[vettegofast]

My mother-in-law is going to purchase a computer from circuit city or best buy. They told her she needed to pay $180 to have them install Mcafee or Notron AV/Spyware/Firewall on her computer.

I have been using AVG/Zone Alarm/Ad-aware combinations to keep Malware off my pc's and I have no problems.

Best buy told her having AVG free is like not having an AV at all.

I am an ISP network admin and I have end users calling me every week that they are having internet/email trouble or their PC is running bad. Alot of times it has to do with Mcafee or Norton.

SO whats your opinion? Are they just trying to make more money or is free "you get what you pay for"?

Edited by vettegofast, 13 June 2006 - 07:01 PM.

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Best buy told her having AVG free is like not having an AV at all.

They are full of themselves and want the exorbitant amount of money they charge for loading those programs.

In my opinion, AVG free is a very good anti-virus program. I would recommend it over Norton or McAfee anyday. Of course that is just my opinion. I do remove malware from computers on a daily basis so that opinion was not formed without reason.

[Michelle]

Best buy told her having AVG free is like not having an AV at all.

They are full of themselves and want the exorbitant amount of money they charge for loading those programs.

In my opinion, AVG free is a very good anti-virus program. I would recommend it over Norton or McAfee anyday. Of course that is just my opinion. I do remove malware from computers on a daily basis so that opinion was not formed without reason.

[warriorscot]

Yeah, AVG and Avast are usually the two most popular free AVs, and consistently in product reviews for AV ability they beat norton and mcaffee time after time. And they are free.

They arent a intrusive as norton and mcaffee, both can cause problems if not set up properly or they encounter something unexpected.

[vettegofast]

Thanks for the replies. I will have her buy it without the Norton and use AVG. I also go to trendmicro.com and run housecall once in awhile to be sure im free of malware. I havent had anything yet. I also find Norton to be a memory hog on the PC.

[LUEshi]

I like Avast more than all of them. If you want to pay for a really good AV, NOD32 is the best IMO.

[warriorscot]

Avast is my preference, it gets rated higher than AVG usually because its a more polished piece of software it looks good and has alot of features, AVG is a good AV but it can be a bit sparse on the nice little extras.

Biggest bit of polish is skin support gotta love the star trek TNG skin.

[starjax]

I would say I like avast as well. It has a better interface than avg.

Ewido rocks. not free either. free version only lasts for 2 weeks.

From experience I have used ewido and avast to clean up severly infected systems.