I just bought a netbook. What should I use to protect it from bad computer stuff?
Asked by
wilma (
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)
May 5th, 2011
I recently got a netbook and I want to get some spyware, malware, and virus, protection and also cleaners for other things that might junk it up.
On my desktop I have CC Cleaner, AVG antivirus, Advanced System Care and Malwarebytes’. I’m wondering if those programs might be too big for my netbook and really slow it down or make it not function as it should.
I have a Acer 10.1” Netbook PC, with # Intel Atom N550 processor
1.5GHz, 667MHz Front Side Bus, 1MB L2 Cache, 2GB DDR3 SDRAM system memory, # 320GB SATA hard drive, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition. It also came with the Nook e-reader installed. I am just running the McAfee trial security that came on it.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do to protect this little netbook. I bought it for travel/portability, and it’s not my main computer, but I do want to keep it running smoothly and trouble-free.
I am not at all computer literate, so if you could please use simple terms to help me get my cute little netbook protected.
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9 Answers
My computer technician told me that AVG was actually a virus.
I use McAfee and it’s wonderful.
@KatetheGreat
”My computer technician told me that AVG was actually a virus.” Then he is not very competent, to put it mildly.
I personally use Comodo Internet Security. In any case, you should only have 1 of those installed, as they will interfere with each other (e.g. detect each other as malware) if you install 2 or more of them at the same time.
@KatetheGreat what was your technician trying to sell?
I hate McAfee and Norton. I run AdAware always in the background and separately run Avast! and Malwarebytes once a week. I surf and download a lot of files and never had a problem with this system. All are regularly updated free programs that don’t interfere with the jobs I want to do.
Microsoft Security Essentials is pretty good. Easy to set up and doesn’t need much attention.
Remember it’s just a netbook with decreased speed, so don’t put too much stuff on it in the background otherwise it’ll slow down.
AVG is not a virus, but an antivirus program. It works very well. Another good free antivirus program is Avira. Spybot is a good spyware program.
Agree with @ragingloli. Only put one antivirus program on your machine otherwise they will interfere with each other. It’s okay, though, to have an antivirus program and an anti spyware program running at the same time.
Again, remember, everything sucks processor speed. Tha’ts okay if you have a screaming fast i7 but netbooks are notoriously slow.
I run mine on Linux (Mint 10) instead of Windows. Works way better, and I don’t really need to worry about that stuff. I used to use Avast! antivirus.
On the Windows side, I use Avira and Spybot S&D.
Here are the detection rates for some popular anti-virus programs according to AV-Comparatives
Avast – 98.4%
Avira – 97.5%
Kaspersky – 97.0%
McAfee – 96.8%
Microsoft Security Essentials – 95.8%
Symantec (Norton) – 95.5%
AVG – 91.4%
AVG isn’t a virus, but it does little to stop things that are virii. The one infection I ever got was while running AVG :/
Note that the two top ones there are both free?
Of course, you could just go with Linux ad avoid the whole hassle :D
Thank you all for your responses.
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