Constant nagging advertisements come to mind.

Further, most freeware products are not fully functional. For example: most freeware firewalls monitor inbound traffic exclusively. NOT outbound. That would be a problem for someone who has inadvertently downloaded a Trojan (which an anti-virus program may not catch). The free firewall will not say a thing when said Trojan opens a back door or starts spamming all your buddy's Email addresses.
Even then, you typically have to manually configure each and every one of your applications to be allowed through the firewall.
Again as an example, the Norton Security product has the Trusted Applications list. That allows most recognized friendly programs to access the Internet in and out without you having to grant permission. Even then, some programs have other programs come into play. Will the freeware keep up with those too? Nope.

I'm not pushing the Norton product, just trying to give an idea as to what a paid for version gives you verses the freeware stuff.

Nothing Is For Free!

 

Dumb questions are easier to deal with than dumb mistakes.

Here's some helpful info on how to keep your computer secure ~ http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=388472

Here's a fairly recent and comprehensive review of all the anti-virus programs ~ http://www.virus.gr/english/fullxml/...p?id=82&mnu=82

 

In my experience MacAfee is the biggest resource hog. I have it at work and Norton at home. I prefer Norton. The only time it is very slow is when it does it's disk scans. I will normally pause it and continue it when I am taking a break.

 

Norton sure gets good write ups in most computer magazines - - seems to be the benchmark they use to compare against. yeh, it's big - - but so is most any other "good" program. Does a lot of stuff and that means large files.

 

My Norton Internet Security 2006 has just expired and I have a red flashing icon in my task bar.
It says I am unprotected against Trojan.Peacomm and I need to update my definitions.


http://www.symantec.com/security_res...011917-1403-99


I have no problems running NIS 2006 and will be installing NIS 2007 tonight.
In the last few weeks I have gotten several messages in my Inbox that a message has been deleted because it was infected with a Trojan Horse.

I would rather get an annoying flashing Icon than have something sneak by and infect my system and then be wondering why.

It does take a long time to scan all of my hard drives though because I have 1,200 Gb internal in addition to 600Gb external.
Jim

 

Any virus software is better than none. I was just saying that there are better ones that are easier to use that don't put files throughout your computer.