[slydeer123]

Several months ago I was hit very hard with malware, adware and virusses. A member of this site graciously and patiently helped me for several days clean up my computer and helped be add new programs to protect it in the future. I deleted Norton anit virus and replaced it with a less resource hog AVG, installed Zone firewall, and intalled Spyguard.
AVG is now no longer free to update, you must purchase this from now on. I was wondering if I should go ahead and purchase this or are there other comprable FREE programs out there that can replace AVG?

Also I was wondering if there is anything else i should install to protect from virusses, spyware, malware etc...?

I appreciate any help, I am struggling to keep up....

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Hi slydeer123. AVG is still a free application for personal use. If the installed version no longer works because a purchased license is needed it is probably the commercial version and the trial period has expired. Uninstall that and get the free version here.

As for other protection, one antivirus program (which you will be getting) and one firewall (which you have - Zone Alarm) are the best protection. The rest really boils down to safe practices such as:

• Never open or install anything that came from any file-sharing program. The are littered with malware and with most of it, no matter what is installed on a system, it will install and corrupt the system. There are plenty of excellent free resources available from reputable sites, file-sharing networks are not one of them.
• Never click on links or open attached files in any email, even from people you know (unless you can verify that the sender actually sent it). Many infections can send spam/infected mail out from a system without the owner even knowing about it. If the sender is unkown don't even view it, just delete it.
• Never click on any links or files sent through instant messaging programs unless you can verify that the sender has actually sent it. This is increasingly becoming another venue that infections are using without the owners knowledge.

Following those three simple rules will be worth more than any amount of programs installed to try and stop an infection.

Cheers.

OT

[OldTimer]

Hi slydeer123. AVG is still a free application for personal use. If the installed version no longer works because a purchased license is needed it is probably the commercial version and the trial period has expired. Uninstall that and get the free version here.

As for other protection, one antivirus program (which you will be getting) and one firewall (which you have - Zone Alarm) are the best protection. The rest really boils down to safe practices such as:

• Never open or install anything that came from any file-sharing program. The are littered with malware and with most of it, no matter what is installed on a system, it will install and corrupt the system. There are plenty of excellent free resources available from reputable sites, file-sharing networks are not one of them.
• Never click on links or open attached files in any email, even from people you know (unless you can verify that the sender actually sent it). Many infections can send spam/infected mail out from a system without the owner even knowing about it. If the sender is unkown don't even view it, just delete it.
• Never click on any links or files sent through instant messaging programs unless you can verify that the sender has actually sent it. This is increasingly becoming another venue that infections are using without the owners knowledge.

Following those three simple rules will be worth more than any amount of programs installed to try and stop an infection.

Cheers.

OT

[slydeer123]

Thanks Oldtimer,

My AVG still works but I got a message that said after June 1 I would need to upgrade to a new version in order to continue to get updates, this new version was a pay version so I wasn't sure if the program would continue to work and I have not tried to run a an update since I got that message.

If I can't get my current AVG version to update I will uninstall my version and install the version you posted. One last question, do I need any special program to uninstall my current version of AVG or can I unistall using ADD/REMOVE programs from control panel?

Thanks again.

[OldTimer]

Hi slydeer123. Add/Remove programs should be used to uninstall AVG. If the version of AVG that is installed is 7.0 or 7.5 then that can also be a reason for the message. AVG recently updated to version 8 and updates for older version will no longer be available. June sounds about right for the cutoff. Grisoft does not advertise their free version and so the warning will not give you the option to upgrade to the free version. Just uninstall the current version and update to the one in the link above.

Cheers.

OT

[slydeer123]

Oldtimer;

Thats exactly what it said. I need to upgrade to 8.0 and the link they offer is only for a "pay" version of 8.0. Thanks again for your help.