McAfee sub. expiring - what next?

[mshrmh]

Our McAfee sub. expires soon - we've heard nothing from them, but checking their website seems it would be £49.99 to renew for one year. A couple of sites came up when searching that suggest they would charge around half that - would it be safe to do this or would we end up with a "dodgy" version?

We've seen suggestions of free alternatives & would be grateful for any recommendations of good products & ones to avoid.

We have Windows XP and run Internet Explorer 7 as the browser.

Many thanks for all thoughts.

[Gadget]

Hi

McAfee has a really good reputation but you might also try AVG for free. it is very good and many Rootschat members use it.

http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/

Gadget

[kerryb]

I second Gadget's emotion!  (sorry been listening to hits of the 80s!)

AVG is free and I have found it a lot less hassle than I used to have with McAfee for some reason.

Kerry

[Uncle Reff]

I have Free AGV on the laptop and Norton Internet Security 2007 on the desktop.

Would recommend both, but also that you need a firewall if you only have AGV, try PC Tools firewall which is also free.

I read in a magazine recently that often the free ones are the best value

I got the Norton on ebay for £12, and just looking there now that are many around that price.

John

[Indaloman]

Zonealarm is another firewall freebie I've used for 3 years now along with AVG and have had no problems at all

[mshrmh]

Just come back online - thank you for your replies.
Am I getting this right ?
AVG = anti-virus
ZoneAlarm = firewall

Are there any anti-spam suggestions? Especially as McAfee thinks emails from BT about our bill are spam & won't take any notice of us telling it they are not 
Should we uninstall McAfee if we install alternative(s)?

At the moment we're intending to see how long before McAfee stop letting us update and then change.

Thanks for all the ideas.

[LizzieW]

We have ZoneAlarm Security Suite on both our PC and my laptop.  It is a firewall,and has antivirus, antispyware, e-mail protection etc. etc. Check out the following website

www.ZoneAlarm.com

It seems to have gone up since I bought it, but it is only $49.50 which is about £25 at the moment.  Not much to pay for peace of mind.

Liz

[Thudnut]

I would agree with the AVG / Zonealarm recommendations.

If you want a spam filter, try mailwasher:
http://www.mailwasher.net/

That's free too!

Good luck
Thudders

[Michael72.]

To solve your Spam problems you need to download Spamfighter from here...

       http://www.spamfighter.com/

It's FREE....

AVG is also a must......to avoid any conflicts, you would have to dump McAfee...no great loss believe me...

ZoneAlarm, although quite good, has a nasty habit of assuming it knows better than you and can cause allsorts of hard to define problems....if you want a trouble free Firewall, look for Agnitum 'Outpost Firewall. v.1.0 Freeware'


Michael72.