André asked what the best free AV software was.

Well, I’ve used two.

1) AVG Free – v7 was very good, but I’ve found v8 to be a little clunky; it slows down my machine and recently corrupted itself on Amanda’s, so we’ve moved over to…

2) Avast, on Chris‘ recommendation. As well as its awesome piratical name, it has a smaller footprint (so runs faster), and seems to work well. You do need to register, which is slightly tedious, but has been worth it so far.

You may need a firewall as well, to keep properly secure, but you’ll have to research those yourself for now…