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steviejoiner74 wrote:One of the few advantages of my iPad is no ant virus software is needed!

Are you sure? https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Malware_for_iOS

I use something free on my Windows box. Currently AVG (BT customers are allowed many free licenses) but Windows Defender is also OK.

@ someone-else. I'd also noticed AVG taking ages to perform a scan of late; today it updated to the latest version and instead of 40 minutes to scan th 'puter it took less than 5 minutes.

I know this is probably not helpful, but I have only run various flavours of Linux since 1994, and I have never used an anti-virus program (and never paid for any software either).

Unless there is a specific piece of software you need, no-one needs to fork out ££ for a M$ OS. There will always be Apple fanboys so if you fancy OSX - each to their own I guess.

Download a 'live' CD/memory card/USB stick image (meaning you don't need to install anything on your PC) from for instance Fedora or Ubuntu and try it.

Kaspersky - been on it for 6 or 7 years now. Prior to that I used McCaffee for a long time. Stuck with Windows because my CAD runs on Windows and I really don't want to learn a new CAD/CAM package.

Used to recommend AVG where I work but they became very annoying with there popups advertising there other products.

We now use Bitdefender :)

I know this post somewhat quite late but only just browsing the forums.
I use Norton Security and glad to say I've had no problems with this A/V package. Have owned it for 5years+ now and has gone through 3 generations of pc. I make sure it's kept updated regularly. The yearly fee is £60 as of Dec 2017, this works out £5/month and the price has gone up over the years. It is still top 5 rated in Which Computing and has been for a long time now.
I have 2pcs and a laptop running off the same account and keep all the logins on the vault. Think mine is a 3 license package, but could well be 5. Been a few months since I last checked.
Everyone has their own fave so this is just my opinion. As long as you keep the software up to date don't see why it should let you down. Another good package Which recommended in a past review was Kaspersky A/V but I have no experience of this. Hope it helps albeit bit late.

GC2decor8 wrote:Everyone has their own fave so this is just my opinion.

ta, but I won't touch Norton with a barge pole, let alone pay for it.

Norton isn't the bloatware it once was (2002-2007), never had a major issue with it and it has blocked everything thrown at it

I also have years of experience running it on a large 300+ machine network (endpoint)

I use Windows Security Essentials which works just fine. Then I have MalwareBytes (free) and CCleaner which I run once a month or so. I've never ran into any issues yet and I visit all sorts of dodgy sites.

Kaspersky which costs me about £20pa.

If you're not paying for the product, you are the product.