A good antivirus/firewall, how much?

[TreadonmenoT]

On my desktop I have vista, so I download the free version of comodo anti and firewall. and if i get a virus i just reformat with my vista disc

with my new laptop I have windows 7 and they conveniently left out the disc, so can someone recommend me a good firewall and antivirus that won't cost me more then buying a windows 7 OS cd

[Montu]

I used to hate norton but I'm not going to lie the new one is good...other then that I personally liked bit defender but haven't used their new stuff.

nod32 has also always had praise

I stopped using antivirus and only install to run scans every couple of months ..but that's just how i roll.

[RazzB7]

www.avast.com Works great and it's free for home use.

[TreadonmenoT]

www.avast.com Works great and it's free for home use.

thanks gonna use that for now

[Ricky-Ray]

Microsoft Security Essentials has been working really well for me. Best of all it's free.

Previously I was using AVG but it's getting to bloated.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security_essentials/default.aspx

[Montu]

yea as far as free goes avast does seem to be pretty good..using it on the gfs laptop

[sholling]

I've been an IT pro for 20 years (now semiretired) and for my home computers I use ESET NOD32 on my desktop and home servers and ESET Smart Security for my laptop. The difference is SS has a firewall which isn't needed at home if you use a router - only when out and about with your laptop. It's a subscription with service and you pay per year but there is a 30 free trial and discounts for future years. BTW Newegg has been blowing out inventory lately probably due to a version changes and old packaging. I assume that it doesn't matter as long as you have the serial number from the box so you may want to see if there is a sale.

I like ESET products because of the small memory footprint, low resource utilization, frequent updates and its effectiveness. I'm less enamored with the bloated Norton and McAfee products because of all of the bloat. I've used Kaspersky in the past as well and while pretty good it was too slow for my taste. The only downside to ESET is it costs money.

[Gringo Bandito]

I am surprised that there is no mention of kaspersky. I used it when I was a Microsoft guy and it saved my butt more than once. Also, malwarebytes is a much for a windows machine.

[itsjoe]

I use Internet Security by Tren Micro, been using for about 6 yrs and it's very good at preventing viruses and spywares/malwares. $40 a year and good for 3 computers.

[sundayduffer]

Get a Mac.

[HK4113]

Get a Mac.

aahahah wow your funny, I hope your not serious.

I have used kaspersky on my home computer for the past 6 years without a problem.

[BayAreaShooter]

If you have COMCAST you get Norton for FREE.

[Nose Nuggets]

i have tried them all, from free to corperate level. they are all pretty much as terrible as eachother.

MSE is by far the best if you want a thin, functioning av/am package.

as for firewall, windows firewall is fine.

[Iknownot]

I'd say Norton is still pretty good, if a bit bloated. The thing I like about Norton is you can usually get it for $10-20 a year buying it places like Fry's, which almost always have rebates available on it. For $10 or 20, norton is pretty good.

If you want less bloated, I'd say NOD 32.

I would not recommend McAffee at all, which I got free once with a Dell computer. It missed a couple of basic viruses when I had it running. I deleted it and installed Norton instead, at the time.