Free McAfee Internet Security after rebate

llbad

New Member
Coming from a self-proclaimed computer nerd:

You should just use AVG or Avira. They are free and neither will suck up all of the resources that McAfee does nor continually prompt you to purchase. They also both work well. Also, these types of things only protect you from actual viruses; you are probably going to need Malwarebytes (also free) or a program similar to it. It wont run continually like anti-virus programs do, you just run it every once a month or so and it picks up malware. These scans are especially important for people like users of this forum to do every once in awhile, simply due to the fact that some freebies, contests, etc. turn out to not be genuine and can in fact be harmful. I hope I'm not going off on a tangent here lol... just my $.02

But anyway, read reviews on antivirus software to get a better perspective. There are lots of good free ones out there.
 

chris

Administrator
Staff member
Coming from a self-proclaimed computer nerd:

You should just use AVG or Avira. They are free and neither will suck up all of the resources that McAfee does nor continually prompt you to purchase. They also both work well. Also, these types of things only protect you from actual viruses; you are probably going to need Malwarebytes (also free) or a program similar to it. It wont run continually like anti-virus programs do, you just run it every once a month or so and it picks up malware. These scans are especially important for people like users of this forum to do every once in awhile, simply due to the fact that some freebies, contests, etc. turn out to not be genuine and can in fact be harmful. I hope I'm not going off on a tangent here lol... just my $.02

But anyway, read reviews on antivirus software to get a better perspective. There are lots of good free ones out there.
I'm a big fan of microsoft security essentials too
 

PopCulture

New Member
Coming from a self-proclaimed computer nerd:

You should just use AVG or Avira. They are free and neither will suck up all of the resources that McAfee does nor continually prompt you to purchase. They also both work well. Also, these types of things only protect you from actual viruses; you are probably going to need Malwarebytes (also free) or a program similar to it. It wont run continually like anti-virus programs do, you just run it every once a month or so and it picks up malware. These scans are especially important for people like users of this forum to do every once in awhile, simply due to the fact that some freebies, contests, etc. turn out to not be genuine and can in fact be harmful. I hope I'm not going off on a tangent here lol... just my $.02

But anyway, read reviews on antivirus software to get a better perspective. There are lots of good free ones out there.

So, would Norton work the same of Malwarebytes?
 

llbad

New Member
So, would Norton work the same of Malwarebytes?

Norton Internet Security would, but Norton Antivirus wouldn't. Then there is probably a Norton Firewall which is a totally different ballpark =D.

-Paid Internet security suits generally include both the anti-malware/anti-spyware (same thing) and antivirus.

-OR you can specialize and get anti-malware from one company, and antivirus from another, which can generally be done free with very little benefits lost. E.g. running AVG Antivirus and also scanning occasionally with Malwarebytes.

Examples of free anti-virus programs:AVG, Avira, Avast!

Examples of free anti-malware: Spybot Search and Destroy, Malwarebytes, Ad-Aware

Examples of free internet security suite: Microsoft Security Essentials, drawing a blank....

Examples of paid internet security suites: BitDefender, Kaspersky, Norton, NOD32, etc.

In terms of which company is the best it's all about reviews (which can be found easy enough on google) and personal preference to features.

Internet security suites are essentially an all-in-one solution to protecting your PC. OR, you can build your own protection for free by downloading one of both anti-spyware and anti-virus and but few minor perks.

This being said, if you ever feel as though something is infecting your computer (runs slower than usual, lots of ads, etc.) go through this process:

1)Run CCleaner (clears your cookies and a few other things, can free up space and speed up your computer)
2)If problem persists, run anti-virus
3)If problem persists, run anti-malware
4)If nothing is still picked up still then try a scan using a different anti-malware program
5)Run CCleaner again

Also, it's good to occasionally run anti-malware anyway because it's possible to be infected without any noticeable change in your PCs speed. Once I was downloading content for a game and, unbeknownst to me, ended up with a keylogger. The keylogger program ran hidden in the background and consantly sent every single thing I typed (passwords included) in emails to the person who I downloaded it from. Needless to say, in a few days my game account was stolen and I had learned my lesson. The keylogger was very easy to remove and required a simple scan, but the point is he could have not stolen my game account and I would have never known it was happening. Had I been older... bank accounts, card numbers etc. could have been involved. This is why it's important to scan occasionally even if you don't think anything is wrong; with most programs you can schedule scans to happen overnight so it doesn't affect your time on the computer.

I hope I'm not scaring or confusing you =D. Almost all problems can be prevented with a bit of common sense :bigthumb:
 
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