Concerns over security software

There are many ways to provide security, one of which is to keep harmful elements away from those parts or people they may want to damage. Exclusion is often the only way society can defend itself.

Many companies are offering to protect our PCs for free

It is much the same for people that go online, where the main focus of security is keeping our data safe.

The big players like Symantec, McAfee and Sophos offer huge suites of programs aimed at protecting you and your computer online.

But there is an alternative. A growing number of programs from smaller firms are aimed at the security market are available to download free of charge.

More often than not these programs are meant to entice you to upgrade to the full version, which costs money.

Zone Labs do just that with a free version of their firewall product, ZoneAlarm. But offering software gratis does more for the company than just expand its potential customer base.

"We get a lot of experience from the free version, so by having 35 millions copies of ZoneAlarm out there we're able to understand what is the threat environment, and provide a more secure proposition to our paid user base," said Laura Yecies of Zone Labs.

I don't really care about free internet security. I think Norton is still the best no matter the fact you still have to pay once a year to keep your subscription running.

Avira Antivir Classic edition is the best free (and IMO best of all) Antivirus software

I think in general from what I know Norton Internet Security 2006 is pretty darn good even though its not free.

Na it's shitty, it makes your pc slow, causes alot of programs not to work ominously etc, i had it once.

Windows Firewall is crap, and I dont use AVG Any more, I use Avira Antivir Classic edition , which is alot cleaner and better on resources, Norton is crap, as is Macafee, Lavasoft is annoying with limited features too so I use Spybot search and destry, and ZOne alarm can do a good job.

I have no problems with Norton only issue I ever had was when the firewall wasn't allowing me on to these forums.