is there any decent anti virus that are free?

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such is life!

AVGfree seems to be what most use.

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Avast gets my vote

http://www.avast.com/

I have had AVG for years and had no viruses at all.
I originally installed in because my PC was infected with a virus which Norton didn't pick up. AVG found it.

The paid ones like Norton and McAfee are too intrusive on your PC anyway

I haven't run any anti virus software in the last 2 years and have yet to have a single infection. Even better, my PCs don't get slowed down by software working in the background checking things that don't need checked and updating itself.

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Phil
Advise rhymes with rise. Advice rhymes with rice.

You may have lots of virus and not know it. There are loads that run silently like key stroke loggers. They monitor what you type. Dangerous especially if you do internet banking. Might be worth trying the online virus scanners. Norton have a free one I think

Also the day you get a nasty virus and can't even start your PC, you may regret it. There are some real nasty ones that lock you out of your PC and thus you can't even install the antivirus if you then wanted to.

I take your point Phil about slowing the machine down. Bit of a pain alright!

The reason I know my PC isn't infected is because I scan it about once a month. My thinking is that if one of my PCs gets infected and it takes a couple of weeks to get it back up and rstored, I'm still much better off than slogging away with a PC that has been grinding along at a decrepit speed for years because it is compromised by anti-virus software.

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Phil
Advise rhymes with rise. Advice rhymes with rice.

very good, I am waaaay to lazy about back ups and have been caught out Lost some holiday picts

They may just have travelled back north for The Homecoming.

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Phil
Advise rhymes with rise. Advice rhymes with rice.

Ill say Avast! also, AVGs new version gets poor reviews, slow and irritating.
Norton have picked up their game, but it costs, so yeah..Avast

Avast if you want a freebie. NOD32 by eset if you want a paid one, this also has an extremely small footprint so you wont notice it running in the background as it uses less than 10mb

Avast is my vote though on one of my computers I dont run any security software and it runs very fast and I know theres no infections.

Get yourself superantispyware and threatfire as well.

Me being a bit of a saddo geek, I tend to read reviews of AV products every now and then. One that keeps doing well is Antivir by Avira, beating all the other free ones for detection rates and a lot of the paid for ones.

The free version of the anti-virus is the same as the full product, but is just a standalone AV without the firewall and other stuff.

Get it here

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http://www.FinchfieldIT.co.uk

I have Norton and my laptop is currently having a virus removed, professionally

depends which version of norton
no antivirus is infallible
safe browsing habits work well.