Beaverstate

I am wondering which provider has the best anti virus etc.. coverage? I use Norton, is that good enough?

TexasPenguin

I swear by Vipre.
One of the nice things about this is that one license covers 5 (I think) PCs in your family.

Bob

Norton, good...yeah, that's funny. The enterprise for business yes, but not for home.

Avast, AVG or MS Essentials are the best of the bunch for free.

markwm

MS Essentials is the best and it's free.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...ity-essentials

fatbrit

The best anti-virus is to not use Windows.

markwm

Not quite true anymore:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...-for-Macs.html

Windows is only more susceptible to virii because more machines have it installed.

Besides, for most people, the only viable options are Windows or Apple - users have enough trouble turning computers on much less installing an unfamiliar OS.

fatbrit

Install a major *nix distro with up-to-date but not cutting-edge hardware and it's no more difficult than installing Windows or OSX. The difference is that these are usually pre-installed, whereas *nix rarely is.

Your chances of getting malware on your system with a standard install of a major *nix distro are effectively zero. Sure you can pick something up if you do something really stupid, but really stupid people usually use a different operating system.

markwm

Again, fine; but get the ordinary man in the street to do this: not going to happen. Most people will buy a machine and use as is: it's only geeks and techies that bother to do anything different.

fatbrit

Their funeral.

fatbrit

On second thoughts, buy a Chrome Book. This is the most locked down and secure OS available. Pre-installed, automatic updates, and does what most people want out of a computer.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome...romebooks.html

Recommended for any non-techies who want to just use their computer.

toopie28

I use Kaspersky - love it and it has saved me from a lot of stoopid mistakes.

Mummy in the foothills

I use AVG and Spybot with my windows laptop

BritishGuy36

No it most definitely is not. It should be uninstalled at the first opportunity.

MSE if you want a free one, for something better yet still not a resource hog, pick up a 3-license pack of Kaspersky Antivirus or Kaspersky Internet Security on Amazon for under $30 delivered, and licensed for installation to 3 PCs with updates for one year.