When I was working as a help desk and system administrator, I spent countless hours on spyware removal, anti virus protection, and other malware cleanup. There are a lot of free anti virus software packages, such as Avast, AVG, and Microsoft Security Essentials. A/V and Malware removal software will take up some of your computers resources, you might want to consider optimizing Windows 7 first to help improve your performance.
There are also a wide variety of paid security programs, which can be worth the cost if you have sensitive information stored on your hard drive, or you need it for your business. These include ESET, Kaspersky, Bitdefender and many others.
I would recommend against downloading Norton anti virus. It’s a very popular program, but that actually makes it less effective- it’s the first program that malware designers will try to circumvent. It is also bloated, though it’s not as bad as it used to be.
I compiled a list that includes the best anti virus and spyware programs I have personally tried and tested in the field.
Here are some of the best free malware, spyware, and virus removal tools. To Download the software click the link to go to each page.
Avast (my top choice)
Malwarebytes (my top choice)
CCleaner (my top choice)
AV Test, an IT security research institute, gave these scores after reviewing the following popular antivirus software packages:
Source: http://www.av-test.org/en/tests/home-user/mayjun-2012/
I have found the A/V and anti spyware tools we discussed above to be really useful, I would love to hear your experiences. Please leave a comment and let us know what you think.
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