virus.

The common way to fight a computer virus is to install a virus scanner. There are many options out there, some of the more known virus scanners are: Norton Antivirus (sometimes also called Norton Internet Security, Norton 360 or Symantec Antivirus) and McAfee. These virus scanners you have to buy, they cost about $79 for the package. What most people don't realize is that after the first year of use you will be asked to renew the subscription. For Norton products this means a payment of $55-$79 dollars for another year. In McAfee's case this is $39-$59. In one particular case I received a computer from someone who had a working version of McAfee on it, they had called McAfee to ask them to remove the infection and McAfee wanted to charge an additional $89 dollars to remotely login to the computer and remove the virus.

Now what if I told you there is software out there you can install that will remove viruses, and won't cost you a dime. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? It isn't. There are a couple of good anti-virus products that will keep your computer clean without a yearly subscription.

ClamWin Antivirus:

ClamWin Antivirus is an opensource project, based on ClamAV which is a popular cross-platform scanner ClamWin offers an easy to use GUI (Graphical User Interface) for this command-line tool used on many servers around the world.

Virus definition file updates are quick and most viruses are detected within hours. When you first install ClamWin I advise to configure Clamwin to move infected files to quarantine. This will make sure it doesn't just detect the infected files, this is it's default setting. Also set automatic updates to update at login as well as schedule updates, pick a time the computer is usually on and on-line.

Download ClamWin here.  (tip: hit download in the menu on the left)

AVG:

AVG is maybe one of the most popular free anti-virus softwares around. Anyone that isn't receiving money from McAfee or Norton to sell their products, advises their customers to use AVG. Although the website is a little misleading, calling its free product a trial, in my opinion AVG free does the trick for most people. The software is easy to use and comes pre-configured so no settings for quarantine are needed.  AVG will tell you when it need an update, it makes use of widgets in Windows 7 to do so.

The interface is a little more complicated then ClamWin but it is definitely a powerful virus-scanner.

Download AVG here.

Microsoft Security Essentials:

This is Microsoft's answer to free anti-virus, reviews of this software are mixed but it is always hard to tell if this is because people dislike Microsoft or they actually tested the software. The saying "Fifty percent of something is better than 100 percent of nothing" I would advise to install at least Microsoft Security Essentials because it is better then leaving your computer without a virus scanner.

According to the MS Sec. Essentials website it runs quietly in the background so that you are free to use Windows. Not really a selling point as all of the above mentioned virus scanners run quietly in the background and provide real time protection.

One thing this Microsoft Security Essentials (pfff what a long name) has going for it is the easy interface. Most people will be able to use it even with little-to-no computer knowledge. The second thing it has going for itself is it is a Microsoft product, let's face it most people use Microsoft Windows daily and have no problem trusting the product. 

Download MSE here.

Comment & Questions

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