PC Ropear

There has always been a war between opensource freeware and paid software. One area that I feel freeware wins out is in the anti-virus market. For one, the big anti-virus companies have made it so that you have to buy their software every year, like a subscription. Imagine you have been paying for anti-virus for the past 5 years. You have spent over $250!! That’s a new iPod! I will be comparing Symantec (recently bought Norton) and AVG. More after the jump

I really like Symantec anti-virus. The only thing that I don’t like is the price tag. Their product, Norton 360 costs $70 and boast virus and spyware protection. Since we already have spyware covered with the very nice Ad-Aware, all we need the the virus protection. First off, Norton is a memory hog. It will end up slowing down your computer with its constant scanning and “live-protection” I have heard that they have addressed this issue in the latest release but I am not positive. The only thing that I think Norton has in its favor is decent support and hired software engineers. They are getting paid to make good software and not just someone making a program for the fun of it.

The best free software out there is AVG. I have been blown away with what AVG has been able to do and they recently released a Firefox plugin that will check the link of your searches to make sure that they are safe to visit. Download for that here. As for AVG the link is right here. So after you grab the download, install it to your default directories. The first thing you will notice is the first run wizard. Also, AVG will install its toolbar and linkscanner to firefox automatically. I’m not a fan of toolbars so I disabled mine right away. Back to the wizard. If you leave your computer on all the time, you will want to run a daily scan whenever you aren’t using your computer. I would suggest something like 3 or 4 in the morning. Next will be the share information with AVG. I checked yes. This is a completely anonymous data report that helps AVG make better software. Next AVG will ask you to change your default search engine to Yahoo! I’m personally a Google guy so I left that unchecked. Hit next to check for updates. New antivirus signatures are being made everyday and AVG will download these updates to make sure you are staying current with your protection. Next it will ask you to register for AVG anti-virus. This will allow you to access their forums and get some technical support. After you finish you can double-click on the icon the the taskbar for AVG. If you set up automatic scans you don’t have to worry about scanning now, if you didn’t you should run a scan now. See you guys next time!