I just got a new computer from the Holiday festivities and now that it’s all plugged in, I’m scared to go online without a good anti-virus; I’ve seen what it could do to a machine (explaining the new one for the holidays!)? What is the best type of anti-virus out there?? I haven’t heard the best about some of the most market available Norton and McAfee.? Any help?!

It’s pretty shocking how terrible these anti-virus giants (Norton especially) are on your mainframes.? While only offering sub-par protection at best, they hog immense amounts of system resources, in particular: RAM.? Most computers are not equip with large amounts of RAM, thus slowing down the performance of the average machine.? It makes tasks like checking email quite tedious exponentially increasing time.

I highly recommend a number of free options as well as one market standard choice.? These programs use very little RAM and do not bog down the processor…

Nod32– The one non-free anti-virus I’m actually a fan of. “ESET delivers the fastest, most effective and most proactive antivirus and antispyware software solution to eliminate viruses, spyware, adware, worms, trojans, rootkits and other malware before they attack your system. Nobody does proactive protection better than ESET!” It does deliver on its promise.

Avast AntiVirus– is a wonderful solution for free for home, noncommercial use. The program works with both popular Windows Operating Systems (XP and Vista)

AVG AntiVirus– has both free and pay versions but the free version does fine for most non-commercial use!? It protects against virus and spyware and best of all, it updates on its own!? It has to be one of the best auto-updating processes I’ve seen from any anti-virus.? It updates at startup and you’ll never see it again…so say goodbye to annoying boxes that flash red while you’re playing your favorite online game or chatting with a loved one!

Try these alternatives out and find out how much it speeds up your computer.