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I hope it is okay to post a question here which is not directly connected to flight simulator or A2A plane. If moderator find it wil be against forum roles or if such questions should not be asked here, you should of cource delete the thread, and please just tell me so I am aware of it. But I give it a try.

The last 5 years so have I have Norton, and the latest years Norton 360 premium edition. I have been satisfied with it, except from that it is a bit expensive and that it uses a lot of resorses of the computer(something Norton is known for). I have now only a week left before I have to renew and pay for another year, and think of change the program. The two alternatives are: Norman Security Suite or Mac Affee 2012. This two programs I can get for free, the first from my internet provider and the latter from my internet bank. I have tried Norman one short time before, and did not like it so very much, but that was some years ago, so it may have changed. If I should choose, I will go for Macaffee.

What I wonder now is which of these two programs should you recomend me to use?

Or if they both are 'bad' choises, please let me know, and why they should be bad.

If I choose to use one of this two for me free programs, I can use the money to buy one of the following products: TrackIr 5, rudderpedals, a yoke or a throttlebox. I think I will go for the TrackIr 5 first. Then in mid summer I will get enough money to buy the rest.

I will be very glad if some can give me some advice on this matter.

Freeware alternatives;

Anti-Vir
AVG

Buggest rule to follow, browse carefully, and use your head.

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AVG or Avast, both free from File Hippo. Both very good and very resource friendly. At the same time I would recommend CCleaner and AdAware. Also both free.

Regards
Paul

Thank you both for your answers. AVG, have I of cource heard of, but I have never tried it.

I think I will go for the MacAfee alternative, it normaly cost money, but I get one year licens from my bank. Last year and the year before they provided the same as my internet provider company, Norman. Also that is a program you normaly should pay for but you get it for free. But the bank have changed to MacAffee. I have read some reviews of that program, it does not score as good as Norton but it uses less resorses than Norton, strange enough so is it more expensive than Norton if you have to pay for it.

Have anyone here some experience of MacAffee?
And if so, is there some problem it can cause?

I wouldnt go with a pay one, I only know of one decent payware one and that is NOD32. The fre avast, anti-vir or AVG still regulary beat the payware ones in tests. Paying for anti-virus is for me throwing money down the drain. Anti-vir is the best IMO.

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A2A Facebook for news live to your social media newsfeed
A2A Youtube because a video can say a thousand screenshots,..
My twitter for my own twitter and random A2A insights

I agree with Lewis, I also don't like the aggressive marketing tactics of Norton and McAfee.

As important as anti-virus IMO is a good firewall. I've used Comodo for years and am very happy with it.
After all, it's better to stop malware entering in the first place. I use MSE for scans and also have had no problems with it.

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POTR
"Only birds and fools fly and even the birds don't fly at night"

Thanks for the inputs.

Then I might should try one of this freeware, products(even if that payware was freeware for me, hehe).

But this with firewall. As I said before so have I used Norton the latest years and there is of cource the build in firewall program. Is it not build in firewalls in this programs you guys suggest?

There's also Microsoft Security Essentials which is free too.

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"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese"
- G.K. Chesterton.

i7 2600K, 8GB Vengeance RAM, Asus P67, GTX 580.

I prefer a separate firewall because they can be easily switched on and off and tweaked as necessary.
The reviews I've read indicate that complete suites offering anti-v and firewall aren't as effective as separate components. Comodo has an antivrus but it possibly conflicts with MSE so I can switch that part of it off. It also has a "sandbox" facility allowing you to run untrusted programs in isolation. Not to mention a "games" mode which I haven't even tried yet!

MSE= Microsoft security essentials

[edit] I should point out that I play BoBII and that is very intolerant of background applications. so for me the ability to easily switch on and off is important, as well as having the most leakproof firewall.

I also indulge in "risky behaviour" and my combination of the computer equivalent of the the thickest condom works for me
The last problem I had was a nasty trojan about 5 years ago which AVG identified but couldn't eradicate so i had to delete it from the registry.

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POTR
"Only birds and fools fly and even the birds don't fly at night"

My first, and last, experience with Norton wasn't a good one. This was several years ago and maybe things have changed since then, but my experience was that I loaded Norton and then was hit with a major-league virus that shut down my computer. I scratched my head for days and couldn't find a solution. As it turned out, Norton Security was the virus. I deleted it and all was well.
And sound wisdom from Lewis - it's not worth paying money for anti-virus. There are several programs that are free like Ad-Aware, Spybot, McAfee Stinger, Ccleaner; that can create a mosaic of free protection. It's a pain to run several programs, but they each cover what the others miss, and they're free and not viruses themselves.

edit: Avast is the other one that I use and couldn't remember.

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i7 2600, 8GB, Nvidia 420, 1.5TB, W7, TrackIR-5

My vote goes to Comodo too. It offers full security suite for free. It is a bit poweruser'ish, but really offers a lot like sandbox and really configurable firewall. CIS's antivirus has pretty good heuristic engine, but it may sometimes give a false warning. It happens really not too often (like some reviews may say) and you learn to recognize them. At least I don't get annoyed with it.

Comodo is a top notch firewall. It's AV is good, mainly because it is a poor removal tool, but a good blocker (removal comes with payware version). Especially some older reviews give poor results for Comodo tools, but for example Comodo was top performer in Matousec's proactive challenge in 2011 and 2012.

Year ago I ran Avast as my AV and Comodo as Firewall, but after my last OS install I went strictly to Comodo and like it so far. It is by far the best package for the price (free ), but I still may go with Pro version some day, which costs only 5 bucks a year!

Currently I'm using Avira Free Antivirus: http://www.avira.com/en/avira-free-antivirus
Downside of this one is an annoying pop up that reminds you that could also pay for it.
There is a trick to block it: http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-the-Popup ... ra-Antivir
But it gets disabled after every update so you have to redo this after every update.

When Vista arrived Avria was not compatible so I had to change to AVG Free Antivirus: http://free.avg.com/de-en/homepage
Was also good, at least I had no problems. I changed back to Avria for no other reason than trying something else.

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