Antivirus or not?
 

personally, I have not used an antivirus program for about 3 years. They drag my system down too much, and I get tired of all of the updates right at the wrong time.

I use Norton antivirus. I just turned off all the annoying features. It works great and keeps my computer clean. The viruses will slow the computer down more than having the programming running.

I guess I have just been lucky enough to stay away from viruses. I have had a few, even when I had an AV, but I kinda learned what to stay away from.

I had Norton until I few weeks ago. Something got into my computer and messed up the settings of Norton. Now I use some freeware programs, that worked well.

they say AVAST is a good free one to use.

Yeah, the constant updates may be annoying, but then again, it's better to be safe than sorry. A computer connected to the internet is very much probe to viruses, so it's better to have some protection. :)[/quote]

Most viruses are installed during the night while your computer screen is turned off and your computer NOT active. They 'hackers' know that your not there so your not going to notice it happening to stop it. They can get into your computer and make norton and other AV(Anti Virus) programs to not notice it or not detect it as a threat. This can be very annoying especially if it is a sleeper, where it comes out after a period of time, and can really screw up your computer and make it go a lot slower.

So if you weigh the slow down of the AV running in the background to spyware and viruses destroying and corrupting data. Having that little slow down from the AV is much better then your data that you find usefull and may NEED later being deleted or corrupted so that you can't get into it.

I have the following AV ( Anti Virus ) programs:

Norton
a² Personal Edition
Panda Platinum Internet Security
avast! Virus Cleaner Tool

I think that is all the AV ( Anti Virus ) programs that I have.

I also suggest you getting at least ONE of these if you do not already.

i think avast is a good one ..u can update for free!

yeah...it's better to be safe than sorry...well, maybe just a little safe since there are viruses which can still infect your computer...

If you are looking for an effective and non-consuming AV, I'd suggest NOD32.

To be honest Nortons always lagged me out too much. While playing games it would always pop up and annoy the hell out of me. i now use a free one that doesnt take much resources at all. I also use adaware once a week etc to try and keep my machine clean.

Antivirus programs have traditionally been huge resource hogs. I do not run one myself. I take measures to make sure programs can not illegally install themselves to begin with, then I will manually run one once in a while. All the time access is not necessary if you have a good understanding of the issues.

It's true that any antivirus scanner will slow your system down but it is necessary.
I use Kaspersy for Anti-Virus and Spybot Search and Destroy for Spyware.

I would never want to run my machine without some form of anti-virus software... Viruses can render the machine unusable for a while, and that would really suck! I've often used Norton, but right now I'm using AVG free, it works quite well, and it doesn't take up a lot of resources.

Apart from Norton Antivirus, even MCAfee is a trusted antivirus...Also, another contention for the antivirus software is AVG. Each of these softwares has its own pros and cons....it all depends on which one satisfies your requirements and basically, which of it protects your comp to max limit..