Free Antivirus Packages Available

There are some free antivirus packages available as follows:

AVG Free Edition

Reviewers found AVG Free Edition's interface to be awkward but applauded the application's creation of rescue diskettes for emergency recovery situations. The software was found to integrate well with a wide variety of email programs but it was not a successful agent against spyware and its scheduling features are limited at best. Essentially, AVG is better than nothing but there is more full-featured freeware available.

Online Virus Scans

In addition to free software that can be downloaded and installed, there are also online virus scanners available. Trend Micro offers this service at housecall.trendmicro.com. Panda ActiveScan can be found under the Products section at www.pandasoftware.com. This application will look for and eliminate more than 110,000 known viruses, worms, and Trojans, and is billed as a "second opinion" on the health of your PC. Online scanners are also available at www.bitdefender.com and usa.kaspersky.com. Note that many of these online scanners will ask you to agree to a "terms and conditions" statement and some require the installation of java script to function. Others require the user to be using Internet Explorer rather than an alternate browser like Firefox.

What are the Commercial Antivirus Options?

If your budget will allow, your best options to protect your system from viruses, adware, and spyware lie in the subscription based commercial products currently available. These products combine well-rounded virus definitions with full-featured scheduling and scanning options and routine, automated DAT file updates. The leaders in the field of commercial antivirus scanning software are Norton AntiVirus by Symantec, McAfee VirusScan 2006, and Trend Micro PC_Cillin Internet Security.

Unfortunately, with new viruses of all sorts being written each day, it is no longer a viable option for a user who sends and receives email and goes online to try to operate a computer without some form of virus protection installed. Although the freeware options for such security may not be as full-featured as commercial options, they are a much better option than ignoring your computer's security altogether. As with any software packages, do your research, read reviews, and make the best selection you can for your individual computer system and for the type of computer activities in which you engage. The bottom line is that you cannot get by without antivirus software. Free offerings mean you don't have to try.

It is not difficult to locate free antivirus downloads. Simply use any good search engine to look for the products mentioned here or to conduct your own search. Just use the phrase, "free antivirus software." Antivirus security has become a standard of computer security for both home and office and free products are available for all computer users.