Best of the Free Anti-virus Choices?
iamjoltman writes "I've been looking to replace the McAfee anti-virus on my parent's XP machine. So, I've been looking at the three free anti-virus choices, AVG Free Edition, avast! Home Edition and AntiVir Personal Edition. I know there are other options, but I believe any others are only on-demand scanners, and that's not an option. So, what does the Slashdot crowd think is the best of these choices? Keep in mind, I'm only looking in anti-virus, I'll go elsewhere for firewall or malware protection."
If all they're doing is basic email, web browsing and other simple applications, you might want to try switching them over Ubuntu Linux. Try popping in a live cd, available for download on the project's site http://www.ubuntu.com/ and that will give you a good idea as to hardware compatibility. If all is well, try it out or do a dual-boot and have them give it a test drive. If they like it, run that as their sole or primary OS. No more viruses. Other than that, I'd go Mac if I were you.