which anti-virus/anti-spyware do you recommend?

[Xpirate]

I had my folks get McAffee. I live 1/2 hour's drive away and I don't have as much free time to help them resolve PC problems like I used to.

For my laptop, I'm trying out the free Avast! anti-virus. If I get intense malware on the laptop I can just blow everything away and start over in less than an hour.

I have Trend-micro on my machine at work. I've also heard that Kapersky is good. Norton is very effective, but it robs your machine of resources.

Thanks for all the responses.

[ShockTheBox]

superantispyware pro is by far one of the best programs for fighting spyware.. A really good tool to use is hitman pro.. which combines like 12 different programs in one to make a good scanner i like it

[Datech]

My company has a Kaspersky license and it works very well. Their previous releases have taken up a lot of system resources, but the newest release runs very nicely in the background, and a full scan doesn't tax your system as much as some would think. The workstation client is very customizable, in that you can be very hands-off or very hands-on with the administration of all of its services, and everything in between. They are one of the leaders as far as virus definition databases (they solved the 660 bit encryption worm, and their working on the new 1040 bit worm).

I'm currently using McAfee's Enterprise client, and it is even less taxing than Kaspersky. I use that in conjunction with SpyBot, Spyware Blaster, and AssassinSE and HijackThis! when it comes to higher level stuff.

My advice: anything but Norton/Symantec that meets your standards.

[progbuddy]

I used to use Comodo on my XP system. They might release the betas for vista.

[XcOM]

recently my bro got a free copy of windows love careone V2.5, three licences for 2 years, so i installed it on my laptop to see if its anygood, sofar good, the only thing i hate it having to have automatic updates turned on to stop it moaning about it

[SXRguyinMA]

I use Threatfire and Norton 360, no issues here

[XcOM]

yea, 99% of people will agree with me here,

no issues becuase norton bogs the machine soo much virus's don't have the chance to run J/K J/K

[xRyokenx]

yea, 99% of people will agree with me here,

no issues becuase norton bogs the machine soo much virus's don't have the chance to run J/K J/K

Yeah, that's actually probably true, lol. Norton is so terrible that they should pay you to run it. Seriously.

[SXRguyinMA]

I dont know where you guys get that from, On my rig Norton is way down the list on using resources, hell IE7 and iTunes both use a lot more than Norton does

even so, my system is still super fast

[mittelmeier]

My mom bought Norton back when Win 98 was the newest OS and installed in on our computer. It ran through and bogged the machine down bad. Worked for about and week and then deleted or quarantined half of the registry files so they computer wouldn't even boot up. Had to re-install Win98. I e-mailed them about it and they swore up and down that there is no way it deleted or quarantined files the computer needed to run. That's the last time I've used Norton.