Many people often ask the question "Why is an antivirus/antispyware program important?"... The truth is, they are important, then again they are not, this is all determined by what you use your computer for. There are many online scanners that simply install an ActiveX control on your computer rather than the entire software. This could be considered an "On Demand Scanner" which is only in use when you-the user-goes to the website hosting the scanner and initiates a scan. This is an ok solution in some cases, but if you use your computer for more than a dvd player to watch movies you rent, or as another means to check the time, then you should really consider installing an antivirus and antispyware software solution.

So many reasons back this opinion up, such as -

• What if you get a worm, virus, torjan, adware, spyware, malware object on your computer that restircts access to the internet, eats up bandwidth, redirects your browser, or the likes? You then wont be able to get to a website to perform an online scan to remove these unwanted objects!
• Usually when you install software to handle your protection needs, it will have tons of more features such as being able to quarantine objects it finds, allow you to backup files before they are removed, provide real-time protection as you use your computer, and more.
• Allow you to remove more serious variants of unwanted objects by means of advanced removal methods.
• Reduce scanning time dramatically.

Read on to see how to stay protected, and ways to keep your computer running smooth FREE of charge!

Everyone comes to a time where they want some protection for their computer. Unfortunately this time is usually after they already got some very bad piece of software on their computer, and potentially lost some data in order to remove it.

So you start shopping around, jumping on your favorite search engine, in hopes to find that PERFECT antivirus or antispyware solution you wish you had a long time ago. It is just too bad that most likely if you typed in "antivirus" or anything similar into the search engine you got about 235823489573498765655 results.... now what!? A good majority of them are probably what are known as rogue products. Meaning they scan your computer pretending to find malicious objects and then present you with a window stating something to the likes of "remove these unwanted objects for just $49.95". Another vast majority of the search results will contain legitimate products that you have to pay for (commonly referred to as internet security products).

So far your options are $49.95 for a fake antivirus/antispyware scanner, $50.00+ for a complete internet security application (keep in mind this is 99% of the time a yearly fee for 1 user - 1 license). Are those all your options... or is there by any chance something, anything out there other than these that provide the same amount of protection as the "paid for" versions? Simply put, YES! and I have put together a list of some of the best protection you can get with a price tag of FREE!

My Top 5 FREE Antivirus Products

1. AVG Free Edition 8.5
2. Bitdefender 10 Free Edition
3. Avast 4.8
4. Malwarebytes' Anti-malware
5. Avira AntiVir Personal

My Top 5 FREE Antispyware Products

1. Spybot - Search and Destroy 1.6.2
2. Ad-Aware Free
3. Spyware Doctor Entriprise Edition 3
4. SpywareBlaster
5. SpywareGuard
   

My Top 5 FREE Online Virus & Spyware Scanners

1. Bitdefender Online Virus Scanner
2. Trend Micro HouseCall Online Virus Scanner
   
3. ESET (Nod32) Online Virus Scanner
4. Kaspersky Online Virus Scanner
5. Ewido Online Spyware Scanner (now owned by Grisoft)
   

Hopefully after reading this hub you will now have some resources available that will fit your needs. Some knowledge to pass on besides what has already been shared is to keep in mind that 99.9% of software you find online that you must buy a license for, someone else has made a product very similar, just as good, if not better and they offer it for free! Hopefully you try some of the products out mentioned in this hub, and find the one that is just for you that will keep your computer safe from threats you may happen to pick up in your everday computer usage.

^{*Note: It is NOT a good idea to install more than 1 antivirus application at a time. More than not they will just conflict with each other and can cause all sorts of "wierd" outcomes. However, you can install as many spyware scanners as you like, they tend to conflict with one another far far less than antivirus programs do.}

** Tip: If you suspect you do have a virus, but your installed antivirus program is not picking it up, try one of the mentioned online scanners to see what it may find.