Virus Protection?

I use the norton anti virus and anti spywher got the disk a wal mart for about $30 and it works great easy to use to.

-Bill

 

NOD32 by ESET, here...I have tried them all and this one is the best IMO

eins

 

I would recommend AVG.  It is free and does a good job.  Additionally, I run Ad-Aware by Lavasoft (also free) for cleanup of "crapware".
If you don't want to worry about virus' and crapware, try Ubuntu Linux.  You can download a "Live" CD and take it for a spin without even installing it.

 

AVG is free and was also recommended to me by someone from IT at the bank I work for.

 

I have an IT business, and I just became an ESET affiliate because i have been very impressed with their anitivirus products. l they offer a very high level of protection and have a small footprint on the computer.

 

Nod32 is a great program, I've had issues with Norton slowing my box, McAfee is okay but both Norton and McAfee are difficult to completely uninstall (that bothers me).
Been running the free version of AVG for quite a while, granted I don't do the things I used to that subjected me to viruses /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/wink.gif, but the free version will outperform several Av's that you need to pay for.
Doesn't sound like you are looking to go to Linux, but they now have anti-virus as well so the hackers are catching up!
What operating system do you use?  Has this been a gradual system-wide slow down or did it happen suddenly?
Many things, other than viruses, can slow your computer down.  IE7 comes out of the box with a 1 gig cache, windows doesn't like to get rid of temp files, something could be chewing up all of your ram, and this could be as simple as a driver issue.
Grab an anti-virus, run Windows defender (if you're an authorized user, if not you'll need to look for the hack /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default/emoticons/biggrin.gif), uninstall anything you don't need, look at your task manager to see what all is running and what's taking ram and accessing your drive, empty your temp files, reduce IE's cache to 200 mb or less, stop crap you don't need from starting automatically (i.e. iTunes, Real Player, QuickTime, etc.), run Windows update to make sure your drivers and the OS are up to date.
If this doesn't make any difference, there are free memory tests that will put your ram through hell - bad ram and bad pwer supplies will also cause the symptoms of programs terminating un-expectantly.
Depending on how easy it would be for you to back all of your data up to another drive, you could also do a system restore/re-install and start over - I used to do this every couple of months with NT4/95/98/2000 and XP.
-Eric

 

+1 more for AVG. I've got it installed on all of our home computers.