Sophos, AVG, Avast or Zone Alarm??

[nappyaddict]

I know nothing about computers but need a new antivirus thingy and don't know which one to get. I had Norton before and it really slowed my computer down so want something that doesn't do this.

I use Avast on all the computers in this house and we have never had any problems with it. And it's free!!

also is spyware detector any good?

All of these are OK at what they do, but none (or even all together) offer the protection that you will get from a paid-for product/service. I would recommend Kaspersky, AVG or McAfee. If you have XP, go for the Security Suites with firewall (and parental controls if you want them), if you have Vista, just proactive Anti-Virus will do and use Vista's firewall and parental controls if you want.

Don't pay full price at the vendors sites - use an offer like this at a retailer - £20 for 3 PCs! - or Amazon.

Isn't AVG a free one aswell though?

There are (at least) four versions of AVG, only one of which is free: see this comparison.

In particular, AVG free does not protect you against malicious ActiveX downloads, and nor (as far as I am aware) does any other free software. If Internet Explorer is on your PC, you need this protection.

I use firefox rather than IE but IE is still on my computer so do I need the extra protection or not?

If you know that nobody else is going to fire up IE and start clicking on pop-ups that say 'You look like an idiot - click here or your computer will burst into flames', you should be fairly safe.

There are six people in my house using three windows computers (plus an unbelievable quantity and variety of other hardware!) so I consider security software an essential purchase; your equation may be different.

i just installed avg, i used it for ages a year ago, but got a new pc with norton

the new avg is being a complete pita already, not updating, resident shield goes on and off maybe as it's a vista